“Just think of all the kings and queens it has survived. All the wars. Can you imagine, it would have lived through the Hydden Uprising, and the Battle of Kywsa. It might even have lived through Queen Isabet and the Massacre of Pilvreen. Imagine how vast these roots stretch out beneath us, probably so much further than the branches we can see. Probably down to that stream over there in the distance.”
Cleves closes her eyes, leans her forehead on her knees. Seymour’s words worm their way into her mind as she strains to open her throat, as if her body is inhaling thoughts instead of air.
“Sometimes, when I was abroad and alone, I would wonder whether what Boleyn and I did had all been for nothing. I couldn’t see how to bring everyone together. And I got to thinking about those roots. The way that the first queens were buried in that cave where others could find them and learn the truth. Then how Queen Isabet acted upon that truth, like a sapling sprouting from the roots of those buried queens. She was cut down, but the roots remained for us to find. So even if we are cut down before our tree flourishes, I have hope that our roots will remain, unseen but strong, and the sapling of our rebellion will sprout again one day.”
It is only when Cleves feels water on her cheek that she realises she is weeping. Seymour shifts beside her.
“Cleves?” she says gently, then, more urgently: “Cleves? Speak to me.”
Cleves cannot talk. Her throat is utterly closed, her body like a rock, her arms locked around her knees. Seymour places the back of her hand on Cleves’s cheek, feeling for fever.
“You are safe,” she says. “Cleves? You are safe. This will pass.”
She does not attempt to prise Cleves’s hands apart, as others have done in the long distant past. She settles in front of her and rubs Cleves’s arms in long, slow strokes, up and down, up and down. Gradually, Cleves’s sparrow-like breaths slow to match the movement. Her throat opens, and all Cleves is left with is a bone-deep weariness.
“What do you need?” Seymour says.
What Cleves truly needs is to taste Seymour, and to know that she can still arouse her. But to ask that would be to use Seymour. She shutters herself. “Nothing. I am tired.”
She closes her eyes and curls up inside the cloak. A moment later, Seymour settles with her back against Cleves’s.
“Thank you,” Cleves whispers, half hoping that Seymour will not hear it, will not understand that Cleves is now in her debt.
“I am not the only angry queen here tonight,” Seymour says. “I wish you realised that.”
Cleves thinks then of Johana. He never looked for love in his lifetime either. Death was far too near. It feels near tonight, too.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Howard
It is Culpepper who brings the news. He appears in the entrance of her receiving chamber like a ghost. That’s when she knows for certain thathe knows. They must look a strange sight: Howard sitting on the floor with her ladies, Goldfoot curled up on her throne. The lacquered walnut is strewn with velvet cushions, the detritus of Susanna’s fine paintwork and, stowed beneath the cushions, religious pamphlets sent to Ursula from across the Swegan Sea.
“There is a reward laid out for the capture of Queens Seymour and Cleves,” he tells them. “A thousand gold coins.”
Susanna whistles. Lady Tylney looks at Howard, eyes wide. How can Seymour and Cleves hope to remain free with such a sum upon their heads? Such wealth would be enough to rival many nobles of the realm.
Culpepper hovers.
“Trot away then, pretty pony,” Legh says, flicking a hand in dismissal. He flinches, looking to Howard, but she focuses on collecting Susanna’s fine brushes, scattered across the floor. By the time she looks up again, he has gone.
“Close the door,” she says, and Lady Tylney hurries to do so.
They drop all pretence of disinterestedness as soon as the lock clicks. Legh sits up; Susanna sets aside her miniature.
“Should you send a message to the other queens?” Ursula asks.
Howard shakes her head. “I dare not risk it. We will all of us be under greater scrutiny now.”
Goldfoot yawns. His teeth are two rows of the thorns she does not have.
“We must help them, though,” she says, more to herself than to her ladies.
The rush of the Kyttle Falls fills the room, as it always does when no one is speaking. It is one of the things she loves about Plythe: the torrent is always a companion.
Perhaps sensing that something is amiss, Goldfoot slithers from the cushioned throne and climbs into Howard’s lap.
“Shall they come to Plythe, do you think?” Legh says, sounding rather thrilled at the prospect.
