Howard casts about her. She lands upon a trinket box displayed upon a chest. She brandishes it at her half-sister.
“I gave you this. I gave you half the gowns you wear.” She throws up her arms and gestures to the chamber, with its walls of shimmering silverbirch and golden lanterns. “You live in a palace because of me. Would you rather be back at our great-aunt’s, sharing a chamber with a dozen other abandoned girls?”
“I know,” Legh says. She dashes a tear away from her cheek. Howard feels her own tears crawling up her throat.
“I have tried so hard to please you, Legh.”
“I know.”
“So what more do you want from me?” A sob escapes. A great, wrenching cry. “I do not know what more I can give. I have tried so hard. So, so hard.”
And Legh is there, wrapping her arms around Howard as they, girls of ten and eight once more, cling to each other and sink to the floor in their nightgowns. Theirs is not a language of words; it never was. To find the right way of saying something was pointless, for it would not be heard, and so language itself became worthless.
“I am not Mary Boleyn, Howard.”
“I know.”
“I can see you all thinking it.”
Howardhasbeen cruel. If Legh had turned against her, it would have been on Howard’s head as much as on Legh’s.
“I am sorry, my dear.”
They pull apart, facing each other on the floor. Legh kneads her nightgown.
“Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I have this notion that you are on a boat, travelling down the Kyttle River. And the falls are just there, and no one can tell you to bring your boat to shore. And I don’t know if you are going to survive the drop and make it out to sea, or whether you are going to be dashed on the rocks and drowned. And I can’t bear it, Howard. I can’t bear it.”
Howard cups Legh’s chin in her hands. She presses her forehead to her half-sister’s. “It is so strange to me that you should describe me so, because I do not feel that I have moved, ever, my whole life. I have been passed from cage to cage to cage, and I might beat my wings against the bars, but they are always too strong, and the lock too tight.”
Legh wipes first Howard’s tears, then her own, with shaking fingers. “Well then,” she says. “We had better find the key, little sister.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Cecilia
Cecilia had thought that Henry might hurry back to High Hall to see her, his adored sister, as quickly as possible. After all, she has secrets that she wishes to divulge to him. But he spends several days fruitlessly hunting his errant queens across Elben.
The shard of not-glass she stole from Seymour’s dress hasn’t left her person since she escaped captivity. Its strange warmth has been a constant reminder of its mystery. It is no weapon, and it does not seem to be a tool, but it was precious to Seymour – why?
She feels sure that Henry or More would know what it is, but Henry is absent and More … Since their conversation, she cannot bring herself to confide in him further. To do so would be to grow the heaviness in her chest that blooms whenever she thinks about the bishop.
By the third day, her impatience outweighs the fact that she is superior to almost everyone in this palace. Sometimes one must tussle with a groom to get the best horse.
“Take me to Master Cromwell’s chambers,” she tells a passing servant. He is carrying a tray stacked with goblets and jugs of wine, but he knows better than to delay her. She wonders whether the servants are learning quickly, or whether her reputation precedes her.
She had assumed that Cromwell’s rooms would be on one of the lower levels of High Hall – the fifth or sixth, perhaps, with Henry’s other low-born advisors. But the servant leads her almost to the top of the palace, to the second level. They are above even the sanctuary andthe rooms of religion here. Only Henry’s private chambers surmount them. Cecilia thinks of her own rooms on the fourth floor, and flushes at the insult. When Henry returns, he will move her up to the second level. Perhaps he will make Cromwell switch.
When she is admitted, her irritation only grows. Cromwell has wasted the space. The walls are bare but for a portrait of Henry and a set of antlers for faith; the furniture is sparse and practical, used primarily for teetering piles of books, letters and rolls of parchment. There is no beauty, no eye for a handsome painting or a comfortable cushion. And these are some of the grandest rooms at High Hall, with their towering windows admitting views across the northern gardens and Aragon’s greenhouses. It is criminal.
Cromwell is little better. She must have met the man when he was beneath her notice – some secretary to Wolsey, one of dozens – and he has made little effort to look the part of a chief advisor. He wears a simple black jacket over his shirt, shapeless and strange next to the tailored doublets currently in fashion.
“Princess Cecilia,” he says, looking up from the letter he’s been reading next to the light of the window. She would have liked him to show more surprise at her visit, but she has heard that this man never displays emotion if he can help it.
“Queen Cecilia, if you please,” she says. Why does he keep forgetting?
Cromwell’s smile thins. “Of course, we must be precise. Dowager Queen Cecilia, it has been a delight to have you back at court.”
There is a little snigger from behind her, and she whirls around. She had thought Cromwell alone, but another man lurks in the darkened part of the chamber. He lounges in a chair, his long legs splayed in a V.
