Susanna is even paler than normal, her lips a thin line. “What do you need us to do?”
Florin, Susanna and Legh roll Culpepper’s body up in one of the throws from Howard’s bed; Lady Tylney fetches water and vinegar; Howard and Ursula set to scrubbing at the blood. As they work in silence, Howard begins to shake. Dreadful, body-wracking tremors that make her drop her brush. Lady Tylney folds her in her arms. This time, Howard does not resent the maternal gesture.
“I should not have …” Howard stutters. “He was going to …”
She wants to saytrap me, but that is not quite right. He wasn’t bad. He wasn’t evil. He did not deserve to be killed. And yet she had to kill him. Because he was going to own her, as Henry has owned her.
“Do you despise me?” she says. There is a lull in the room, as every one of them pauses.
Legh breaks the silence. “I dislike you much of the time, sister. But this is not one of those times.”
“You are our queen,” Ursula says fiercely, continuing her scrubbing. “We will do whatever you ask of us.”
Lady Tylney tuts. “Well,Imost certainly shall not doanythingyou ask of me, but you have not yet asked something that I would not give.”
Howard wipes her eyes. “I have no wish to own your souls. I am not Henry.”
“No, you are not,” Florin says. “You have shown me, in the brief time I have lived in your palace, what true royalty looks like.”
She does not know how to answer such a statement.
“What a time to grow sentimental,” Legh says. She is right.
“We must get him out of the palace,” Howard tells them.
“The river would take him out to sea,” Susanna says.
Florin shudders. That would have been his fate, if he had not washed ashore.
“There are too many boats. Someone would see him,” Howard says.
“We could bury him in the woods,” Florin suggests.
“No,” she says. “Poachers frequent those woods.”
She goes to the window and looks out over her grounds. If not the woods, then where? Do they have the means to leave the grounds of the palace? For nowhere else is sheltered. It is all lawns and herb gardens and jousting arenas …
She thumps the windowsill.
“The dragon that was used for the baiting – is it still kept on the estate?”
Lady Tylney’s eyes widen as she nods.
Howard doesn’t know how she is so clear-headed. Is this how Seymour felt, that night she rescued Boleyn from the Tower? She will collapse later, but for now her mind must work the hardest it has ever worked.
They roll the blanket, with its body inside, to the window. Below them is a little rose garden with a low hedge. With much effort and a little swearing, they heave Culpepper over the balcony. He drops onto a hedge below, one side of the throw unrolling to reveal his bloodied arm. Howard and her friends look at each other. It is awful and it is ridiculous. A chuckle bubbles up Howard’s throat, and soon they are all hunched over with mirthless laughter.
“It is too much,” Howard says. She feels feverish. “It is not even supper and I have killed a man.”
Ursula doubles over. Florin shakes his head and mutters something in Perfugian.
They collect themselves and make their way down to the rose garden, attempting a ladylike stroll with Florin following behind, as a servant should. When they reach the rose garden, they hunch over the body, debating how to move him without anyone spying them.
She directs some of them to ensuring that the rest of the household does not approach the east side of the palace, while the rest of them manhandle Culpepper’s body towards the trees, past the stables, to the stone cave where the poor scarred dragon is tethered, the bones of goats and sheep and unwanted puppy litters scattered around it like a hoard.
The dragon rears its head when it sees them, its cracked lips peeling back to reveal rows of teeth. The others pause, unwilling to come within the creature’s reach.
Howard holds out one hand, panting with the effort of dragging the body.
