They turn away from the portrait and walk to the long table in the centre of the hall, sitting at one end. Cleves finds herself at once charmed by this woman, and also angry with her. She is so stoic in her sadness, and it is making Cleves want to bend in the opposite direction. She doesn’t understand where this anger of hers is coming from: she never used to be angry, even when she was being humiliated. She has not been this angry since … well, since she was a child. And now all of this. Seymour, damn the woman, has turned her into a fishwife.
As if hearing her thoughts, Queen Parr extends a hand across the oak, stopping short of touching her. “Queen Seymour seems out of sorts tonight,” she says. Cleves wants to make a joke aboutmy angry queen, but that would imply a familiarity that is no longer present.
“I think it is hard not to be out of sorts when one has fled by foot across half of Elben with no clean clothes and even less food,” she says.
“Is that the reason?”
“Is it not a good reason?” Cleves leans back in her chair and crosses her legs.
“You barely looked at each other tonight,” Parr observes. She is staring at Cleves with those direct eyes, so light a brown they are almost glassy. Cleves crosses her arms too.
“Despite Queen Boleyn’s best efforts, I do not think any of us are truly united, no?”
Parr nods slowly, accepting that Cleves will not be drawn into discussing her feelings for Seymour. “No, and that is our failing, although I have turned our plan over and over in my head. It is sound.”
“The most important thing is to gain the binding cloths,” Cleves says.
“All is in hand,” Parr says. “Now that you and Seymour are here, we should work through the final details.”
Cleves shakes her head. “Not now Cecilia has Seymour’ssunscína. We cannot be certain that the king has not worked out a way of using it.”
“We must all meet in person, then,” Parr says.
They lapse into silence. Cleves thinks of Seymour, so close and yet an ocean away. Then her thoughts stray to Johana, and the way he held her hand at the end. She coughs, adjusting her seat. The portraits of the former queens of Mathmas seem to judge her.
“Did you ever consider returning to Ezzonid?” Parr says.
“No, of course not.” But even as she says it, Cleves does wonder why she never seriously considered this option. She could just as easily haveboarded a ship at Cnothan. Instead she rode unthinkingly into greater danger, greater hardship, with Seymour.
“Hmm,” Parr says, casting her eyes up to the patterned ceiling.
Cleves laughs. “All you Elbenese women are so reticent. You do so enjoy making sounds instead of using your words.”
Parr’s smile is arch. “You have words enough for all of us when it comes to Queen Aragon.”
“Well, Quisto and Ezzonid are enemies of old; you cannot expect us to be too civil.”
“Then we come back to my previous question: if Ezzonid is your country, why did you not return to it?”
“You did not strike me as one of those who would be unwelcoming to foreigners, sister,” Cleves says. She is on surer footing now, jousting with barbed jests.
“Not unwelcoming. You simply puzzle me, Queen Cleves. I cannot make out your motivations for joining Boleyn’s cause.”
Cleves shrugs. The tale of the phoenix was for Johana alone, for he alone understood it. “I might ask the same of you and Aragon.”
“You might. But I asked first.”
Cleves stretches her arms in a mockery of exhaustion, and rises. “Forgive me, sister, but I do find myself tired after all. May I trouble you to show me to a bed?”
Parr leads her to a chamber in the west wing of the castle, a building built into the promontory of the cliff face which looks out across the ocean to Quisto’s eastern empire and the great tundra of Pkolack. It isn’t lost on Cleves that she has been placed in one of the most remote rooms – for all that Parr has apparently told her household of their aims, she perhaps does not trust them as much as she has made out. Still, the room is comfortable enough: the bed is covered with a precious dragon hide that should do more to keep out the northern chill than any wool or fur. Parr shows her a secret latch above the mantelpiece, which opens a chute at one side of the fireplace.
“This is an old escape route,” she tells Cleves. “If Mathmas should be taken, you can flee through here and out onto the cliff face. It is not an easy journey, and the fall is perilous, but it may be better than the alternative.”
Cleves nods. Parr leaves her to sleep, even though the sun is stretching purple fingers over the horizon. At the door, Parr pauses, looking at the floor.
“Queen Seymour is in the room next door,” she says, casually.
“I see,” Cleves says, her defences rising at the implication. Parr sighs, then turns fully to face Cleves. “There was a man I knew when I was younger. I loved him deeply. So deeply it drove me to distraction. And it drove me to terror too. He was, is … not a wise choice. So I ran – into three different marriages.”
