Ursula shakes her head. “It is a ruin. It was once a holy place for the Hleaws, before it was razed by King Ricard in one of his holy purges. I read about it.”
Howard reaches for Ursula’s hand, looking round as her ladies begin to plan how they might be able to transport her in secret to the sanctuary and then on to High Hall for the ball without Cromwell’s agents getting wind of it. Yes, sometimes trust is earned, and sometimes it is gifted, and sometimes it is both.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Cecilia
The palace is transformed into a place of jubilation. Garlands of spun gold are strung from beam to beam. The doorways are decorated with flowers from the wild meadows of the Nameless Lands, conveyed at great cost of life and coin from the unknown reaches of the world. Wine spouts from every fountain. Musicians prepare their performances in every public chamber.
Nowhere is quiet, and yet nowhere is louder than Cecilia’s mind. She trips from room to room, admiring the craftsmanship, taunting the servants, and yet there is a listlessness to her that she cannot shake.
So when, one night, she is woken from her slumber by an uproar, she thinks it must have been a dream. When the sound comes again through the darkness, her second assumption is that a lantern dragon has escaped its cage. They did so often when she was a child, and she always loved to see if she could capture the creatures before the servants did. It was amusing to pull their wings to make their light turn from gold to shimmering blue, a natural consequence of their pain.
The child within her awakening, she reaches for a robe and pulls it around her nightshift to ward off the miserable Elben chill which permeates even the most well-insulated palaces at night. As she pads to the door and presses her ear to it, someone in a far-off passage says, “Wake the king immediately!” It might be Cromwell, although she has never heard panic in his voice before.
The spark of intrigue is truly alight within her now. She slips out of her rooms and follows the sound of servants, delighting in the strangeness of High Hall at night and thanking any god who might hear that her rooms are so close to the centre of the palace, for if she had been lodged in one of the queens’ wings, she would not have heard the commotion.
It is only as she gets closer to the noise that a hint of unease seeps in. That cry, halfway between groan and roar, like oak toppling.
It is the sound of a crone, she swears it. The creatures may move almost silently, but when they have the bloodlust upon them, they can be loud.
The sound comes again from just above her, from the sanctuary itself. Cecilia pauses, wondering whether she should return to her rooms and barricade herself in, when she hears human voices. Her brother’s voice. More’s voice.
No one could convince her to place herself in the way of a crone but those two men. Footstep by footstep, she forces herself onwards. They do not seem to be alarmed.
The sanctuary door is ajar. She peers inside, but can see no monster. More is draped across the altar. His back is bare, great welts striping it. They seem to move across his skin, but it must be a trick of the shadows. Henry and Cromwell are hunched over him, muttering words of comfort. To one side stands Charles Brandon, watching impassively.
Cromwell looks over his shoulder. “Close the door, if you please, my lord.”
Brandon scowls at being given an order by an upstart like Cromwell, but does as he’s told. Cecilia ducks back, but not quickly enough. She freezes before Brandon’s stare.
Brandon hesitates, then presses a finger to his lips and closes the door a little, leaving the thinnest of cracks for her to listen through. She has a sudden, vertiginous memory of twenty years ago, of listening at this exact same door to the sound of their father being informed of his eldest son’s death. Cecilia was not yet ten. The catch in their father’s throat as he turned to Henry and said, “You are my heir now, my son. There is much you must learn. Much you must accept if you are to rule Elben peaceably.”
And Henry, in a small, high voice, had replied, “I will make you proud, Father. You and Arthur.”
She digs her fingernails into her palms and concentrates on the present.
“It is not working,” Henry says.
“I just need a little longer—” Cromwell begins.
Before he can finish, Henry flies at him, taking Cromwell by the neck and pinning him against the sanctuary wall. Cromwell does not claw at his hold as most would. His feet dangle from the floor: he is being choked, and he does nothing to prevent it. Cecilia covers her mouth. There’s a burst of divine power, running all the way from Henry’s chest, down his arm and into his hand, and a spurt of blood erupts from Cromwell’s neck.
Cecilia throws herself away from the sight, pressing herself against a wall for support. She has never minded blood. She has extracted enough in her time. But the expression upon Henry’s face – that she cannot shake.
Cecilia wills herself to simply listen. She does not need to look as well.
There’s a thud as something heavy crumples to the floor, and then laboured movements.
“Do you need a physician, my lord?” Henry says. His voice is gentle, as it was when they were children. When he came to her and proposed marrying her to the ageing king of Capetia. How can her sweet brother hold such gentleness and such violence so close to each other?
“No, Your Majesty, I will be quite well,” Cromwell says, though his voice is hoarse.
“The ball is approaching. I must have them by then.”
“My tests are proving fruitful,” Cromwell says. “If you will only permit me to accelerate them, then I believe we can bring the matter to a head.”
Cecilia gets the sense that the others are uneasy about Cromwell’s assertion.
