The town of Gem?res is known only for what it lacks: fresh water. Originally a settlement built inland upon the borders of Plythe and Cnothan, it was intended to be a gateway between those two territories. When Cleves was studying her new home, she halted upon the history of the town. It made no sense: who would ever build such a place, where one must travel several hours to reach the nearest stream? Why was a gateway necessary?
When she reached Cnothan, she asked Wolsey over their first banquet. He told her nothing that the books had not already claimed: “Some dispute between the two queens. You will discover that Elbenese queens are rather territorial. If you will take an old man’s advice, you will keep an eye on your borders.”
Now, with what she knows of Medren, she wonders whether Wolsey was more correct than he realised. For if Elben was truly ruled by six queens of equal status, they must have had their disagreements. What might she do if she shared a border with an empire-builder like Aragon? Ironic, that the kings of Elben have always sought to sow discord between their queens, when giving them power could have the same effect.
She has visited Gem?res only once in her reign, for it is an impoverished town and has no residences fit for a queen of her heritage. This, undoubtedly, is one of Henry’s tests – will his queens be obedient to his wishes despite the ignominy of the place?
Her expectations are low, therefore, when she and her entourage – Johana, a handful of servants and her animals – turn onto the road that leads over the Coltmar Hills, each one topped with a tired windmill.
“They look like the washerwomen on the banks of the Bhinozs,” Johana says. He is steering his horse with one hand and eating an apple with the other. Cleves looks across at him from her own mare. “I do believe you are warming to my new country,” she says.
Johana waves the apple dismissively. “I will concede that the fruit is edible.”
“This is bread country,” Cleves says.
“That explains why the air is so dusty.”
The road dips into a valley, a muddy ribbon ending in the gateway to Gem?res. An ancient wooden archway, perhaps an exact marker of where one territory ends and the other begins, stretches over the road. It must once have been elaborately carved, and even now Cleves can make out the burnished shape of a flower here, a stag head there, but mostly the details have been lost to time.
A small deputation waits on the other side of the arch.
“Lord Cromwell,” Cleves says, jumping from her horse and approaching him with her hand held out. She likes to greet Elbenese nobility in the Ezzonid fashion. It solidifies her as an oddity.
“Punctual as ever, Your Majesty,” Cromwell says, bowing first in the Elbenese way, and then shaking her hand. His message is clear: country before queen.
“Master Holbein’s portraits must be wonderful indeed to bring you to Gem?res,” she says.
“I trust you will agree that they do justice to you and Queen Howard,” he says, and with a sweep of his arm invites her through the gateway to meet the rest of his group. Introductions are made to the nobility of the town and to Johana, and more than once Cleves catches Cromwell watching her, and he catches her watching him, and every time they do so they smile as if they are sharing some marvellous joke.
Gem?res has gone out of its way to welcome royalty. The streets are lined with townsfolk, all of them cheering and waving cloth or ribbon of home-dyed colours – oranges and ochres from meadow glædflowers, which before they run to seed look like little suns. Musicians play jaunty tunes at every street corner. Usually rundown towns such as these have a distinctive smell – shit, piss, rotten meat and decay – and Cleves has warned Johana not to press a handkerchief to his nose under any circumstances, but she need not have worried. The windows andarchways are wrapped with garlands of ivy and honeysuckle, so that the air always smells sweet, and the streets have been swept with water.
Cleves begins her usual act of getting her pets to give alms to the crowd, but when the first child cries out in pleasure at the gold coin Lelij has delivered, she sees Cromwell tense and realises her error. This is all part of the test, of Henry’s people as much as Henry’s queens. He will not like that she is buying their affection. He will not like that at all.
She knows what she must do. Survival above all else. She cannot allow Boleyn and Seymour’s notions to turn her soft.
“Gritsch,” she says, loud enough for Cromwell to hear the curse.
“Your Majesty? Is all well?” he says, stepping right alongside her as they walk.
“I made a mistake, Master Cromwell. My eyes, they are not as good as they once were.”
She casts a regretful glance back at the child with the gold coin.
“You did not intend to give him one of such value?” Cromwell says.
“Would you? I am not Daven; I do not have Quisto’s patronage.”
His lips purse, almost imperceptibly. He has picked up on her petty gripe at Queen Aragon and it pleases him.
“I do not mind reclaiming your gold, if you would like?” he says.
“It is mean and dirty work, Lord Cromwell.”
“That is my life’s work,” he says, with a curious little bow to round off the joke that is not a joke.
Cleves watches as he strolls over to the child and his parents, their cheeks flushed with joy, and leans in to talk to them. All three adults look at Cleves, and she looks away, her stomach clenching. She will see them right in the end, no matter what they may think of her now. No matter what poison Cromwell is dripping into their ears about foreign stinginess and the ways of rich women.
Their procession comes to a halt in the town square, which is really more of a circle where four streets meet. At its centre is a fountain: something of a curiosity given the lack of fresh running water. As with the archway, much of the stone’s detail has been lost. Two oval shapes – perhaps heads – adorn the apex of the monument, one on each side.
