“Then let us feed it!” Henry replies, his voice sonorous with glee. He pushes deeper into Howard. She places both hands on the arms of his throne. Do they all know what he is doing to her? Do they all see? What must they think of her? Do they think she is enjoying it?Isshe enjoying it?
With the skill of a hunter, Culpepper unshackles the dragon’s legs, unclips the muzzle and steps back, out of the dragon’s reach.
The creature roars full-throatedly at last, aiming to incinerate as many of its spectators as possible. But it has been fed iced meat and its fires are dulled. It would be too quick a fight if the dragon had allits faculties. At a signal, a pack of hunting hounds are produced, their ribcages showing from a long fast.
Culpepper ducks out of the arena as the hounds are released. Henry beckons him over with his free hand.
“An excellent entertainment you have arranged, Culpepper. The dragon’s magnificent.”
“He’s a fine beast, Your Majesty. It almost makes me pity him for what is to come.”
He bows to Henry, bows to Howard. She inclines her head towards him. Sweat prickles the back of her neck.
“He is a handsome creature,” she says, hoping that entering the conversation will mask her confused desire.
“He is. I would say like yourself, except your beauty is without compare. And you have fewer scars,” Culpepper says.
The hounds are circling the dragon, licking their lips and growling.
“Her bite is kinder too,” Henry says, nuzzling her neck. He does not see the look Culpepper grants Howard: earnest and questioning.
A hound darts forward and snaps at the dragon’s soft belly. The crowd cheers.
“First blood,” Culpepper says. “It will go quicker now.”
Henry is caught up in the sport, his fingers moving faster. Howard cannot shake the sense that she is not a full being but her husband’s garland. A pretty star in the intense infinity of night.
The dragon catches one of the hounds in its jaws, snapping the little dog’s body this way and that. Bones click and shatter, even above the cheers of the crowd. Susanna covers her mouth with gloved hands. Then the dragon tosses the broken hound up into the air and swallows it whole.
Culpepper laughs and, without warning, Howard climaxes around Henry’s fingers.
“Good girl,” he says, withdrawing his hand, wiping it on her silk gown.
“Thank you,” she says, as she always does.
The rest of the hounds quickly follow the first. Some of them realise the futility of the fight and turn tail, only to be caught as they run, or even more cruelly caught by the men on the other side of the barriers and tossed back into the arena. As the crowd jeers, a great brown bear is lined up just beyond the barriers to be the dragon’s next opponent.
Howard watches it all with the strangest feeling that she is not in her body. She watches herself watching the gore, and she watchesCulpepper cheering. He suspects her, she is sure of it, or why else would he have mentioned the fake shipment to Perfugi? Surely if he were going to tell Henry what he suspects, he would have done so already and her neck would be on the block. So why has he not? He must want something from her, but what can she give him that Henry could not give him more of? Sex? She is beautiful, yes, but he does not seem like the kind of man who would love someone to the point of self-destructive obsession. He is no Thomas Wyatt.
The bear is pushed into the arena, and the crowd leans forward as one, anticipating a more even fight, for the bear has iron spikes welded to its claws. The dogs were a trifle; the bear is the meat of the afternoon.
“Now we shall have sport,” Henry says. He squeezes her thigh with such force she knows she will bruise.
But the dragon is in the throes of a blood famine, and the bear is not prepared. The dragon pounces upon the creature before it can raise its paws, rending the bear’s head from its body and tossing it into the crowd, where a lesser lord holds it aloft, his mouth open to catch the blood as it drips onto his tongue.
“Shit,” Culpepper mutters. He shrugs. “I did tell it to drag things out a little. It seems it did not listen to me, Your Majesty.”
Henry laughs. “Shall I make it listen?”
Before any of them can ask what he means, Henry lifts Howard from his lap and stands, raising his arms like a conquering hero. Howard slinks back to her own throne, aware of the darkened patch of moisture on the bright blue silk of her gown.
The effect on the crowd is immediate, such is the power he radiates. Howard knows that part of that power rightly belongs to her, by dint of her divine connection to Plythe, but by god if he doesn’t contain his own innate power of a different kind. She cannot look away from him.
Henry leaps over the barrier and into the arena. Howard and some of the other women cry out in alarm. Even some of the men cover their faces. Cromwell is gripping the arm of his chair. Legh and Susanna are among those who make the sign of Cernunnos, fingers shaped to form the God’s antlers. Howard spies Ursula’s lip curl.
The dragon slowly arches its neck towards this new assailant. Its bloodied jaws snap in warning, but it is limping and tired.
“Allow your king to entertain you,” Henry says. As the dragon contracts its neck, ready to strike, Henry lifts one hand, stretching it out towards the creature. Howard feels a ripple of agony, sharp and brittle, beneath her ribcage. She gasps, clutching at her breast. A blast ofbordweal light shoots from Henry’s hand. It hits the dragon in the chest, and the beast roars the roar that is stuck in Howard’s throat. She and the dragon are connected in their pain.
