“You should have it,” Howard says.
Ursula opens her eyes. “What?”
“What,Your Majesty.” Howard picks up a piece of lace and holds it to the light of the gallery windows, admiring the intricacies of the pattern.
“I have many such pieces. My lord father used to bring them back for me from his posts abroad.”
She avoids looking at her half-sister, Legh, who knows that their father never gifted anyone more than scraps.
Ursula hugs the bolt of velvet to her bodice and stares at her shadowy reflection in the glass of the windows. “May I really have it? Truly?”
Howard lowers the lace. “It will suit you well. Pair it with your green sleeves and it will make a beautiful gown.”
Ursula does not need to be offered a third time. She laughs, spins, letting the velvet whirl around her like one of the Elbenese flags atop Plythe’s turrets, buffeted by the wind from the Swegan Sea. Howard’s laughter is real this time. She does so love to please her ladies.
“Which one will you choose for the new queen’s gift?” Lady Tylney asks, ignoring Ursula’s squeals.
Howard forces herself to study the fabrics with Mary Boleyn in mind. The very thought revolts her: that she must offer something extravagant to the woman who betrayed Howard’s friend and protector, Mary’s own sister. And yet everything dictates that Howard must play the part of the pleasant queen, welcoming another into the fold.
“The silk,” she replies at last, stroking the fabric in question. Cool, smooth, expensive and inoffensive. Very fit for one such as Mary Boleyn, she thinks, and then worries that she is becoming uncharitable, and then worries that she is worrying, for if anyone deserves an uncharitable thought it is that bitch.
Oblivious to Howard’s thoughts, Tylney sighs. “Your judgement is impeccable, Your Majesty.”
“Let us order several bolts, and then we can begin the embellishments,” Howard tells her steward, who bows silently as he takes the silk. Howard notices the look he gives her ladies as they twirl around the room, trampling upon the rejected samples in their gaiety. She claps, then cocks her head to one side so they know she isn’t rebuking them. “Come now, you are making my steward frown.”
They all laugh, flocking to one side so that the servants can collect the fabrics. The little gold clock that sits at one end of the gallery chimes midday, and Howard detaches herself from her ladies. “I must to my lesson,” she tells them.
She is followed by a chorus of “Nay, do not leave us!” and “We shall be so dull without you!” but she does not believe them. When she rejoins them, they will be laughing, in the middle of some joke or jape. And she will have to join in with them, even though her heart will be breaking.
Voda Kelaverinn is the only one left in Plythe who knows the truth of her. Who knows that treachery has taken root in her soul. He alone knows that she is both more and less than her kingly husband thinks of her. He is her compass, and she must cast him out. It cannot be put off any longer. Every day that he stays at Plythe calls her loyalty to the crown into question, for he was secured as her tutor by Queen Boleyn, who is disgraced and dead.
Kelaverinn is sitting in his study, at the far side of the room that was once the palace’s library. Its long shelves are in a state of flux: half ancient, moulding tomes, half fine, new leather bought from the craftsmen in the towns surrounding High Hall or from masters on the continent. There are few windows here, to prevent the sunlight or any sea-salty draughts from ruining the books, and Voda reads by candlelight despite the sun being at its zenith outside.
He looks up at her entrance, a smile spreading across his kindly face. Warmth spreads through her, as it did when her father ruffled her hair on one of his rare visits.
She is going to lose him. Unthinkable. Inevitable.
“I must confess myself excited to see what you make of this new poem I have found for us to study,” he says, seeing her to her chair. He has arranged them so that they are next to each other – no stuffy table between them. He tells her this is the way students are taught in Uuvek – where teacher and pupil can bend over a text in shared discovery. It is scandalous, but Howard has never attempted to create distance. She likes being close to him.
Her hand flutters over the manuscript. She picks out a few words –passion,fate,union– as if the poem is giving her permission. Her eyes fall upon a gathering of paper lying next to the manuscript.
“Are all of these poems for us to study?” she says.
Kelaverinn glances at them, then rests a hand upon the stack.
“These are from my family. My wife writes to tell me that our youngest is beginning his riding lessons.”
He goes on and on about his children back at home, and his wife and how wonderful she is. Howard doesn’t want to hear it.
“I must send you away,” she says, interrupting him.
He looks at her, suddenly quiet and still.
“I am sorry,” she continues. “But given … everything … it would not be prudent for me to … that is to say …”
“I understand,” he says. “I should have anticipated this. To be truthful, I should have suggested it myself, long ago, but I did not wish to leave you when you were just starting to gain confidence. My apologies for placing you in such an awkward position.”
She latches onto those words:I did not wish to leave you.
