Legh nudges Howard. “You could try it with that handsome new courtier. The one you think might be on your side.”
Howard catches a darted look between Susanna and Ursula, and wonders whether they heard the same thing she did. Notourside butyourside. With every fresh day, Howard regrets telling her half-sister all that she has, but it is done now, and she must make the most of it. She is on a heady cliff, as Boleyn was. And like Boleyn, if she is going to fall, she will be the one to step off the ledge. She will not be pushed.
“That is a good thought,” she says. Legh was always easily bought with compliments.
Another look between Ursula and Susanna. Then Lady Tylney says, “How do you imagine it will work?”
She takes the two shards in each hand, trying to think clearly. Thesunscínawork only when more than one Queen of Elben touches them. But do they discern between the queens, or do they simply know that a queen holds them? Howard reaches into her hair, finding the spot where her curls are thinning; where clumps of hair have been falling out for the last year, leaving behind itchy, grey skin. She tugs gently and a few strands slide out of her scalp. Swallowing bile and ignoring the way her ladies avert their gazes, Howard winds the strands around the smaller shard.
“One of you must take this, and instigate a conversation with Master Culpepper,” she says. “If thesunscínaworks as I think it ought, then I will be able to hear your conversation from here.”
“I shall do it,” Susanna and Legh say at the same time.
Howard’s throat feels tight. “It may be dangerous. If I am wrong about him, then he may find you suspicious.”
Legh laughs. “If you fooled him, then I surely can too, sister.”
Ursula hisses softly. Legh falters, then laughs again. “Come, Your Majesty, let me do it,” she says. Her cheeks are tinged pink, visible despite her russet skin.
“I am also happy to take the risk,” Susanna says, watching Howard evenly.
Susanna is the safer choice. Howard knows this. Yet – shewantsto trust Legh. As children, Legh was ever Howard’s protector and advisor, and Howard has seen her manipulate their aunt and dozens of their elders. Howard has no doubt that Susanna would keep her secrets, but she also wonders whether Susanna is bold enough to elicit the kind of information she requires. Would Culpepper not be more suspicious of a formerly timid lady-in-waiting suddenly approaching him? Susanna is the kind of person who can keep a secret, but does not invite them.
“Here,” Howard says, offering the smaller shard to Legh. Legh makes a small “O” of surprise before clambering to her feet.
“This will be fun,” she says.
“Not fun. Important,” Howard says.
Legh huffs. “All right, I know.”
She tucks the shard into the bag that hangs from her belt, next to her pomander.
“Good fortune to you,” Lady Tylney calls after her.
They all watch as she strides across the lawn, the epitome of confidence. Howard can feel the weight of the others’ reservations.
“I know,” she says.
Howard shivers, suddenly chilled. Goldfoot, from his midair frolics hunting butterflies, soars across the garden and lands in her lap. He drapes himself across her chest and breathes warm air against her neck. She wraps her arms around him, letting the sizzling heat of his scales comfort her and bring feeling back to her fingers.
“She is not a believer,” Ursula says.
“She is a lost soul,” Lady Tylney says, her voice unusually soft. “I was once as she is, when I was younger.”
Howard remembers then that it took Lady Tylney’s family a little while to realise she was a woman.
“She could have damned me to Henry long before now,” Howard says. Her family presented her to Henry as a girl of purity, one who had never known the touch of man. Legh could have told him then, or in any of the intervening years, that this introduction was a lie.
The largersunscínashard rests in her lap, beneath Goldfoot’s steady weight. No one suggests leaving the rose garden. Were it not for the sun’s steady progress across the sky and the shimmering rainbows it makes against the spray of the falls, she might have thought that time stood still.
At last, when Goldfoot’s breathing has slowed and his claws flick against her gown as he hunts in his sleep, she senses thesunscínastir. She grasps the shard in one hand, keeping Goldfoot pressed against her with the other, and closes her eyes. Could her wild scheme actually work?
All is darkness in her vision, for the other shard remains in Legh’s bag, but she hears the click of a door being opened.
“I have been meaning to become better acquainted with you, Master Culpepper,” Legh says.
“Oh, sister,” Howard whispers.
