She does have extraordinary power. Culpepper knows it, and so does Legh. With her ladies leaning towards her, drinking up her tasks, she is beginning to know it too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cleves
Is there anything more comfortable, and comforting, than a well-kept stable? Cleves does not think so. She has spent many hours in the stables that are housed in the outermost ring of the Castle of Cnothan. Many hours improving the building, with its low, sloping roof of mossed tiles. Inside, the bays progress in rows, each one with its own manger and hay drop. There is something warming about the gentle energy of the horses. She likes to think that they appreciate the calm she has provided, for she has insulated the building against the clang of church bells and the bustle of the square outside. In here, all is peace.
“I resent it,” Johana says, following her as she attends to each horse.
“You shock me,” she replies. She crouches to examine a canker. The horse nuzzles her head. This is why she only bothers to tame her hair on special occasions.
“I am not a guard, or a gaoler. I am not a trainer of servants, cousin.”
“And yet you appear to have done all three perfectly well.”
“I am a man of action.”
She stands, looks at him over the top of her glasses. He is dressed in a doublet of finest cloth of silver in accordance with Ezzonid’s sumptuary laws. His hose is crafted from honeydragon leather, and upon his head is perched the most ridiculous feathered hat she has ever seen.
“I see no sword or dagger, cousin,” she says.
“That is beside the point.”
The door at the end of the stables opens, revealing Fergus, Cleves’s master of horse. He is a stocky man, and his calloused hands speak of a life of labour. Those who attended the Moon Ball would likely not recognise him as her original dance partner before she asked Seymour for her hand and embroiled herself in all this mess.
“Is everything all right in here, Your Majesty?” Fergus says, wandering up the aisle towards them. Cleves pats the horse next to her. “This one seems tender on her left hind.”
“Aye. She turned it in a rabbit hole. I’ll be wrapping it in warm muslin later today.”
Johana snorts. Fergus eyes him mildly. “You don’t agree with the treatment, my lord?”
Johana stutters a little, then says, “I can offer no comment on the treatment, sir.”
Oh, Cleves is going to enjoy this. She has rarely seen her cousin struggle for a witty retort, but then men who are good with their hands were ever his preference. She turns to Fergus: “I have tasked Lord Johana with the care of a very difficult creature. A fact he likes to complain about.”
“Twodifficult creatures, some might say,” Johana mutters.
Fergus sticks his hands in his pockets. “Oh? What kind of animal are we talking about? I’m best with horses but I can usually turn a tricky beast good in the end.”
Cleves tilts her head at Johana, smiling benignly, waiting to see how he will reply. Her clear challenge seems to rouse him.
“You might well call them hybrid creatures,” he says. “They defy description.”
“Mm,” Fergus says. “How did you come across them then?”
Cleves shrugs. “I found them in some wreckage, looking very sorry for themselves.”
Fergus shakes his head, and turns to Cleves. “Ah, that’s bad then, Your Majesty. People meddle, don’t they, with nature? It’s not right, and it’s the beasts that bear the brunt of it, poor things.”
“Very true, Fergus,” she says. “Very true.”
“What would you do, then, to tame such beasts?” Johana asks Fergus.
Fergus eyes Johana’s clothes; his unblemished skin and the smooth finish of his nails. “You have grooms, I presume, my lord?”
“I do.” Johana instructed his own servants in Cecilia’s care. The ones Cleves assigned to him from her own household were severely lacking in the niceties of attending upon an Ezzonidian lord, apparently.
“And they treat the creatures with patience? Kindness? Violence begets violence, you know.”
