“Not from me, my lord, but others saw the survivor being pulled from the water. It is beyond doubt that he is from the Dowager Queen’s ship. Undoubtedly one of Wolsey’s spies will have been among the crowd.”
Slowly, Howard turns back to thesunscína. She presses her ear against it.
Now that she knows what she is listening to, she places the voice as belonging to Cromwell. The same deliberate intonation, every word an arrow. It worked. She grins, pounds her fists and feet on the bed. She wishes she could tell the other queens to go to theirsunscínasimmediately, but she has no way of reaching them quickly enough.
Cromwell speaks again. “Lord Hunsdown did well to secure him at his home. Take this, and see that the survivor is kept away from anyone but my people.”
There’s the clink of a purse of coins being handed over, and then a door opens and closes as the messenger rushes out.
Howard puts thesunscínadown. Lord Hunsdown is one of her nobles. He has a house in Sweillan; she dined there once. If there is a survivor on the ship that brought Seymour to Elben, then should she not attempt to reach him first? Should she be trying to gain her own information from him? Should she … Howard draws her knees in to her body … Should she kill him to protect information about Seymour and the power that sunk the ship?
She wishes she had Boleyn, or Seymour, or even Cleves to tell her what to do, but she could not arrange to speak to them before the morrow. She is on her own.
Goldfoot caws sleepily from his curled position on her bed. Howard bites her lip. What would Boleyn do?
Goldfoot snuffles again. Howard studies him. She goes to the bed, sits next to him and strokes his silken scales.
“My dear,” she whispers. “Do you want to play a game?”
Goldfoot wraps himself around her shoulders as she trips down to the gatehouse, her cloak heavy upon her shoulders. “I wish to take a ride,” she tells one of the guards, and a groom is dispatched immediately tobring a jennet for her and a gelding for Ursula, who is the only passable horsewoman among her ladies.
“Are you certain you know what to do?” she whispers to Ursula.
“Do not doubt me, Your Majesty,” Ursula says, fevered light in her eyes.
Howard’s mare is delicate and fast – Henry likes to send them to her as gifts, and in truth they are usually too quick for her liking, but today that works in her favour. She does not complain when a guard mounts a sturdier cob behind them; to do so would look suspicious.
She urges her horse out of the palace and sets off at a canter down the road that leads west towards Kywsa Bay. The mare pulls at the bit and bucks, sensing Howard’s nerves.
“Soon,” she says softly. Goldfoot is crouched upon her shoulders still. The lapdragon never strays far from Howard unless she instructs him. She gathers the reins and her courage. She lifts her free hand before her and flicks her wrist, rotating it away from herself. It is a subtler movement than Goldfoot is used to, but he sees it nevertheless.
With a long, loud caw, the lapdragon launches himself into the air and speeds away towards the sea.
“My dragon!” she cries, as loud as she can so that the guard will hear her over the wind. Then she takes the reins in both hands and pushes them forwards, giving the jennet her head at last. The mare is taken by surprise for an instant, then her stride lengthens from canter to gallop.
“Your Majesty, wait!” the guard shouts, but she could not rein in the horse now even if she wanted to. There is a doubled shout and Ursula screams. Howard dares a single glance back: Ursula has thrown herself from her horse into the guard’s path. As Howard watches, Ursula crawls stiffly to her knees, the guard leaping from his own horse to check on her. Gallantry can be so very useful.
Howard returns her attention to the road ahead, clinging to her mare’s neck as they hurtle after Goldfoot.
Once or twice Howard is certain she is going to fall, or that the mare is going to trip on a stone and take them both down, but the creature is sure-footed and the worst injury Howard suffers is a cut along her collarbone from an errant branch. The River Kyttle runs on Howard’s left, widening into a bay and a shoreline that stretches with sun-blessed sand along the coast as far north as the eye can see. Above them, emitting the occasional caw, Goldfoot hovers.
When the town of Sweillan comes into view, its docks reaching fingers out into the ocean, Howard sits back, calming the mare with her voice. This time the jennet readily falls into a trot, tired from the long gallop. Howard turns her from the road and climbs off, leading the horse into a thick and unkempt woodland before letting her loose. It is not ideal – the creature is clearly an expensive animal – but Howard must be able to claim that she was thrown from her back. That done, Howard removes her fine cloak and gathers it into a bundle, stuffing it up underneath her loose bodice to give the impression that she is pregnant. Beneath the cloak, she wears the simplest of her dresses: a plain ochre cotton gown that she likes to wear when she has her monthly course, for it is light enough to keep her cool and eminently comfortable. She pulls another length of cotton from her sleeve and winds it around her hair, binding the wild curls that are one of her most recognisable traits. As she works, Goldfoot lands on a branch above her and sways his long neck from side to side, as if in question.
“You must stay hidden, little fire,” she tells him. He caws mournfully. She tucks the last of her curls beneath the cotton.
She has no mirror, but she feels different. She must trust that the disguise is enough.
“Do you recognise me?” she asks Goldfoot. He tilts his head to one side.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She thinks of Cleves and Parr and Aragon, and how they might look at her if she manages to find this survivor. She imagines Aragon’s raised eyebrow, Parr’s rueful, admiring smile. Cleves’s laugh, and the comment on how Howard will lead them all before long. Howard straightens her back, leaves her doubt in the woodland with the jennet and strikes out for Sweillan.
As she nears the town, the road fills with people: traders hawking sweet pastries and trinkets; stalls lining the road with spices and exotic fruits and fish brought straight from the docks. On every street corner stands a sanctuary, Cernunnos’ golden antlers protruding above doorways or from the top of bell towers. The town smells of woodsmoke and faeces, and more than once Howard nearly trips over a rat. She cannot cover her mouth and nose, for to do so would betray the fact that she is unused to the smell. Instead, she can only try not to gag.
It has been some time since she dined with Lord Hunsdown, but she trusts her memory of the route to his home. It lies on the north side of Sweillan, as far away from the smells and sounds of the docksas possible while still offering the lord easy access to the town. Howard winds her way up to higher ground, and before long she sees it – a fine, timber house, surrounded by walls of red brick.
A guard loafs at the gate. Howard does not approach him but skirts the walls, looking for the servants’ entrance. She wonders whether any of the other queens even have knowledge of where their servants’ entrances are. She and Legh often snuck out of their great-aunt’s at night-time. She knows how they work.
