There – an unremarkable wooden door to the side of the property.
She knocks, keeping her head down. A woman peers out.
“What is it?” the woman says.
“Laundry, good mistress?” she says, spreading her hands in the attitude of one desperate for work.
The woman eyes her rounded belly and her expression softens.
“I might have something. Come in and take the weight off your feet.”
“Thank you,” Howard says, following the woman into a kitchen hot with steam and the smell of sage. Howard sits as directed on a stool in the centre of the room, and an urchin scampers over her feet in pursuit of a slug, its prickles catching on her kirtle.
The housekeeper disappears into the depths of the house, leaving Howard with only a young boy for company. He eyes her from his place by the fire, where he rotates a pig carcass, sweat dripping from his forehead. Howard does not have long to find the survivor before her continued absence would raise suspicion.
Her plan is flimsy. It could go wrong at every turn, but she has to try. She is no Boleyn, nor can she see three moves ahead in a game ofbeadulácas Voda Kelaverinn can. But this is the best she can do. Her hand goes automatically to the antler pendant resting on her breast, an outward sign of her fealty to Cernunnos. She drops her hand to her heart, and silently sends a prayer to the goddess.
If you can hear me, my lady, please look kindly on my efforts, and send me a little of that bordweal luck.
“I can do that for a bit, if you’d like a break?” she says to the boy. His eyes dart to the passage down which the housekeeper has disappeared.
“If you’re quick, she’ll never know,” Howard says. The boy’s eyes narrow and her breath hitches. She’s been too eager to labour. She shrugs and leans back, forgetting that she’s on a stool, not a chair, and almost topples off, catching herself just in time. “Suit yourself,” she says, and stretches out her legs the way Boleyn once did when she was pregnant, when she thought no one was watching.
The boy leans forward, looking at the passage again.
“All right. Just quickly, mind.”
Before Howard can get up, he darts to the door, welcoming the cool air outside, even if it does smell of shit.
Howard jumps to her feet and, rather than take over at the spit, slips into the passage. Ahead lie the public rooms – offices and a small banqueting hall lined with flaking murals. She turns right and takes a narrow staircase up to the bedrooms, counting on the survivor being confined in one of them.
This part of the house is alien to her, for she never stayed overnight, choosing to travel back to the comfort of Plythe instead, much to the chagrin of her court and servants, who were tired and feared the night-time journey. Oh, how she regrets her arrogance now.
She ducks into an empty room to avoid a servant, then passes from door to door, listening with increasing frustration for a hint that someone might be inside. She can hear nothing through the oak.
Howard takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and then begins to open each door. If she sees someone who isn’t the survivor, she will simply have to make up some excuse.
The goddess must have heard her prayer, though, for the third door she opens contains a simple bed and a boy with skin almost as dark as hers. He looks very young in sleep, and with a jolt, Howard realises that he must be of an age with her. Voda Kelaverinn’s words come back to her:I think myself old. Which is as much to say:I think you young. Yet Voda is not much older than Henry.
Howard slips into the room and closes the door behind her. The boy lies peacefully on top of the bedcovers. He is dressed in the light colours of a Perfugian, though his clothes are little more than rags now, and his bare arms are covered in blisters and bruises. There is no doubt in her mind that this is the survivor.
Howard pulls a chest of drawers across the door to bar anyone else from entering.
“The women in my life have done many strange things, but never that,” a gravelly voice says. Howard whirls around. The boy is watching her through barely open eyes. His accent is Perfugian, but his Elbenese is otherwise perfect. Howard wishes she knew a few words of his language – it might make him more likely to trust her.
It is very odd to be addressing a stranger who is lying abed. She does not know whether she has the power, standing over him as she is, or he,since in a way this is his room. Her heart is hammering so fast she can barely hear the words that trip from her tongue.
“I am here to rescue you, sir,” she says.
The boy looks at his bed, around the room, in feigned confusion. “How strange. I thought I had already been rescued. Perhaps it was a dream.”
“You were rescued from the sea. The person who wishes to interrogate you is worse than the ocean’s depths, believe me.”
She does not know if that is true. Lord Cromwell has never seemed perverted, but he is not above using torture. She must stretch the truth in order to gain this boy’s trust.
“Who is this person who is so terrifying?”
“Lord Cromwell.”
