“You are despicable,” Cecilia says. How can Seymour still talk as though Cecilia is in the wrong, after that confession?
Seymour ducks into the Hleaws’ wrecked tent and emerges a moment later. She presses something cold into Cecilia’s hand.
“I do not claim you lie. I merely ask you to think on who Henry might have become, after Arthur’s death.”
Cecilia remembers that day, too. And the day afterwards, when she visited Henry in his chambers and found him withdrawn, not equal tocelebrating with her. She opens her fist. It is a chain, broken next to the clasp, and upon it hang six orbs. A mark of faith, like Cernunnos’s antlers, or the guirnalda favoured by the Quistoans.
She looks back at the bodies. When they were alive, the chain must have belonged to them. Something is growing in the pit, beside the remains. Cecilia crouches, trying to understand what she is seeing.
In the crook of the dead child’s arm, something fungal unfurls before her very eyes. It is the pink of flayed flesh and its frills, though delicate, inspire a visceral repugnance. It spreads even as they watch, an unnatural growth reaching over the Hleaws’ bodies and through the dying smoke, climbing the sides of the pit.
They start back, away from the horror. Cecilia realises that she is clutching Seymour, and Seymour is clutching her.
“Let us leave this cursed place,” Seymour says.
They return in silence, their eyes on the path, their minds darting from the malice of that glade to the malice of a long-dead prince. It is only when they enter the grounds of the estate that she realises she is still clutching the Hleaws’ chain with its six orbs. Clutching it so tightly it has left angry marks on her palm.
Cecilia should cast it away. To even be touching it is a show of disloyalty towards Henry. She pushes it into a pocket. She will show it to him when she sees him. He will have an explanation. He must. He must, or what is her lineage but screams and smoke?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Howard
Howard can barely control her excitement as she presses hersunscínaand waits for the other queens to appear. They will be so pleased, tell her that she is brilliant, the best of them, how could they have doubted her. She has secured the only survivor who might be able to tell Henry that Seymour was aboard that wrecked ship. She has bought them safety, for a little longer.
But Cleves is the only one who appears.
“I think it is just you and I, sister,” she tells Howard. “I am told that Aragon and Parr are playing host to some of Henry’s closest advisors. Wolsey and Cromwell and the like. Perhaps they are not as resourceful as you when it comes to avoiding detection.”
Howard appreciates the compliment, but cannot help but be disappointed. She had hoped to reveal her rescue of Florin to all of them. Even Aragon, surely, must be impressed by her daring. Still, Cleves will make a most gratifying audience.
“I have done something that I think you will like,” she says. Cleves smiles when she tells her of her experiment with thesunscína. She bites her lip when she relays what she heard of the survivor from Cecilia’s ship. But when Howard talks of her rescue of Florin, Cleves’s expression darkens.
“In any case, I have him in my holding now,” Howard says, her voice smaller than she had intended. She rocks in her seat, unsure why Cleves is silent.
Eventually Cleves speaks: “Did you not consider the danger, Howard?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Did you not think that it might have been better to send word to the rest of us? I have people in Sweillan who could have conspired to rescue this boy without any suspicion falling upon you.”
“There was no time – Cromwell’s men were at the door. We fought our way past them when we left.”
Cleves’s eyes widen. “Did they survive?”
“Well …” She is no murderer. She only wished to escape.
Cleves rubs her face. “I will see to it that no suspicion falls upon you. I will employ my resources to talk of another young woman seen heading north with the prisoner. That should allay any misgivings about you.”
Howard swallows. “I thought you would be pleased with me.”
Only a few moments ago Cleves had praised her, called her clever, but if she truly believed that why does she dismiss her now?
“I can protect myself,” Howard says.
“Yes, clearly.”
Howard flinches. Cleves sighs. “There is just so much to be done, sister. I did not expect this surprise.”
