“But now you are not so sure?”
“Now I think … is that not the definition of intoxicating? To crave something even as you know it is poisoning you?”
They are both silent for a long while. The birds whistle above them, communing in their own simple way. The earth feels cold and reassuring beneath Howard’s knees, as though it is the only solid thing about her.
“I think …” Howard begins, her thoughts fractured, her heart hammering, as though she is cocooned within a sanctuary’s confessional. “I think you are right, but I do not think you are alone. I think it is the most human thing about us.”
“You think we crave the poison?” Florin says. There is no judgement or laughter in his question. If she had not met the same curiosity in Voda Kelaverinn, she would not have trusted it.
“If it is the poison of love, then yes. I do.” Howard says.
“Is that not the saddest thing you have heard?”
She laughs. “I think it is the saddest thing I have said. Maybe the cleverest, too.”
Florin tilts his head. “I doubt that.”
Howard shrugs, stands, stretches. She accepted Boleyn telling her she had some intelligence. A man telling her the same thing is different. It makes her feel as though they are offering her a concessionary prize. And while she is relieved that Florin does not harbour hopes in that area, she does not need him to lie to her.
“I have placed my life, and the lives of my sisters, in your trust. I did not have to tell you the truth, Florin, and I did not seek any assurances from you. But if you betray us, I will see to it that the woman you love has her throat slit and I will have her head presented to you on a jewelled platter. Do you understand?”
“My word, you are a queen,” he says, staring up at her.
“Do you understand, sir?”
Ursula’s voice breaks through the silence. “Is all well, Your Majesty?”
Howard spins round. Her lady teeters in what remains of the doorway, her basket piled high with purple fruit.
“All is well, Ursula. Let us go.” She passes her friend, ignoring the thumping in her head. She has never spoken in such a way before, and already the anger that drove those words is ebbing from her. He may despise her now, but she does not mind that as much as she once would have.
Intoxicating.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Cleves
The journey to High Hall takes longer than Cleves had expected, even travelling the scrind road with its strange, ancient magic that never fails to make her heart race. The mismatch of her horse’s steady gait with the speed of the trees and fields whipping past them is vertiginous. Yet, the journey is more full than usual. Minor nobility, keen to gain favour as much as money, pack the road with their entourages. Nearly all of them drag cages and crates. Crones, skin loose from long hunger, bare their teeth through iron bars. The sound of tusks scraping along the inside of crates underlines the keening cries of the captive beasts.
“These people took no issue with endangering their servants,” Johana says, as they watch a nobleman wearing the marsh-ready boots of Hyde shout at his entourage to quieten their crone.
“And their servants will remember that, Johana. As ours did.”
When they finally reach High Hall, the palace is rife with activity. At the centre of Elben, the island’s beating heart, High Hall stands unmoving as people from across the known world, and from all ranks, flurry through the passages and courtyards and sanctuaries and kitchens, the gardens and greenhouses, the courts and banqueting halls. It is, and always has been, too much for Cleves. It is not the busyness that she dislikes so much as the secrets. Intrigue rests in High Hall’s shadows like fog. And that is precisely why she has come here now: because intrigue and secrets are what she requires.
Her wing of High Hall is the oldest part of the palace, the rest having been demolished and rebuilt over the years. Where the other wings are rounded or hexagonal, hers is angular and made of the hard, grey stone favoured by the ancient rulers of Elben. She imagines the queens of old, supreme in their rule, not subservient to any man, striding across the flagstones. She wonders whether they were the ones who instructed the design of the cupboards hidden within the walls, for the keeping of useful cutlery and linen; whether they thought of the lowered daises around the fireplaces to create cosy seating areas. She wonders whether the rest of the palace used to be like this, or whether it was only ever Cnothan’s wing that was, and remains, so practical.
Johana follows her through her chambers, and behind them trail her animals, Lelij strutting at the head of the procession.
“Does your household not mind you bringing so many animals into the palace?” Johana says.
“Perhaps they did at first. Until they realised that my animals smell no worse than many of the courtiers, and are housetrained a good deal better.”
Johana laughs as he follows Cleves deeper into her rooms. She must freshen herself after the long journey. Even though it was several days ago, she cannot shake the thought that Seymour’s peppery scent is still upon her after their dance.
A copy of Holbein’s portrait of her has been hung on the wall of her antechamber, though she has no memory of ordering it. A gift from Henry, she supposes, intended as a further humiliation. She glances at it as she splashes her face in fragranced water. She and Holbein are cut from the same cloth: able to tread their own winding path while giving the impression of following the more direct route. He truly is a remarkable artist.
“I must show my face briefly in the public spaces, or questions will be asked as to why I have come here,” she tells Johana. “But I need to get to the gardens before dusk.”
