Page 16

CHAPTER TWELVE

Boleyn

B oleyn sips her wine. It’s been mulled with nutmeg and citrus and puts her in mind of Mother’s Night celebrations at her family’s ancestral home, where the three Boleyn siblings would commandeer their own cauldron of the stuff and drink it until they were sick.

A rare wave of nausea passes through Boleyn, and she hands her glass to a passing servant and pretends to be watching the entertainment from her throne: a small travelling band of musicians from Capetia, who heard of her fondness for the country and begged to be allowed to play for her.

They’re not bad, but they’re not worthy of a court – certainly no Capetian palace would have them.

She’ll get the stewardess, Syndony, to dismiss them with some coin after supper.

Her hand plays gently across her stomach, as it always does when she thinks about the pregnancy.

Thankfully Lady Seymour is off spying elsewhere – she has made herself largely absent since the day in the orchard.

Boleyn grows hot with the shame of letting herself be so vulnerable in front of an imposter.

She doesn’t want anyone to know about her moments of panic – the times when she is convinced that the baby is dead in her womb, the moments when she is sure she feels blood trickling down her thigh.

All too often now, she becomes certain that this thing, not yet a human and yet, in her head, already a child, will come unstuck and abandon her in a rush of blood at any moment.

No, no one must know, not even George – who will joke about it to try to make her smile – or Mary, who will be brusque and tell her that miscarriages happen all the time and she’ll conceive again.

No one must see her at her weakest. No one must witness the crash of worries.

“Your Majesty, he’s here.”

Syndony is by her side, unsmiling as ever when in the presence of nobility.

She nods to the door, where a wiry man with sharp, dancing eyes is waiting, watching.

Wyatt, she thinks his name is. A scholar, supposedly.

A recommendation from one of the lesser nobility at Brynd to her enquiries about someone who has a stronger grasp of Old Elbenese than she.

Wyatt’s gaze slides over Boleyn as though she’s simply one of many people in the room.

“Let’s see what he has to say then,” Boleyn says. She dislikes him already, but if he can tell her more about that circled word – nimaen – in the bishop’s book, she supposes she can tolerate him.

Wyatt bows reluctantly before her. The music peters out as a semicircle forms around them, like an audience at a cockfight. Boleyn knows that she emits a certain energy when she is preparing for a fight. George calls it her executioner energy; a mental baring of her teeth.

“They tell me you’re a poet and a scholar,” Boleyn says. “You don’t look much like either.”

“They tell me you’re a whore,” Wyatt responds.

The whole room goes coldly silent.

“Which goes to show,” he continues, “that people are stupid.”

Boleyn lets the silence drag out as she surveys him. He is all bravado and nerves, his cocksure smile an act, just as the fine doublet he’s wearing cannot fully disguise the patches on his shirt.

“Mistress Syndony, please put this man on a horse back to whatever hovel he crawled from.”

He laughs. “Is this why you don’t have a jester, Your Majesty? Because you can’t take a joke?”

Boleyn nods to Syndony and stands, walking to the fireplace as nonchalantly as she can manage.

Well, that nimaen will remain elusive for a little longer, that’s all, until she can find a scholar who will treat her as the queen she is.

She accepts a bowl of hot chestnuts from a servant who cannot meet her eyes.

If people are saying she’s a whore, it’s because they’re jealous.

When the news of her pregnancy spreads, when she gives birth to a son, they will be forced to alter their opinion.

Boleyn knows a little of gossip, having navigated four years in the Capetian court.

She knows that in the eyes of the public, mothers are rarely considered prostitutes.

“Your Majesty, my apologies,” the poet calls out. “I beg one more chance.”

Wyatt is struggling against Syndony. Boleyn wouldn’t bet against her. Last week she witnessed the woman lift an entire hog from a cart without help.

“He’s got spirit, hasn’t he?” Mark whispers.

In the struggle, Wyatt knocks one of the side tables, and a little clock – a gift from Henry – topples to the floor and shatters, sending a starburst of golden mechanisms and glass shards across the floorboards. The lantern dragons on the walls twist in their cages, unsettled by the noise.

“Enough!” Boleyn says, clapping her hands. Syndony lets Wyatt go and he stumbles to the floor. When he rises, his palms are punctured by the remnants of the clock. He smiles at Boleyn, brushing his bloodied hands clean on his hose.

“I do not like disloyalty,” Boleyn says.

“What do you like?”

Boleyn pops a chestnut in her mouth as she circles the man. She comes to stand behind him, enjoying the flush rising on the back of his neck.

“I like people who are clever. I like people who are helpful. I like people who want to please me. At the moment, Master Wyatt, you seem to be none of those things.”

He turns to face her, and she pops another chestnut in her mouth. In the corner of her vision, she sees Mark place a hand on George’s arm in anticipation.

“I don’t believe I gave you permission to look at me,” she says.

Inexplicably, Wyatt grins and covers his face with his hands. The crowd edges backwards, wondering what this unpredictable commoner is playing at.

“Pardon me, Your Majesty, but I am not here.”

“What?” Boleyn says, almost choking on her chestnut.

“Imagine, if you will, that I was never here. Imagine that you could not admit me before, but left me waiting outside this very excellent door—”

As he speaks, Wyatt moves with exaggerated soft steps towards the door, the crowd parting before him.

“Imagine,” he continues, “that when this door closes behind me, all memories of what has been said and done between us are magically erased, quick and easy as a shooting star.”

Syndony looks pointedly at the remnants of the clock, scattered underfoot, and says, “How did we do that then?”

Wyatt bows to her, his arms wide. “A most excellent point, kind mistress. A regrettable accident. Who knows how it came about? But an accident that this stranger, who you will never have seen before when he enters, will most certainly clean up.”

Syndony puts her hands on her hips, refusing to be flattered. “He had better, because my maids aren’t doing it.”

Now so low to the ground that he looks utterly ridiculous, Wyatt opens the door and gives them all one final bow. “Remember, all memories – vanished!”

The mood of the crowd has shifted now. Not one person, even Syndony, can hold back a smile. Even Boleyn is minded to offer him a second chance.

Wyatt closes the door behind him, and silence descends. No one is quite sure how to play this out now. No one except Boleyn.

“Mistress Syndony,” she says, loudly enough for her voice to carry. “I believe we have kept our new visitor waiting long enough. Would you be so kind as to admit him into my presence?”

Syndony curtseys with a look that says she thinks the whole company is quite mad, but opens the door to reveal Wyatt standing, head proud, hand pressed to his heart. He strides in and kneels before Boleyn, his knee grinding glass fragments into the floor.

“Your Majesty, Thomas Wyatt at your service,” he says, hand still over his chest.

“Master Wyatt, it is good to meet you at last,” Boleyn replies. “I hear very bad reports of you.”

He keeps his head bowed, but she can see the corner of a smile. He knows how this game is going to go. He has humiliated himself, but now it is her turn to humiliate him. It is the only way that she can be seen to accept him into her household after what he said to her.

“I admit them all,” he replies. “I am a poor excuse for a man. I cannot wield a sword. I have no money because I am a gambler. I frequently say the wrong thing when I am nervous. I grow very nervous around women of wit and power.”

“What is the use of you then?” Boleyn says.

“A question my father asks often. Words are my business, my first and last love, my life’s labour. They are my weapons and my prey. They are my lover, my mistress, my muse and my wife. I read the way most men eat: because I have to, because without words I will fade away.”

“A fine speech, Master Wyatt. How shall we test it?”

“I can spin a gossamer poem the way a spider spins its web, my queen.”

Boleyn never could resist a poem. It was an integral part of Henry’s courtship. She made him propose to her with a poem before she said yes. She selects another chestnut.

“A poem, then. A new one, just for me. You have until I have finished this bowl.”

She steps away, letting Wyatt stand. He eyes the few uneaten chestnuts, then turns to examine the room, the view of the tempestuous sea through the windows.

And then, ignoring the way the other courtiers and her family are watching him expectantly, he turns his gaze on her.

Boleyn continues to make her way through the chestnuts, standing proudly before him as though posing for a portrait.

She allows him to take in every part of her resplendent gown, the way her left hand, adorned with its poesy ring, continually returns to rest on her stomach, the challenge of her gaze.

The chamber is almost silent, the only sounds the rustle of velvet and flame, and the crystal noise of the lantern dragons’ claws as they wind around their cages.

Boleyn holds up her final chestnut. Wyatt’s time is up. Slowly, reverently, he begins to speak.

Whoever wishes his wealth and ease retain,

Himself let him unknown contain.

Press not too fast in at that gate

Where the return stands by disdain,

For sure, thunder circles the throne.

The high mountains are blasted oft

When the low valley is mild and soft.

Fortune with Health stands at debate.

The fall is grievous from aloft.

And sure, thunder circles the throne.

Boleyn realises that she is clutching the silver stag symbol on her belt. Its antlers dig painfully into her palms.

“Very clever, Master Wyatt,” she says. “Thunder for my storm clouds. You can’t help but leave a sting in your words, can you?”

“I only sting those who can sting back.”

George lets out an involuntary giggle, partly at the tension, partly at the bawdy reference.

“My sting is far, far worse than yours.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She shouldn’t forgive him. His poem was still disrespectful.

She can tell that he’s going to cause her trouble.

And yet… he has charm, and he’s shown himself to be clever and nimble, and his poetry moves her in a way little does these days.

And maybe there’s part of her that wants to prove to him that she can weather a joke, even though she cannot see how calling someone a whore is amusing.

“I have one more test for you.”

She produces Bishop More’s book. The crowd surrounding them moves away, less interested in a translation of the history of Cernunnos and Elben’s queens; a history they all know by heart.

The musicians strike up again. A few couples take to the floor, but their movement is desultory.

They’ve been robbed of the fun of watching their queen decimate an upstart.

“I was told that you understand Old Elbenese?” Boleyn asks Wyatt.

“I make a hobby of studying it. I’m no expert, though.”

She opens the book to the page she’s found, and points at the circled word.

“Well, you had better make yourself an expert, because for all your clever poetry, this is the use I have for you. Why has someone marked this, can you think? I do not recognise the word.”

Wyatt frowns as he mouths the word. Nimaen . His lips bridge the two syllables like a dancer. He traces ink-stained fingers across the paper.

“Well, if memory serves me correctly, nimaen has several meanings.”

He hesitates. Boleyn huffs pointedly. “Do not test me, sir.”

“Well, given the context is the nature of the divine power being transferred to Aethelred’s queens, I think the author must mean ‘given’, or ‘channelled’. That’s the only translation that makes sense.”

She wants to jab him, but settles for raising an eyebrow.

“What translation wouldn’t make sense? What does the word truly mean?” she asks. “Do not conceal truths from me, Master Wyatt. I rarely take kindly to it.”

Wyatt makes an odd sort of noise, somewhere between laugh and puff. “The powerful are fond of saying such things, Your Majesty, up until you do their bidding. Then they are fond of threats.”

He catches her eye and relents. “The most common meaning of nimaen is simply: ‘stolen’. So you see why that cannot be the case here.”

Boleyn considers possible explanations. The most likely one is that Wyatt’s memory is faulty, but to say so would be churlish.

“You may be right. The word must have different meanings depending on the context,” she says at last. Her finger hovers over the circled word, but this time she does not touch it.

Wyatt turns to her. “If Your Majesty has no objections, may I take some time to study the rest of the book? It will give me more time to shed light on this mistake, and I might be able to see if there are any other anomalies.”

He might simply be buying himself time, with no ability to truly decipher the book, but she no longer has the energy to challenge him.

She hands him the book and dismisses him.

On his way out of the room, Mary invites him to dance.

Usually Boleyn would join them, a magnet to fix all eyes on her.

But there is only one man she wants to dance with.

She spins her poesy ring, the fairy trapped inside it pulsating with heat through the golden shell, as the longing for Henry’s arms overwhelms her.

She’s missed him these last few months, even more so since she realised she was pregnant.

She was the one who urged him to war, but now she wants him with her.

Absent-mindedly, she smooths her hand over the bodice where she imagines their baby growing, growing, feeding, leeching.