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The Keeper of the Font, a monk bearing the antlered headdress of Cernunnos, greets them at the entrance.

With him are six nuns, wearing stylised headdresses to emulate the ears of a doe.

The nuns lead Boleyn and Seymour into an antechamber, where the steam from the font warms them as they undress.

Seymour hunches as she removes her clothes, her back to Boleyn.

Even in the dim light of the chamber, Boleyn’s eyes are drawn not to the bandages on Seymour’s hands, but to the thin, raised lines across her thighs.

She thinks of the rumours that swirl around Edward Seymour, and assumes the scars are his doing.

She wonders whether she, too, would be a mouse if she had such a brother.

She likes to think she would have more spirit than that.

That Edward would sport a few scars of his own.

“I hear the waters are cloudy,” Boleyn tells Seymour. “Shall we hide ourselves in their warmth?”

It’s an olive branch, but Seymour doesn’t acknowledge it.

Boleyn’s maid helps them both into thick, red robes to hide their nakedness as they pass from the antechamber into the steam-filled suffocation of the font.

A tiled path runs around the edges of the room.

In the middle, a jagged-edged pool is formed from a crater.

The waters are murky, bubbling with the perfumed air from deep within the mountain.

Murals on the walls tell the story of the font.

The first King of Elben, Aethelred, praying to Cernunnos, beset by enemies.

Aethelred answering Cernunnos’s summons and coming to him on the Hyfostelle mountains – these mountains.

Cernunnos rising from the ground in a whirlwind of lava and smoke.

The king’s amazement as Cernunnos fashions the six castles of Daven, Brynd, Hyde, Cnothan, Plythe and Mathmas, and sends them flying to the coasts of Elben.

They show Aethelred with his six chosen wives, who would become the first vessels for the king’s power.

And the ice-ridden mountain and the font, left behind once Cernunnos returned to the fabric of Elben, the water turned in the ensuing years into a kind of royal bath, still containing the blessing of the god.

The weight of that history, of her great purpose, settles on Boleyn.

Settles in her stomach. She covers the swell with a hand, feeling how hard the flesh is, where it was once supple.

Her maid removes her robe and two nuns support her as she moves down the uneven steps into the water.

They settle her on a smooth ledge at the far end of the pool.

A moment later, Lady Seymour is placed next to her.

The nuns disappear, although they might still be within touching distance – it’s hard to tell through the steam.

Boleyn takes deep lungfuls of hot, heady air – a touch of chilli, enough to tickle the throat pleasantly.

The water is deep, and Boleyn is short. As her toes scrabble for purchase on one of the many narrow ledges, they accidentally touch Seymour’s foot. Seymour blushes and pulls away.

“You are very proper, aren’t you, Lady Seymour?” Boleyn says.

“It’s what I’ve been taught,” Seymour says.

“What else have you been taught?” Boleyn says. Maybe it’s the spice in the air, or the crone earlier, but she wants nothing more than to needle Seymour until she cracks. How dare this woman act the prude when she has worked so hard to catch Henry’s attention?

Moving closer to her, almost pinning her into her corner, Boleyn takes hold of Seymour’s bandaged hands.

“What are you…?”

“The waters of the font are healing,” Boleyn says, unwinding the fabric. The apothecary has done an excellent job. The flayed skin is tender and raw, like plucked chicken, but already beginning to heal.

“Your brother’s work?” she asks. Seymour’s breath is short, like a frightened deer. Boleyn is so close she can see the flecks of volcanic ash clinging to the woman’s eyelashes.

“No.”

Boleyn lowers Seymour’s hands beneath the water and she lets out a shivery exhale that eddies the steam across Boleyn’s cheek.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“I don’t mind it,” Seymour says. Her eyes flick to Boleyn and away again.

“You act very timid for someone who approached the king by herself. For someone who seems to have so many enemies,” Boleyn says.

Seymour remains silent.

“Do you really think you could ever match me?” Boleyn says.

Heat courses through her that has nothing to do with the warmth of the water.

It is fury, the like of which she has spent most of her life trying to temper.

She wants to find the chink in Seymour’s armour and stick a knife right through it.

“No,” Seymour whispers.

“You are nothing and he is mine .”

“Is he?” Seymour says. Her question is placid, but it hits Boleyn in the chest.

“I’m carrying his child.”

Seymour’s mouth twists, not unpleasantly.

“What?” Boleyn says.

“It is not for me to say.”

“I will decide that.” She’s still holding Seymour’s hands beneath the clouded water, and she pulls them now so that she’s nose to nose with her lady-in-waiting, her cuckoo.

“I used to be Queen Aragon’s attendant,” Seymour says. “He used to adore her once too.”

Boleyn flicks the comment away. “And you think he’ll adore you? For long enough to get you into Hyde?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I don’t think he’ll adore me at all.”

Boleyn is taken aback by Seymour’s honesty, but she is still hiding something.

“Then what do you want, Lady Seymour?”

That flick of the eyes again, first to Boleyn’s eyes, then down to her mouth – what does it mean?

“Safety. That is all I want,” Seymour says.

Boleyn’s laughter echoes strangely through the font – the rock amplifies the sound while the steam distorts it. She is reminded of Wyatt’s impromptu poem: thunder circles the throne . Seymour is naive indeed if she thinks that safety is simple, or that she will find it in a crown.

“That is all,” Boleyn repeats, more quietly now. “Is that all?”

She leans towards Seymour, tilting her head up to reach the other woman’s ear.

“Do you know what I despise about women like you? That you make people believe that purity and goodness go hand in hand with stupidity. It is a very clever ruse, but it is still a ruse. The cleverest thing you ever did was to make people think you are stupid, and every time you do it, you make women weaker. You leach us of our power. There is nothing good or pure in that. You should be ashamed.”

That’s when Boleyn feels it: the way Seymour angles her cheek, her ear, towards Boleyn’s mouth. Her eyes are closed, but not in fear or anger. They are closed, soft as prayer, the way Boleyn closes her eyes when Henry is kissing her. And just like that, Boleyn solves the riddle.