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CHAPTER TWENTY

Boleyn

B oleyn cannot forget the tenderness or the surety of Seymour’s embrace.

She was telling the truth when she said that she has only ever loved one man.

She has only ever been with one person, too – Henry.

She had assumed that Seymour was a virgin.

So when Seymour jokingly proposed warming her up, she was half curiosity, half pity – let Seymour explore Boleyn a little.

But Seymour, it seems, is not inexperienced at all.

Yet another secret. Yet another way in which Boleyn has been mistaken.

When they drive through Pilvreen on their return from the font, the disparity between her and her lady-in-waiting is more pronounced.

So many of her people look at her with disgust. She can see them muttering whore and witch when they think she cannot see, and even though she knows it’s unfair and unkind, the rageful part of her wants to point at Seymour and shout, “She is the whore! She is the one built of lies!”

With one riddle solved, though, she can at least turn her attention to another: what to do about these pamphlets and these rumours.

With Henry gone to war, she cannot find a solution with him, and in any case he has more important things to consider.

She will find a way through without him, prove herself a help, not a burden.

If she cannot confide in Henry, though, who can she confide in?

George would try to reassure her, and she cannot tell Mark or Rochford without them telling her brother.

Something stops her from confiding in Mary – the two of them love each other ferociously, but there has always been an undercurrent of competition.

That leaves only one person she can think of.

That it might send Henry a little message – that her love should not be taken for granted – is a delightful afterthought.

“Tell Master Wyatt to join me for a turn around the palace grounds,” she tells Syndony.

Wyatt is pleasingly swift, finding her in the vestibule only moments later.

This is how he makes himself useful now that Henry has destroyed the bishop’s book: with company, entertainment and light, safe flirtation.

He is very good at pretending to adore her, which is just the way she likes it.

She enjoys his mind, sharply political but honest. That’s what she needs now.

They walk, followed discreetly by Boleyn’s guards, towards Brynd’s sanctuary, which sits, tall and stolid, along the open road between the castle and the port.

On the wall facing the ocean, the sanctuary’s stone has been blasted pale by the sea salt.

On the inland side it is dull and grey. Boleyn’s mind is full of dualities at the moment.

Light and shadow. True and false. Open and secret. Loyal and traitor.

“You spend time in Pilvreen,” she says to Wyatt.

“Time and too much money, my queen.”

“On ale, women, cards or all three?”

“My vices are many.”

“And amidst your vices, do you hear rumours?”

Wyatt glances at her curiously as they approach the sanctuary. A wooden door is set into the wall, and they wait for one of the guards to unlock it. Wyatt holds it open for Boleyn to pass through, then follows her in.

“I didn’t think you would concern yourself with rumours.”

The sanctuary stands in the middle of a graveyard.

At one end of the lawn are the simpler gravestones of Brynd’s senior household – the stewards and stewardesses, the masters and mistresses of horse and so on.

Boleyn finds herself drawn towards the other end, where more elaborate stones, each one topped with Cernunnos’s antlers, mark the graves of Brynd’s queens, right back to the ancient times.

“I think every monarch should know what is said about them. We only rule with the goodwill of our people, after all.”

“Or the goodwill of the king,” Wyatt says.

Something about the tone turns his words into a challenge.

“I’ve never doubted the king’s love for me,” she says.

“Why should you? He’s a most devoted husband.”

Boleyn resists slapping him. Wyatt always knows how to tenderise her.

“I don’t like the rumours that are being spread about me,” she says, coming to a halt in front of a crooked gravestone.

In the long line of queens’ graves, this is the only one that has been left to the moss, the only one that has not a single wilting flower placed upon it in memory.

The name engraved upon it is barely legible now, but no one needs to be able to read to know who lies beneath this stone.

Isabet, traitor consort.

“Do you think these rumours will last?” Wyatt asks.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Is this simply because the people of Brynd do not trust any of their queens, or is it me they dislike?”

“You wish to know if it’s personal.”

“Yes. And I wish to know who started them.”

“Who started them?”

“Someone in my household is spreading half-truths, Master Wyatt.”

“Have you considered it might be me?” Wyatt says. He plucks a marigold from the edge of the cemetery and offers it to Boleyn. She smells the petals. They remind her of the pottage her family’s cook used to make with these very same flowers.

“Naturally, but I soon dismissed you.”

“I’m wounded. May I ask why?”

“You have a healthy respect for the person who pays for all those bad habits.”

“It’s true. I do value your coin mightily.”

Boleyn flicks the marigold at him. “So? What would you do if you were me?”

Wyatt considers Isabet’s grave. Boleyn wonders that she was permitted a resting place at all.

If Boleyn had been king, she’d have thrown the traitor’s body into the sea for the krakens to feast upon.

The woman’s ghost may as well have haunted Pilvreen ever since her execution: certainly the people of this region have never trusted their consort since that day.

Boleyn knew this when she accepted Henry’s proposal – he had warned her that she’d have none of the loyalty his other queens commanded – but she had thought she would be the exception.

She would be the one to turn the tide for the consorts of Brynd.

It seems that the blood of ancestors runs deeper and thicker in this part of the kingdom than she could ever have imagined.

“I’m not the person you should be asking,” Wyatt says at last. “You should ask your stewardess.”

“Syndony?”

“She’s local. Smart. She’ll have an inkling of what and who’s behind these rumours far better than me.”

Boleyn nods, and together they leave the graveyard and wander back towards the castle. Boleyn’s guards fall in step behind them. A lone seagull cries mournfully from the roof of the sanctuary.

“You really are no use at all, Wyatt,” she comments. “Why ever do I keep you around?”

“I ask myself the same question hourly. But I’m exceedingly grateful that you seem to have taken leave of your good judgement.”

A steady stream of workers has been restoring the folly: tearing off the last of the ivy, replacing the broken roof tiles, clearing the weeds from the sunken garden by the sea, and polishing the bronze exterior and the convex hexagon of the sunscína , the purpose of which only Boleyn knows.

Now, it is almost complete. Inside, seamstresses make long curtains of heavy fabric that block out the draughts, and thick cushions for the window seats.

The final touch is the entrance: the old iron frontage is polished and fixed to a new oak door, and at last the folly is watertight and cosy.

She meets Syndony here, not wishing to risk other servants overhearing her insecurities.

When she arrives, Syndony refuses to show more than the most basic courtesy, as usual – a smileless bob of a curtsey – and sits in the chair offered to her with the air of someone about to be tortured for information.

“You have lived in Pilvreen and Brynd your whole life, I understand?” Boleyn asks.

“I have.”

Boleyn settles herself on her own chair. It’s difficult these days to find a comfortable position. Either her back starts to ache or her bladder complains of being full. She decides to be as direct with Syndony as she can.

“Syndony, please be honest with me. Have I done something to offend my people, or are they always like this?”

“Your people?”

“The people of Pilvreen.”

Syndony purses her lips.

“We’re not fools in this part of Elben,” Syndony says.

“We know what you lords and ladies think of us, no matter how many leftovers you send to the almshouses. We’re still expendable to you.

You’d all as soon see us dead in the streets than raise a sword for us, yet you expect us to give our lives for you. ”

“That’s hardly fair,” Boleyn says. “Have I not shown that I appreciate skill no matter how low- or high-born someone is?”

Syndony shrugs. “You asked me. I’m just telling you the truth. I respect you well enough to know you won’t harm me for doing so.”

Boleyn nods. “Mistrusting me I can live with. But there are rumours…”

“I’ve heard them,” Syndony says stolidly. “I’ve told people they’re a lot of rubbish. And so has your man Oswyn.”

“You have?” Boleyn expected Oswyn’s loyalty, but she thought that Syndony despised her. If she’s defending Boleyn then maybe her icy exterior is merely a mask. Boleyn reaches across to the stewardess, folding her hand into Syndony’s.

“You’re a fair mistress, and I’ve had a few so I should know,” Syndony says.

“My predecessor?”

The dowager queen Huntlye – Henry’s youngest stepmother – had lived and died in Brynd. Once a queen is tied to her castle, the bordweal holds for as long as she lives there, even if she has been widowed.

“Ach, I can’t blame her for being difficult, I suppose,” Syndony says. “She was so ill, at the end. It’s a wonder she lasted as long as she did.”

“She was considered a beauty in her youth,” Boleyn says.

“She was. A very beautiful young woman. Active, too. She loved to dance and hunt.”

Boleyn thinks of the portrait of Huntlye that hangs in one of the galleries, painted just after the queen came to Brynd.

She was a large woman, with rich brown skin, startlingly dark eyes and short black hair.

Boleyn finds it hard to reconcile that portrait with the reports of Huntlye’s later bed-bound years.

“Do I need to worry about the rumours?” Boleyn says.

Syndony purses her lips again. Boleyn is starting to understand that this means she thinks Boleyn is being foolish.

“What is it, Syndony? What am I missing? I’m not above being schooled.”

Syndony rises abruptly to stoke the fire.

“What do you know of the other queens?” she asks, her attention on the charcoal.

Boleyn answers immediately. “Aragon is proud. Cleves is ugly and strange. Howard is beautiful but stupid. Parr is gentle and good at healing.”

“No,” Syndony says, “That’s what you’ve been told . Everything you know about them is because of rumour.”

Boleyn’s thoughts flick to Seymour, the woman everyone thinks is a mouse. The woman she thought was a mouse until recently. If Seymour becomes Queen of Hyde, will that be her legacy?

“It’s all a game,” Syndony says. “Who wins depends on whose rumour is the strongest.”

“So I need to wrest control back from whoever is spreading these rumours,” Boleyn says, standing now too. This is the lightest she’s felt in days. “If I can find people who are trusted in the towns and villages, then they can start to spread a counter-rumour…”

She turns to Syndony. “You know such people, don’t you?”

Syndony stands, satisfied that the fire is strong enough once more. “I have a large family. Children and grandchildren, all over your territory, and some beyond. All can be used for your purpose. For a price.”

Boleyn smiles. Oh, this woman is clever. She has led Boleyn to a contract like a child tricked into taking its medicine. She offers her hand, and Syndony takes it.

“Well, Syndony, it seems you have a new job. My stewardess and now my spymistress.”