Page 3

CHAPTER THREE

Boleyn

E very movement at court is a performance.

This is the first thing Boleyn remembers learning, and the only knowledge that she reminds herself of daily.

The Royal Sanctuary commands a display with its gilded formality.

But when she sees Henry standing there, Boleyn forgets her mantra.

She forgets the representatives from Capetia that she has been entertaining.

She forgets the five ladies-in-waiting, the disdain and awe and jealousy she senses through their veils.

She even forgets her own family, and all their practice.

They had timed her walk to make sure she would reach Henry at exactly the right swell of the choir.

But as soon as she sees him she flies up the sanctuary’s aisle, her hands outstretched for his.

It’s only when she stands opposite him – those eyes that always seem to be laughing, the soft waves of his hair, the whisper of divine magic that ripples across his skin – that Boleyn realises that despite the impropriety, it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Henry’s grinning down at her: Not very ladylike, Boleyn. Desperate to make me yours, are you?

She tilts her head at him, silently replying: No more than you’re desperate to make me yours .

His grip tightens. Beneath his linen shirt, his arms tense.

How she longs to push up those sleeves and run her hands along the ridges of his muscles, across his chest and down the tautness of his stomach, to revel in the hot balm of his magic as it plays across her skin as well as his.

Yes, she wants to make him hers, as a dragon desires blood.

She will always be hunting him, and he her.

It was the way their courtship began, after all.

Slowly, the pews in the sanctuary fill. The royal family comes first – a handful of Henry’s cousins, his two sisters being abroad – followed by Boleyn’s family.

After them are the high-ranking courtiers with their sable-trimmed doublets, and then the lower ranking nobility in crimson or blue damask.

Boleyn clears her throat, turning away from her audience and towards Henry.

In the silence that follows, she feels curiously aware of the space around her.

The chapel is small, intimate, the huge stained-glass windows that line one side of it doing nothing to make it feel more spacious.

It is busy, even without the mass of bodies filling it – every wall, every object is decorated or filigreed.

In any other room, it would feel gaudy, but there’s a solemnity to the faded gold, the sad smiles of the statues looking down on them from the pillars.

The only space that does not feel cluttered is the wall behind the altar, which is dominated by a pair of antlers, stark white and big as a man, that hangs from iron brackets.

Bishop More steps onto the dais. A chain, devoid of gems, seems too heavy for his slender frame.

His cap hides a thick mane of dark hair.

He avoids looking at either the king or the bride.

He’s a well-known acolyte of Queen Aragon, despite his see lying in Boleyn’s new territory of Brynd.

She wonders if Aragon is trying to pinch her between Lady Seymour and the bishop, to make her feel uneasy on her wedding day.

If that’s the case, Aragon doesn’t know that Boleyn grows sharper with every such move.

Behind More, two servants place a cage containing a ceremonial dragon about the size of a goat, pearl-scaled and meaty, on the altar.

It is submissive, drugged with tincture of pypas, ready for the bonding.

More raises his arms to frame the giant antlers on the wall behind him.

When he speaks, his voice is sonorous. “We are gathered here today, beneath His antlers, to celebrate the binding of the King of Elben to this honoured woman, the Lady Boleyn.” Boleyn stares into Henry’s eyes.

It can’t have only been a few months since they met, since they fell in love beneath hazel trees.

The bishop turns to the antlers behind the altar, and raises his arms once more in supplication.

“ Haehfaeder upyrdum, besiroth tusenunga debryd ,” he intones.

Highfather above us, we seek your blessing on this union.

Old Elbenese is too guttural for Boleyn’s taste – she prefers the cradle-rock lilt of the Osharan languages – but More’s reverence lends the words a certain beauty.

He turns back to the assembled guests, returning to the modern tongue: “Our precious island of Elben, the confluence and gem of the three oceans, has long been coveted by those who would strip it of its riches.”

Boleyn does not look away from Henry. She doesn’t want to see the Capetian ambassador scowling on a day when she – and he – should be victorious.

She doesn’t even wish to see the discomfort of the Quistoan representatives.

It may be tradition to tell the story of how Elben’s queens came to be, but More is being needlessly heavy-handed.

Henry rubs his thumb across the back of her left hand.

It will pass , he is telling her. It matters not.

“There came a time, in Elben’s youth, when it seemed as though our island might be overwhelmed and lost. Our verdant forests burned, our glittering mines turned to dust, our livestock and people slaughtered. The king, strong and fearless though he was, could not hold off our enemies.”

There is a rustling of satin and velvet as the foreign ambassadors shift in their pews. Boleyn knows precisely what they are thinking. It was the one point of contention between her and her hosts during her time in Capetia. No country likes to believe that their shared god favours another.

More opens the cage and the servants help him to lift the ceremonial dragon, still slumbering.

Its scales wax cream and silver beneath the sanctuary’s candlelight.

The only mark on its hide is a thin scar at its throat, where its vocal cords have been removed.

The bishop brings the dragon to the altar, where the servants bind its feet and wings.

“In despair and hope,” More continues, “King Aethelred journeyed to the sacred mountains of Hyfostelle, and there he made a sacrifice before the great god Cernunnos.”

A servant brings More a plain, golden dagger. More raises it so that all can see, then stands over the sleeping dragon. The air in the sanctuary congeals around Boleyn.

“ Beteoth tufolgestaella, Haehfaeder! ” he calls, his voice echoing around the chamber.

Protect your people, Highfather . More brings the dagger down upon the dragon’s stomach.

The beast rears from its stupor, writhing.

Its jaws stretch open in agony, but the only sound is the clanking of the chains against the marble altar.

It is the first time since entering the sanctuary that Henry and Boleyn have willingly taken their eyes from each other.

More ignores the dragon’s death throes, carving through the length of its stomach and dipping a long hand into the cavity to collect the fire brewed there.

The dragon has been fed with nothing but honeyed meat for a month, to ensure its flames are golden, but there is always the fear of fate speaking louder than design.

Of brown flames, or pale yellow – augurs of a weak bordweal, or the wrong choice of queen.

The stories tell of fire thick and red as blood at the wedding of the traitor Queen Isabet.

More pulls his hand out of the dragon’s stomach. Cradled in his bare palm is a swirl of fire, molten gold. In the smile that Henry and Boleyn share lies a promise: the gold means certainty, safety, a loyal queen and a strong bordweal. It means, surely: a son.

Boleyn turns to the guests. She doesn’t return the relieved smiles of her family – to do so would be to admit that she had been uncertain of the outcome of the sacrifice. No, she stands tall and justified as More deposits the flame into a lantern and continues the story.

“From the mountain, Cernunnos, the great Highfather, spoke. Our antlered god looked upon King Aethelred. He said, ‘For the great love I bear for you and for this blessed isle, I will grant you protection.’ From a crevice at the apex of the mountain he pulled forth six substances, and fashioned each into a fortress. From sand, he made the Palace of Daven and set it upon the north coast. From fire, he made the Castle of Brynd, and placed it beyond the Holtwode, facing the Sea of Hreonessa. From ice, he made the Palace of Hyde, and buried it in Elben’s eastern rocks.

From flesh, he made the Palace of Cnothan on the southern coast. From air he spun the Palace of Plythe and placed it at the mouth of the Kyttle River.

And from rock and earth, he made the Castle of Mathmas and set it on the western cliffs. ”

As the bishop speaks, servants remove the dragon’s body and in its place set a platter of six locked boxes, each one forged from a different metal.

“Cernunnos said unto the king, ‘I hereby give to you my strength. The strength of a god. Take six wives, loyal and humble and true, and place each of them in one of these sovereign castles, and visit them. Through them, your divine strength shall flow, and through them this blessed isle shall be protected from those who seek to harm it.’”