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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Boleyn

T he patch of skin on her ribs is itching again, so badly she cannot stand it.

It has been tormenting Boleyn, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else.

She sits on her throne, listening to an orator, hired at considerable expense, give an account of Henry’s victory in Lothair, and all she wants to do is scratch.

“The captain was gravely injured, and all seemed lost,” the orator says, sweeping an arm wide to illustrate the scale of the peril.

“But even in the chaos and despair, our king took hold of the wheel, navigating the ship with a single hand against the Lothairian warships and the might of the storm. He stood on that prow: proud and solitary at the ship’s helm, Cernunnos’s magic lighting him up and reaching for the lightning – two unbreakable powers clashing in a single, divine bolt. ”

Boleyn tries to look rapt. At any other time she would be.

The orator is excellent. Even Mark, usually so cynical when it comes to the Elbenese’s admiration for their monarch, is staring up at the man, mouth open.

Boleyn tugs on her bodice, hoping the friction of the fabric will ease the itching somewhat. The orator continues.

“Henry was the first of his men to leap from the ships. He strode through the shallows, his broadsword held aloft. The enemy was waiting on the shore with spears and swords and bows. A flurry of arrows were aimed at him, every Lothairian soldier desperate to claim the Elbenese king’s life.

Unafraid, our monarch pushed onwards. Some arrows he swiped away with his sword.

Some landed on his armour. And some found their mark, burying themselves in the joints of the iron plates at his elbows or legs.

These he pulled from his body as though they were no more troublesome than a leech, the torn flesh mending in seconds, knit together by Cernunnos himself.

“‘Victory for Elben! Glory for Elben!’ the king roared above the waves, and the roar came back from his men, good and loyal and true: ‘Victory for Elben! Victory for our king!’”

The whole chamber erupts into applause. Even stoic Rochford turns away to wipe her eyes.

“Wonderful,” Boleyn says, rising as gracefully as she can manage.

She tells Syndony to pay the man well, then escapes down the stairs to her private room.

There, she manages, with some difficulty, to wriggle out of her gown, and pulls up her shift to give the area a good scratch.

The release is blissful, even though she knows she’s only making the skin red-raw.

Then her nails hitch on something, and she stops abruptly.

She moves to her mirror and examines the skin. Her nails have caught on a piece of flaking skin. Delicately, she peels the flake away, expecting it to be a little scab. But the skin keeps peeling.

Boleyn drops her hand and shift, stepping back in horror. But the flap of peeled skin makes the linen shape oddly. And it itches so, so badly.

With trembling fingers, Boleyn lifts her shift once more and examines the place where the skin has gone.

Beneath it is a thin mask of greying flesh, through which the white ridges of her ribs can be seen.

Her chest heaving, her breath unsteady, Boleyn touches the area.

She feels… nothing. The flesh is utterly dead.

Boleyn considers calling for Syndony or the physician, but she doesn’t want anyone to see her like this.

This… rot, infection, whatever it is, will be used as proof of her witchcraft, as proof that she does have something to do with the failing bordweal.

Maybe even Syndony will desert her. Henry will hear of it and then he won’t want her any more.

After all, Boleyn reasons, maybe this is something that happens when one is pregnant.

There is so much that she was never told to expect – the bloating, the gas, the bone aches.

The strange way a woman’s body works when growing another being is something that cannot be spoken of, even to a physician. It wouldn’t be tasteful.

Boleyn pulls again at the skin, trying not to retch as the flap peels away entirely, leaving a patch of grey flesh as big as her hand.

She opens her window and tosses the peeled skin into the sea below, then rifles through her closet for the linen used for her courses.

She presses one pad to the flesh, gingerly even though she feels nothing, then ties a greater swathe of fabric around her ribs, keeping the pad in place and concealing the wound.

There. All better. At least the itching has stopped. The flesh will heal. It must.

Once she is dressed, she stumbles out of her room, desperate for company and solitude at once. Boleyn’s family is making a nuisance of themselves in the vestibule, getting in the way of the servants trying to reach the kitchens. As Boleyn approaches, she sees that they’re tormenting Wyatt.

“How is your mummer’s play for the Moon Ball coming along?” Mary is asking him. Boleyn asked Wyatt to write something for the celebration some weeks ago to keep him occupied. She tells herself it is because she wishes to tie his talent to Brynd, not him.

“Writing for a troupe of actors is very different to writing poetry,” Wyatt says. “It takes time. I must take into account the different strengths…”

“Which is to say, you haven’t started writing it yet.” George grins, twirling a lock of Mark’s hair around his fingers and nuzzling into him.

“I’ve started. I’ve just not finished.”

“Don’t do what you usually do,” Rochford warns.

“What do I usually do, oh observant one?” Wyatt says.

“Leave it to the night before, then write with too much wine in your stomach.”

George, Mark and Mary guffaw.

“I am going to the nursery,” Boleyn announces as she passes, the command for them to follow implicit. She senses their concern, even though they continue their inane chatter out into the courtyard, all of it focused on the Moon Ball.

“Father told me about an alchemist who makes wonderful fireworks,” George says. “Do you think we can ship him over from Gkontai?”

“Never mind the fireworks. We must put our sister in the most beautiful gown anyone has ever seen. More memorable even than her wedding gown,” Mary says, trying to make Boleyn smile. Boleyn increases her pace, leaving the rest of them behind.

As she skirts the castle’s walls, Boleyn becomes aware of Wyatt, walking just behind her.

By the time they round a corner of damson trees to reveal the nursery, modern red brick tacked on to the grey of the castle, the others are no longer in sight, having tarried where Boleyn and Wyatt walked quickly.

The nursery has been built on a patch of land abutting the castle and overlooking the orchards.

It’s a traditional square, set around a central courtyard, with enough rooms for the child and their nurses and tutors, as well as enough space for future siblings.

Boleyn pushes away the thought of more children.

All around the nursery’s guttering, stone gargoyles ward off forest demons.

Boleyn goes through an archway and crosses the courtyard to a set of double doors that lead into the baby’s suite.

There’s no furniture in the rooms yet, but the walls are already covered in decorative paintings: dragons wind around vines and the great god Cernunnos stalks between the beams. Boleyn commissioned an artist from Capetia to emulate murals she’s seen in their palaces, and he’s done an excellent job.

Wyatt is still at her elbow. Still silent.

“Struck dumb again, Master Wyatt? For a wordsmith you are surprisingly bad at employing them, it seems.”

“All right, Your Majesty, I’ll be your pincushion.”

She turns to him at last. He smiles thinly, and unbuttons the top half of his jacket, pulling the fine fabric apart to reveal a white shirt and, beneath that, the hint of his chest.

“Needle me with your woes, my queen. Stab me with your anger. I’ll take any wound delivered by you.”

“I thought it was only men who were supposed to stab?”

“She jokes. A bawdy joke at that. Come on, give me more.”

Boleyn looks around the room. It has so much potential, so much promise, but it’s still empty. Still cold.

“I’m not sure I have the weapons I thought I did, Master Wyatt.”

“This from the queen who took down a crone. I assure you, you have weapons aplenty.”

Boleyn clenches her jaw and swallows tears. Wyatt steps closer and folds her hand in his own. Slowly, as though afraid a stray breath will frighten her into running, he brings Boleyn’s hand to his lips, and kisses it. Once, twice.

“Careful,” Boleyn whispers. His jacket is still undone.

“Careful yes? Or careful no?” He turns her hand over and kisses the inside of her wrist, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I…”

“Sister?” Mary is at the door, her hand across it, blocking the entrance from prying eyes.

Her gaze darts between Wyatt and Boleyn as they pull apart.

Wyatt turns away from everyone, hastily buttoning his jacket.

When he turns round once more, his face is natural, as though he didn’t just try to seduce a queen. As though the queen wasn’t tempted.

“Forgive me, friends. I must return to the palace. Inspiration has struck!”

“For the play?” George says, peering over Mary’s arm.

“Her Majesty has helped me to see how to find my way to an ending.” He bows to Boleyn. “Thank you.”

She tries to match his composure. “I want to be credited if you’re going to steal my ideas.”

“I make no promises.”

And he’s off, doffing his cap at Mary, surely too cheerful for the others not to notice that something has just happened.

“Such a handsome man,” Rochford sighs. “Shame about the poetry.”

“Sister,” Mary whispers, threading an arm through Boleyn’s and drawing her into the next room. “What is going on?”

“Nothing.”

“What I saw wasn’t nothing.”

“It was nothing, Mary. Nothing happened.”

Mary shakes her. “You have a family, Boleyn. Don’t mess this up.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t play stupid.”

Boleyn laughs bitterly. “Indeed. If I lose my wits what will I have left?”

Mary steps back, studying her sister. “What has happened?”

“Noth—”

“Nothing, again. Fine. Do you need me to fetch a physician?”

“No.”

Boleyn runs her hand along the wooden panelling and goes to the window. In the distance, she can glimpse the turret of the folly just above the treetops.

“I’m worried about you. You’re not yourself,” Mary says, more gently now.

“I miss him, that is all,” Boleyn says. It’s a cruel thing to say to her sister, who has missed her own husband every moment of the past three years, but it will at least end the conversation. Except this time it doesn’t.

“Would you like me to write to the king and ask him to visit?” Mary says, rubbing Boleyn’s back.

“Why should you write to my husband?” Boleyn says, laughing at the notion.

“I take care of my family above all else. If a little impropriety will help you then I am not afraid of judgement,” Mary says.

Boleyn shakes her head. Henry cannot see her like this. It might disgust him, and there is no coming back from disgust. The thought rocks Boleyn: she always prided herself on marrying a man who loves her for her mind, not her beauty. So why is she so concerned about him seeing her ribs?

“Are you certain?” Mary says.

“When am I ever not certain, sister?” Boleyn says, trying to dismiss Mary with a flick of her hand. “I am not a mewling child in need of constant companionship, and if I were I am perfectly able to write to my husband myself.”

“ Cynn ae hredsigor? ” Mary says. King and victory. The family motto.

“ Hredsigor ,” Boleyn repeats. No king. Only victory.