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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Seymour

S eymour’s first sighting of Cnothan is when she sees the donkeys.

From her vantage point out of the carriage window, they look as though they’re wearing coats, which is odd given the air is golden and full of the promise of summer.

Since crossing the Fietherford into Queen Cleves’s territory, she has already passed many hundreds of herds of animals – sheep, cows, wild horses and the occasional centicore, spotted leaping across hilltops, using its goatlike hooves and horns to climb impossible slopes.

But this is the first time Seymour has seen any of them wearing anything manmade.

As they approach, the picture becomes even more confusing.

The donkeys’ coats appear to be full of pockets, and in each pocket sits a lamb.

The sight is so ridiculous that Clarice and Seymour can’t contain their giggles, and the whole convoy comes to a halt as guards, servants and courtiers alike crowd around to inspect the curiosity.

Seymour spots a woman in shepherd’s weeds, her red hair shorn to just below her ears so that it frames her heart-shaped face rather fetchingly.

She looks to be around Seymour’s age. Her sleeves are rolled all the way up her arms, revealing tanned muscles that speak of hard labour.

The shepherd is marching across the hill towards them, gesturing wildly.

“You’re going to scare them! Move away! Move away now!” she shouts, in a heavy accent Seymour can’t place.

The courtiers and servants move back, fearing the woman’s ire. She eyes them all, huffing her disappointment.

“What were you thinking? Have you never met a donkey before? Or a newborn creature? You could have damn well near scared them to death.”

Clarice puffs up, and Seymour can tell they’re about to say something awful like Don’t you know who we are? So she steps in front of them, spreading her hands.

“My apologies,” Seymour says. “We’ve never seen anything like it before. What is the purpose of it?”

The shepherd examines her, in a way no one other than the king has dared to since she married him. Her eyes are bright, sharp, warm.

“The lambs lost their mothers to a wolf last night. This way I can bring them to a safer place and keep them comfortable.”

“That’s ingenious,” Seymour says.

They regard each other, a strange, pulsating energy batting between them.

That’s when Seymour sees it – a brooch, a strange stone set in silver, fastened to the shepherd’s shirt.

It glitters, and in the sunlight seems to take on the colours of a bruise, or darkest sunset.

The colours of the bordweal. A sunscína , far smaller than her own.

The silence is broken by a commotion from further down the convoy – Haltrasc’s crate has tipped halfway off its wheels and Haltrasc himself is clamouring to be released.

“Whatever has got into your animal?” the shepherd says, twinkling.

A courtier undoes the crate’s lock. Haltrasc bounds past Seymour and, in two strides, each one the length of a man, leaps into the shepherd’s arms, licking her and making little mewls of pleasure.

“Get off me, you silly beast,” she says, her arms around him.

“Oh,” Clarice breathes, understanding at the same moment as Seymour.

“Queen Cleves, I presume?” Seymour says.

Cleves extracts herself from Haltrasc and approaches them, shaking Seymour’s hand in the Ezzonid fashion of greeting. Seymour tries not to stare at her bare arms.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you,” Cleves says, not sounding sorry at all. “It wasn’t my intention. I had been dressing to receive you when I heard the news about the lambs and I thought I had time to tend to them before you arrived.”

“I’m happy to take second place in your concern on this occasion,” Seymour says. “Can we help? Perhaps my household can offer you their hands as recompense for scaring your animals.”

And that’s how Seymour approaches Cnothan, Haltrasc on one side, Queen Cleves on the other and a newborn lamb clutched in her arms, all legs and fresh wool.

Cleves makes it look very easy – her lamb seems to submit willingly to her clutches.

Seymour’s, however, has its eyes on freedom, and disdains her embrace with every fibre of its being.

“You’re nervous of him, that’s why he’s not settling,” Cleves remarks as Seymour takes a hoof to the eye.

“I am not nervous of him. He’s nervous of me.”

“Imagine being scared of a lamb.” Cleves grins, then with a twist of her arms that Seymour can’t catch, switches lambs with her. The lamb that had been lying docilely in Cleves’ embrace looks up at Seymour through sleepy eyes, deems her a sufficient carriage and lays its head against her chest.

“Another trick,” Seymour says. “This is a habit of yours, I see.”

“Perhaps I enjoy watching your confusion.”

She grins at her again, then doubles over as Seymour’s old lamb kicks her in the stomach.

Cnothan is a higgledy sort of castle, set on an island hill that is attached to the mainland by a wide stone bridge.

The foundations of the castle are the oldest of any on Elben, and some of the original walls are still hewn from weathered rock.

Other wings and courtyards have been added over centuries, maybe even millennia, creating a sprawling mess of different architectural designs and shapes.

The central courtyard, sitting at the apex of the hill, is hexagonal and made of simple timber and plaster, centring around a giant pond where fish of all sizes and colours dart and ducks feed.

The suite of rooms where Seymour and her household are housed is a tower built from red brick.

Her chamber is at the very top, reached by means of an ingenious pulley system designed by Cleves herself.

“I thought you might like to see my menagerie,” Cleves says as Seymour looks out from the window.

Indeed, from here she can see exactly how Cleves has arranged every courtyard around a different animal – the fish in the pond; a lion prowling an old, dry moat; goats, chickens, griffins and dozens more, each housed to their liking within the castle grounds.

Haltrasc sets his front paws on the windowsill and eyes the courtyard containing the goats.

The chaos of Cnothan continues at dinner.

The banqueting hall is replete with beautiful dishes on wooden tables for Cleves’s human guests, but there is a parallel hall where troughs are filled for the animals.

There is none of the fashionable refinement of Boleyn’s Brynd, but despite the cacophony of noise and smells, there is a considered intelligence and taste behind everything, all bolstered by Cleves’s refusal to bow to what might be expected of her as queen.

She is, undoubtedly, just as regal as Queen Aragon, in her own way.

Perhaps it’s because she and Aragon alone were born to royalty – maybe it’s something they wear, maybe something they were taught as babes in arms, that Boleyn or Seymour could never hope to emulate.

“I’d like you to ride out with me tomorrow,” Cleves says during a lull in conversation.

“More lambs on donkeys?”

“Perhaps. There is something I wish to show you. It is far from the castle.”

Far from prying eyes and ears .

“I’m looking forward to exploring your territory,” Seymour says.

They drink to secret talks and the cover of the countryside.

Clarice wakes Seymour early.

“Queen Cleves is waiting for you,” they tell Seymour, pulling the covers from Seymour’s form. Seymour groans. She is still bleary from the long journey and the late banquet. She peers out of the window – only the merest hint of dawn mars the charcoal sky.

“Does she not require sleep?” Seymour complains.

“Now you know what it’s like for your servants,” Clarice says pointedly.

“What do you make of her?” Seymour asks them as she hauls herself out of bed and permits Clarice to pull a gown over her head.

Haltrasc mewls in his sleep from the corner of the room, and his paws tremble.

Maybe he’s dreaming of those castle goats.

Clarice laces up Seymour’s cuffs and then pulls a white paste over her hair, before pinning a black silk veil to cover the hair and neck at the back.

They pull out a plain tawny frontlet, but Seymour pulls away.

“Not that one,” she says. “That will look awful against the gown.”

Clarice gives her an odd look, before presenting her with some options.

She picks a salmon frontlet, to match her gown, and Clarice pins it to her headdress with an annoying little smirk.

Seymour stares at herself in the mirror, trying to work out if the embroidery on the frontlet is too fussy against the plain satin of her gown.

“You look beautiful,” Clarice says softly. “Go and have fun.”

The salmon gown was a mistake. Seymour realises it as soon as they leave the castle walls and Cleves nudges her horse into a gallop.

Seymour follows suit, and soon they’re pounding through puddles that spray mud up onto her legs and dress.

By the time they dismount on a hillside, the castle a doll’s house in the distance, her dress has an uneven brown hem.

Cleves’s clothes have fared little better. She is wearing a dark blue woollen dress in the Ezzonid style – it has no sleeves, so Cleves is wearing a thin white cotton blouse beneath it, with billowing sleeves that show off the silhouette of those exquisite arms.

Cleves examines the mud spattering her dress, shrugs, then pulls the hem up and hooks it to her belt at the front and back.

“I wish I’d thought to bring my own belt,” Seymour says. “I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely awake, and my servant isn’t used to dressing me for outdoor pursuits.”

“You don’t like the outside?”

“I like it well enough. But I’m not a hunter.”

Cleves begins untacking her horse, resting the saddle against an accommodating branch and hooking the bridle over it. She gives her horse a round smack on the rump, and it trots off to look for richer grass.

“I am not either. Come.”