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At that very moment, the herald announces Cleves.

What follows is the most unusual procession Brynd has ever seen.

A variety of animals – dogs, lap dragons, ferrets and pigs, each one wearing cotton coats bearing Cleves’s arms – enters in two lines, scattering the more squeamish nobility and servants as they take their places in the centre of the chamber.

Then the woman herself – her red hair offsetting her green dress.

Mary would consider the garment plain, but Boleyn can see that it’s cut to fit her figure perfectly.

“Well, sister,” she says, taking Boleyn’s hand. “I did warn you about the animals.”

“You did,” Boleyn replies. “Although I wasn’t expecting quite so many of them. Or for them to invade the castle.”

“Is it a problem?” she asks. Her smile is beatific, but the message is clear: if you want my help, you had better put up with my ways.

“Not at all. They’ll be better behaved than many of my own household.”

Cleves moves on. Boleyn watches Seymour’s eyes fixed on her as she leaves. Well , Boleyn thinks, she has a weakness for headstrong women, that’s for certain.

Princess Tudor arrives on the eve of the ball.

Boleyn tries to engage her in friendly conversation, but she has been schooled in her behaviour and withstands all Boleyn’s attempts with icy cordiality.

Like Queen Parr, she keeps to her rooms and offers only the briefest of greetings.

Boleyn wants to push the matter, but there is so much to do.

She must make sure all the flowers are fresh, ensure the fireworks are set just so.

Wyatt remains beside her through it all, although they barely speak to each other.

She still hasn’t told him her true aims, and she feels Mary’s judgement like a weight whenever they are together.

Before Boleyn can draw breath, it is the night of the Moon Ball.

More guests flood in from Pilvreen and Garclyffe.

Every room from Brynd to the Holtwode has been let to visitors come to enjoy the entertainment or ply their wares.

Yet Henry still tarries at High Hall. Boleyn does not know whether to be grateful for the reprieve or concerned about what his absence might mean.

“You cannot think on it now,” Seymour says when she voices her concerns. “You must go and host.”

The night begins in the banqueting hall, where six tables are piled high with food brought from across Boleyn’s territory.

At each table, a queen or princess holds court.

It was Mary’s idea – a way for Boleyn to see which queens are most popular before they each retire to change into their finest gowns and the entertainment begins in earnest. Princess Tudor and Queen Parr are besieged.

Boleyn spears a capon and bites into it, watching the princess deftly converse with both Wolsey and More while still making the lesser nobility at her table feel included.

“I must check on the final arrangements,” she says to her table.

Outside, the bustle of the preparations has died down, with most of the workers gone to the kitchens for their supper.

A stray wyvern drifts over the winter lavender, its belly teasing the white flowers, only visible in the darkness from the soft glow emanating from its full, hot stomach.

Boleyn runs through the gardens, seeking the sound and smell of the sea.

She finds it on a promontory, sheltered from the view of the castle’s windows by a line of ancient trees.

The water is her only witness. The sounds of the festivities are muted, ceding to the ocean’s roiling pendulum.

Hand on her chest, Boleyn takes gulping breaths.

She watches the glimmer of the bordweal – the goddess’s protection, not Cernunnos’s – play across the dark horizon.

A dart of blue green purple like a fish flitting through waves.

“Your Majesty? Boleyn?” a voice says. Wyatt.

She senses him approaching her slowly.

“What’s this?” he says, the taunt evident in his voice. “Queen Boleyn frightened?”

“If you knew what I’m about to do you wouldn’t tease me for being frightened. You’d be on your knees with terror.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t know then.”

She turns, and finds him right there, looking down at her with reverence, the warmth of his body radiating through the layers of her clothing and sinking into her skin.

“I’ve drawn you into a net. You should know what that net is before it closes over your head.”

“Too late.”

“It’s not,” she whispers. “You can flee now before the king arrives.”

“Is that an order? Because I’m not leaving your side again unless you tell me to.”

He hooks his little finger, coarse and ink-spotted, around hers, the one on which she wears her wedding ring.

“I’ll swear on it if you wish,” he says.

“I’m dangerous, Thomas.”

The wind whips her words into the air, where they whisk between and around them. Wyatt smiles ruefully.

“Oh, I know. I don’t care. I love you, Boleyn. I love you as the anvil loves the hammer, as the rocks love the waves and the leaves love the autumn. You are destruction and promise. You are the storm, and I have been lost in your tornado for so long now that I no longer desire the sun.”

She closes the short distance between them, pressing her lips to his.

His arms wrap around her waist, crushing her to him as she curls her fingers in his hair.

Not because she loves him – there is only one man she has ever loved – but because he is the only man who has ever wanted her without trying to consume her.

She rips his doublet open and releases the shirt tucked into his hose, running her hands over his bare chest. He gasps as she rakes her fingernails over his skin.

“Permit me to undo your bodice,” he whispers into her hair.

“Yes.”

With trembling fingers he undoes the laces binding her, and tugs the gown over her head so that she stands before him in her shift.

“Permit me to set your hair free,” he says.

“Yes.”

He unclips her hood, then runs his fingers through her locks. She turns her face up to kiss him again, slowly this time, her hunger aching and bone deep.

“Permit me to look upon you,” he says, running a hand over the bandages that cover her ribs and arm.

She pulls the shift over her frame. Wyatt holds her in one arm, lending her his warmth, and with the other he unwinds the bandages. When she is naked, he says nothing.

“Will you be writing poems about me now, Master Wyatt?”

Wyatt smiles. “There is no need, my queen. We poets are truth-hunters, words our arrows. Why would I write a poem when you have given me the gift of perfect truth?”

He kisses her again but makes no attempt to do more.

“Don’t you want me?” she asks.

Wyatt presses himself against her with a laugh. “Can’t you feel the answer to that? Yes, my queen, my heart, my life, but I will not ask for more until you are free to give it.”

It is his final penance for their first meeting, and she thinks she could, one day, do more than lust for him.

She reaches around his neck and presses herself against his bare chest. He holds her there, one hand tangled in her hair, one around her waist, and they are so still that the clamour of their hearts is their only movement.

Through the fog of their contemplation, Boleyn hears hooves in the distance.

In silence, they break apart, and Wyatt helps Boleyn into her gown, lacing up her bodice, tucking an errant strand of hair inside her hood, his fingers lingering on her skin.

A voice calls out, “The king! The king is here!”

Boleyn buttons up Wyatt’s doublet, then pulls his forehead to hers. Once this is done. Once she is free. She leaves him on that promontory, striding through the trees towards the castle. She does not look back.

The king is here, and the game has begun.