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CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Boleyn

T here is a moment, before every storm, where the clouds seem to gather, and pause, and take stock.

As though the lightning is choosing where to strike, or the rain where to feed with water.

The destruction and the feeding – the two are one.

Wyatt told Boleyn that she is the storm, but here in the hall, with the feeling of the sparks and the ringing final note of the harpsichord still prickling her skin, she knows that she is not.

Henry is the storm, and it is now only a matter of who he will destroy, and who he will elevate.

The silence that follows the dance is bloated with threat.

Boleyn, for the first time in her life, is frozen.

But if she does not act now, then Henry will.

He will crush her right here in her own castle, and with her all hope of persuading the other queens to unite.

She must do something, before Henry’s rage erupts into action.

“Play on!” she commands, clapping her hands towards the musicians in the gallery.

Syndony drags the fallen guards out of sight.

George, pale and stiff with revelation, clicks his fingers at the waiting servants and more food is carried in: platters of honeydragon meat, cured in sugar; mountains of oysters dripping in seaweed-green butter; cornucopias of fruits from every corner of the world.

The acrobats who had been queens change costumes and continue to amaze the crowds.

Gradually, the conversation bleeds once more, and with it Henry’s opportunity to take immediate action against her.

But Henry is no longer trying to conceal his anger.

He glares at anyone but her from the other side of the hall.

Boleyn knows that there is nothing she can say or do to contain it fully.

The only power she has is to protect herself and those she loves for a little longer.

Seymour plays the part of docile idiot so capably that Boleyn thinks he will believe her when she proclaims her innocence.

Cleves knows how to play the game as well – the ever-jovial queen who bends and sways with whatever takes her fancy.

Henry will not perceive her as a threat. Boleyn likes her immensely.

There are two who she fears for though. Howard flutters through the hall, aware of what she has done and what she is risking, but not capable of hiding her nerves.

She is truly the bird freed from its cage, not knowing how to find sustenance, singing a broken song to the wind.

And Wyatt. She thought she had concealed her plans from him well enough to protect him, but of course he suspected.

How could he not, knowing her as he does?

He shouldn’t have persuaded Parr to join the dance.

Henry won’t like that at all. What is more humiliating: his wives joining forces against him or a lower-born man helping them, with all the familiarity that implies?

Unable to do anything else for now, Boleyn must continue her own performance.

She keeps a hand lightly on her stomach, a physical reminder that she is protected, for even a rebellious queen cannot be harmed if she is carrying a baby who might be an heir who will in time find his own six consorts to leach.

She tries to ignore the guards that shadow her and the other queens.

She turns away from the whispers of “ Witch ” that shimmer around the hall.

At the end of the night, as the guests retire to their rooms, the musicians strike up one final melody.

“Shall we dance, Boleyn?” Henry says behind her, making her jump.

“Of course, my love,” Boleyn says, allowing him to lead her into the centre of the floor.

The song is a slow, mournful tune, perfect for the end of an evening, when tired feet won’t keep up with lively minds and conversation. The flute holds the tune with a harmony that soars above the other instruments.

“I find myself in a conundrum,” Henry says eventually, one hand on Boleyn’s waist, the other gently playing with her hair.

“Oh?”

“Will you help me to find a solution? You have always been so concerned with protecting Elben.”

Boleyn’s body prickles with unwanted desire.

She doesn’t understand how she can still want him so badly, when she knows what he is, and how he’s betrayed her.

How even now she can recognise the game he’s playing and want to play it with him.

But that has always been their way: a love affair founded in games and chases.

It has always been what they’ve both thrived on.

It’s what makes them the perfect match, and the perfect opponents.

“If you’re not beyond help, my love, then I will always help you.”

Henry laughs, low and, in his own broken way, loving.

“Oh, Boleyn. I think you’ve made my decision for me. I was wondering which of my wives to visit tonight. But you always know just what to say to bring me back to you.”

From that moment on, it is the perfect night.

Boleyn lets herself forget everything that has happened, and everything that will happen.

They say goodnight to their guests. Boleyn ignores the way Wyatt turns away from her, and the way Mary squeezes her arm as she passes.

Princess Tudor watches with steely eyes, and Boleyn forces herself to forget what Aragon said, and what this must seem like to her.

She ignores Seymour’s lost gaze and tells herself that the way Cleves spent the evening looking at her is solace enough.

Halfway up the stairs to her chamber, she stops Henry and presses him against the wall.

She kisses him, partly because she wants so desperately to have one final tryst with the man she thought he was before he destroys her.

He does not respond at first. Perhaps she humiliated him too thoroughly for even one last night of pleasure.

Then he lifts her, swinging them around and up a step, almost toppling down the spiral as she wraps her legs around his hips and lets him crush her against the stone.

There is no softening, no gentle touching, no easing.

By the time they reach her chamber he is already inside her.

Their rage and betrayal is wrapped up in the blind passion of their coupling, the line between love and punishment irrevocably blurred.

It is, in its own painful way, blissful.

She can still surprise him. She can still hold his attention.

The morning begins bright and hot, the sun’s scorching rays waking Boleyn far earlier than normal.

Or maybe it isn’t the sun, but the noise.

A soft, mouselike scuffling. Boleyn turns over in bed, reaching for Henry’s body, only to find his space empty.

For a moment, she thinks she must have dreamed last night.

Then she understands what the noise must be.

She sits up in bed, blinking her eyes open against grit.

Henry is staring at her. He is rigid, and in his hands is the little glass bottle Syndony had given her to stop her courses.

“Pregnant with my son still?” Henry says, ever so quietly.

Boleyn pulls the bedsheets over her shift.

“How did you find that?”

“A little bird, humble, loyal and true.”

She immediately thinks of Rochford and her quiet watchfulness. Henry turns away, sniffing. There is nothing Boleyn can say. No trick to make this deception right. Even a shield wielded against someone who would kill you can be inexcusable.

Henry laughs. “My clever wife. The queens of Brynd always were too clever for their own good.”

“I had to,” Boleyn whispers.

“I would have given you everything.”

“Everything except my health, my life, Elizabeth’s rightful place.”

He stares at her, then with a movement fuelled by the strength of his betrayal, hurls the glass bottle at the bedstead above her head. The bottle shatters behind her, filling her hair, her neck, with needle shards, the dregs of the liquid staining her pillow purple.

“This is the way things are, Boleyn. I did not make these rules.” His handsome face is red with tension.

“It is not your power to wield, Henry. It is mine .”

“I chose you for Brynd. Without me, you and your family would be nothing,” he says.

“Have you always known the truth?” Boleyn asks.

Henry paces to the fire and back to the door before answering. “No,” he admits. “My father told me after Arthur died.”

Boleyn might have understood if he had been raised from infancy understanding the lie. But he would have been eleven when he was told. Old enough, clever enough, to know it was wrong. “And you did not care?” Boleyn hisses.

“It’s just the way it is, Boleyn.” Henry is agitated again, one moment almost beseeching her, the next furious. “Your goddess was defeated long ago. I merely follow my father’s legacy and his father’s before him. I never mistreated you, Boleyn. I loved you. And you repay me with betrayal.”

She clambers out of bed, dragging the sheets with her, ignoring the glass prickling the soles of her feet. “I loved you, Henry! And you repay me by lying to me, by killing me slowly!”

She discards the bedsheet, pulls her shift over her head and rips the bandages from her ribcage and arm, revealing the ugly, wizened patches of skin beneath.

“You call this love, Henry?” she hisses. “Because I don’t.”

Henry steps back, appalled at the sight of what he has done to her. His mouth twists in disgust, briefly but unmistakably. And even as she recognises the cruelty of that reaction, she can’t help but feel the sting of rejection.

“You did this, Henry. You knew what would happen to me and you went to war anyway.”

“You told me to.”

“I didn’t know it would kill me.”

“You didn’t mind hundreds of my soldiers dying. You didn’t mind risking my life,” he says.

“They and you had a choice. How can you not see the difference?”

But even as she says it, she wonders, is there a difference? Her thoughts, usually so clear, are twisting.

“We all sacrifice something, Boleyn,” Henry says. “I’m sorry that you don’t think me worthy of yours.”

He marches from the room, slamming the door, leaving Boleyn skewered. A few moments later, she hears the sound of hooves thundering out of Brynd’s courtyard.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there before Syndony enters.

All she knows is that the sun has moved across the sky so that she is standing in a pool of heat, utterly naked.

Syndony cleans around her, sweeping the glass from the floor and stripping the bed.

Then she turns her attention to Boleyn, picking each shard from her neck and hair with gentle hands.

“Something spectacular today, Your Majesty?” she asks her.

“Something spectacular,” Boleyn echoes. As the meaning of Syndony’s words sinks in, Boleyn knows exactly what she wants to wear when she leaves the safety of her bedchamber and descends the stairs.

Syndony follows Boleyn’s directions without comment, fastening the undergown around her ribs and hoisting the heavy overgown – its impossible train filling the room – over her frame.

The sleeves come next, the blood red velvet already warm from the sun.

And lastly, the coronet over loose hair.

“A true queen,” she says when she’s finished.

“I wonder if I could ask one last favour of you, Syndony,” Boleyn says.

“Of course.”

“I need you to get a message to the other queens.”

Boleyn whispers the message to her. “Quickly, and try not to let anyone see you.”

Syndony slips from the room, and Boleyn looks at herself in the mirror, squaring her shoulders against what is about to happen.

She had been blind to it on her wedding day, but the dress was too much after all. Fifty yards of scarlet fabric, to prove a point to people whose opinion really didn’t matter. Not done for herself, but to set herself apart from women like Seymour, like Cleves and Howard. To what end?

“Ridiculous,” she whispers.

The door feels heavier than normal as she pulls it open, as though it wants to protect her a little longer from what awaits her. But she is ready. She has set in motion the most important matter. Everything else must flow from that.

The banqueting hall is full, but Henry is nowhere to be seen. In fact, there is only one face in the mass of bodies there that Boleyn recognises. Wolsey stands at the head of a group of guards, every one of them impassive in the face of her magnificence.

“Lady Boleyn,” Wolsey says, as soon as she appears, his nasal voice ringing through the hall and into the corridors nearby. “I must arrest you for conspiracy to treason against His Majesty King Henry, and against the kingdom of Elben.”

As the guards step forward to manhandle Boleyn out of her palace, she looks towards the sea. The sun blazes down on her face. The storm has begun, and the lightning has chosen where to strike first.