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CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Seymour

T here is a fine clock in Seymour’s rooms, made of gold filigree.

It was given to Queen Blount, and inherited by Seymour when she married the king.

Her rooms are full of such trinkets – heirlooms of past queens of Hyde.

As she waits in her bedchamber, she feels those queens with her.

Every one demure and proper and submissive.

They are the reason Hyde is so peaceful.

But now, as Seymour runs her hands over her strange clothes – dark trousers, linen blouse and the knife in its belt lent by Clarice, bodice from her own wardrobe – she hears their screams. By the time the clock strikes midnight, she is ready.

“Come, Haltrasc,” Seymour whispers, and the panther that had been snoozing at her feet rises silently.

Together, they slip from her rooms. The guards stationed outside are slumped against the wall, still clutching glasses drained of drugged wine.

Seymour clings to the walls as she makes her way through the palace, Haltrasc’s presence beside her a balm.

She has never navigated High Hall in the dark.

It’s the first time she has seen it so still.

The ghosts of long dead kings and courtiers feel present in every step, every curtain she brushes and every draught on the back of her neck.

Her only light comes from the crescent moon, making ladders on the floors as she moves from gallery to gallery.

The only sound is the occasional mournful pip of the songbirds of High Hall, restless in their cages even at midnight.

Down, down she goes, to the servants’ quarters at the base of the palace.

There’s a plain, unguarded door in one of the corridors that leads out to the kitchen gardens, right where Clarice told Seymour it would be.

She holds it open for Haltrasc and follows him out, propping it open with a stone for her return journey.

She had told Voda Kelaverinn about the concentric circles of the gardens of the royal palace, so familiar to her in daylight. She has never seen them in darkness. Every topiary becomes an armed guard; every whisper of wind through leaves a spy watching her.

The rotation schedule of the guards’ patrols, written in Howard’s untidy scrawl, scratches the soft skin beneath Seymour’s bodice as she approaches the first hedge.

If Howard’s memory is as remarkable as they think, Seymour should be able to slip through to the second circle without being seen.

She finds herself pulling the schedule out and checking it by moonlight, just to be sure.

She pushes the metal gate open, cursing its thin creak, then slips through and into the shelter of the fruit trees beyond.

She makes her way through the next two gates with ease, but at the fourth, one of the guards is not where they should be.

Seymour comes face to face with a young, pale face, not much older than a boy, wearing the guard’s uniform.

There’s an instant where the two of them could turn and leave, both unscathed, but then his hand twitches towards his sword and she knows what must be done.

“Haltrasc, hunt,” she says. The boy’s face turns towards the silent creature at her side, and his eyes widen as Haltrasc leaps for his throat.

Seymour had prepared herself for blood, but it’s a clean, swift kill.

What shocks Seymour is seeing the precise moment the guard’s soul is extinguished.

She used to find comfort in the idea of an afterlife, but at that moment she cannot see how there could be one.

There is no passing, no transference from one plane to another.

Only life and then, in a snap, death. She can’t honour the moment, or what it has done to her.

She must keep moving, or the same will happen to Boleyn and she will be nowhere either in this world or another. Gone, not waiting.

“Come, Haltrasc,” Seymour whispers. The panther laps at the boy’s neck a little longer, then draws back to allow her to pull her knife across the wound, eradicating the panther’s bite marks.

She turns away from her mutilation, hurrying onwards, and Haltrasc follows her, the fur around his mouth gleaming with blood in the moonlight.

Seymour forces herself to bury her fingers in his fur as they walk.

This murder is not his guilt. It is she who is the monster, she who should be feared.

They pass through the final two gates without incident, and at last reach the Tower.

There, Seymour settles against the base of one of the dragon statues, ignoring the poor stone creature’s gleaming eyes and leaning in to Haltrasc’s steady warmth to fend against the chill.

Her juddering breath makes wisps in the air; fear given form.

The scaffold where the poet was executed earlier offers them some cover.

Seymour tries not to think about the smell of copper, or the hum of flies cleaning the wood.

She distracts herself with thoughts of honeysuckle, diamonds and betrayal.

The bottom floor of the Tower is raucous, the door left open carelessly.

There are more guards than normal on night shift, no doubt due to the exalted nature of their prisoner.

Seymour can sense their excitement. By rights they should be exhausted, but their conversation is punctuated by barks of laughter.

Some of them cannot sit still, springing from their perches to peer outside, or do a jig for the amusement of their colleagues.

Seymour spots one of them make an obscene gesture with his hips, and they all look up the stairs and laugh. Her fingers tighten in Haltrasc’s fur.

As the bell in High Hall’s sanctuary chimes the first hour of the morning, a servant dressed in nondescript clothing lugs a handcart across the cobbled courtyard. On the back of the wagon is a large wooden keg.

“What’s this then?” a guard says, squaring up to the servant, towering over them.

“A gift from the king, for your service,” the servant parrots. “Ale from Lothair.”

The guards gather around the keg, laughing and patting each other on the back.

It takes six of them to haul the vessel into the Tower, while the others swagger around the servant, making crude comments.

The servant flees, dragging the empty cart behind them, and the guards jeer as they go.

Haltrasc bristles. Seymour strokes his fur. In time, panther, in time .

It takes longer than Seymour would like for the drugs to take effect.

It was easy to pluck a handful of the leaves the gardener warned her about so many moons ago, and that she has used so often on Edward.

She has become something of an expert in understanding the right dosage for slowing the mind, for inciting a gradual sleep.

She accurately measured the right amount for the guards outside her doors in the palace, but she had to guess how much it would take to knock out so many guards speedily.

The slighter ones fall first, crumpling to the ground where they stand, their tankards spilling and rolling across the floor.

The rest understand almost immediately what has happened, tossing their tankards away.

Not quickly enough, though, for all of them have drunk from the ale, and the drugs are strong.

Even as they try to wake up their comrades, they stumble, their words slurring.

Only one thinks to try to call for help.

He stumbles to the door and opens his mouth. Seymour wishes he wouldn’t.

“Haltrasc,” she says, and the panther springs across the courtyard, silencing the man for ever.

By the time Seymour has once again disguised Haltrasc’s mauling as knifework and slipped into the Tower, the heat coming from the moat and the dragon pit has turned the spilt ale into fumes.

Seymour steps between bodies, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and calls Haltrasc to join her.

The last thing she wants is for him to breathe in too much and fall asleep himself.

As she climbs the staircase, she is thankful that the rest of the Tower is empty. The prisoners inside the other cells haven’t been deemed important enough to merit their own personal guard.

Her legs are screaming by the time she reaches the penultimate floor. She can hear someone shifting above her.

“Who goes there?” a rough voice calls out.

He’s edgy and, she can tell from the movement, bulky too.

A smooth rasp tells her he’s drawn his sword.

Seymour squeezes Haltrasc’s collar. His muscles are tense, his mouth open, pulled back in a snarl.

She has never seen him with the bloodlust on him before.

He was never a pet. He was always a weapon, wild and ferocious, like Boleyn.

No, like her. Like Seymour.

They round the final spiral of the stairs together and come upon a man with a shock of red hair.

He looks so uncannily like the king that in that split second where his eyes meet hers, Seymour understands that her husband placing this man here was by design – a final, brutal taunt to Boleyn.

His surprise at seeing a woman, especially a woman dressed in hose, gives her the advantage.

She doesn’t even need to say the words now, Haltrasc is so attuned to what she needs.

He springs from her grasp. But this guard is armed, and he raises his sword at the last moment.

“No!” Seymour shouts, springing forward to throw herself on his arm. She reaches him just in time to drive his sword upwards and out of his hand, giving Haltrasc the opening he needs to thrust the man to the floor and pin him there. Haltrasc bares his teeth.

“Wait,” she says. With infinite self-control, the panther stops and looks at her, his claws digging into the man’s neck and arm.