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CHAPTER SEVEN

Boleyn

I t amazes Boleyn how quickly the two of them – people who delight in surprise – fall into a routine.

They break their fast together, discussing the reports that have reached Brynd overnight from Henry’s spies across the kingdom and abroad, then they go hunting with Boleyn’s family through the orchards and woods around Brynd.

Boleyn’s hunting dragons, their bellies and wings mottled green to blend with the trees, whisk above the treetops in search of unsuspecting prey.

Their afternoons are given to strategy or games.

These are the times that Boleyn treasures the most, even more than their nights together.

These times show her that Henry trusts her mind.

That she is more than the wife and broodmare lesser men might take her for.

She knows it cannot last for ever. Henry has matters of state to attend to.

He must visit his other queens. More than both, he has a war to wage against Alpich.

But she thinks she might keep him with her for a fortnight at least. Yet only six days after their wedding, a messenger gallops over Brynd’s drawbridge and rips through the idyll.

“Something has happened,” Boleyn says from her viewpoint closest to the window.

She returns her bread to its plate, still smothered in sage butter, and discards a report on the hunting of a crone in the Holtwode.

Henry doesn’t look up from his book. “It’s probably my sister Cecilia making a nuisance of herself again. ”

“I think not, my love,” Boleyn says. She tells Syndony to fetch those advisors who are still loitering at Brynd: Lord Wolsey and Cromwell.

She likes neither of them but knows that they are men who won’t suffer exclusion from important discussions.

She wonders whether she should tell Syndony to retrieve a map of Alpich’s terrain as well, for it seems likely that the news is about the war.

“It’s Hyde,” Henry tells her when he reads the messenger’s letter.

“You told me the rumours were false,” Boleyn says, thinking both of the rumours of an ailing Queen Blount and the Gkontai ships that are supposedly amassing beyond the bordweal, in the Agassa Ocean.

“They were. They’re not any more.”

“Blount…?”

“The physicians are worried.”

Boleyn goes to him. He may not love Blount as he loves her, but she knows he’s fond of the Queen of Hyde.

“So the vultures are amassing,” she says.

“A dozen ships and twice as many war dragons, bearing the Lothairian crest.”

“Lothair? Surely they know they cannot match our strength.”

The kingdom of Lothair, nestled in the middle of Quisto’s empire, is perpetually bankrupt and passively bitter.

Boleyn pores over the report, trying to find Lothair’s motive.

Syndony shows Wolsey and Cromwell into the room, and a moment later fortifying wine and cheese are laid out for them.

When the servants are gone, Henry tells his advisors what has happened.

“It must be Quisto,” Cromwell says immediately, holding a pair of reading glasses to his eyes as he peruses the messenger’s letter.

“You suspect they are funding Lothair?” Henry says.

Lord Wolsey casts a dark look at Cromwell. “I cannot think that Queen Aragon’s family would cause aggression against Elben. They wouldn’t undermine her so.”

Cromwell spreads his hands and bows his head reverently towards the older man. “With every respect towards the Queen of Daven, Quisto knows that her usefulness to them has faded given her inability to provide the king with an heir.”

“But to organise an attack upon us – what possible good could that do?” Wolsey says.

“The trade deal with Capetia,” Henry says.

Wolsey shakes his head, fretting at the rings on his fingers. “It’s not announced yet. They don’t know about it.”

“Are you certain about that?” Boleyn says from her place at the window.

The men look at her in surprise. This is the first opportunity she’s had to attend such a meeting.

Henry may know that she’s more than equal to such discussions, but the others don’t.

She joins them at the table and sits, spreading her hands across the wood.

“My father makes it his business to know about such deals before they are announced. Surely you are not naive enough to believe that Quisto don’t have equally astute representatives within our court, Lord Wolsey?”

Wolsey flushes. Cromwell, smiling gently, intervenes. “Your father is an excellent ambassador, Your Majesty. I do not think that he has a match. However, perhaps Her Majesty is right, Lord Wolsey, and our news has found its way to Quisto before we are ready?”

And therein, Boleyn thinks, lies the difference between the two men.

Wolsey was once as careful as Cromwell in his dealings with anyone of power.

But the ageing lord has now turned into one of the men he once sought to manipulate.

Boleyn will enjoy seeing whether Cromwell goes the same way, if he continues to rise through the ranks.

She continues: “Let us consider. Quisto hears that Capetia is about to sign a trade deal with us that places Quisto at a disadvantage. They know that their influence with Henry is waning, but they cannot afford to lose the use of Elben’s ports, sitting as we do in the middle of their empire.”

“We sit in the middle of many empires,” Wolsey says. “Who’s to say that Capetia is not behind this move, and is using the trade deal to mask their involvement?”

Boleyn frowns at Wolsey. She knew he favoured Queen Aragon and Quisto, but not to this extent. Why is he so eager to lay the blame with others?

“Lothair relies on trade at its ports to survive, given its land has little of value,” she says.

“But it is overshadowed by Elben and Perfugi. It has little to offer, and little to threaten. There can be no doubt that if any nation were to be its puppet master, that nation would be Quisto. Quisto could absorb Lothair into its empire in a matter of weeks, should it choose to. So why does it not choose to?”

“They see Lothair as a useful tool,” Henry says, reaching to take her hand.

“Exactly, my love. They can make Lothair play their more unsavoury games. If Quisto funds Lothair to attack the bordweal in anticipation of Queen Blount’s passing, then Quisto can deny its involvement.”

Cromwell addresses Henry. “If you remember, Your Majesty, I showed you reports of Quisto breeding several large dragons in their eastern provinces. I did not think it so strange at the time – of course Quisto has always valued brawn – but Lothair is not known for its large dragons. Their native breed is slenderer and more suited to hunting if I recall correctly. I did raise a mild concern at the time.”

“So you did,” Henry laughs. “Wolsey dismissed you then as well, didn’t you, friend? Do we think that those war dragons are Quistoan, then?”

Wolsey straightens in his seat and purses his lips. “I can see where this is going, Your Majesty. If Lord Cromwell is correct, then I will of course admit my folly. I merely wish to be certain where the blame lies before starting a war with an empire that we cannot, to be frank, hope to defeat.”

“Do you have so little faith, my lord?” Henry says. His free hand – the one not holding Boleyn’s – is flat on the table. He presses it to the oak, his skin blanching. The divine magic shimmers down his arm, and a moment later the wood cracks, splinters rising like ice around his fingers.

In the silence that follows, Boleyn inhales the earthy bloom of magic. She cannot stop staring at the cracked wood, and thinking of her husband’s strength and power. She wants that power inside her, urgently.

“You should destroy them, my love,” she says.

Wolsey and Cromwell look at each other in alarm. “Your Majesty, we are already at war with Alpich. It would be unwise to stretch ourselves on two fronts,” Cromwell says.

“The last thing we need is to antagonise Quisto when the bordweal is weakened,” Wolsey adds.

“It wouldn’t be antagonising Quisto,” Boleyn says, her eyes never leaving Henry’s.

“Just as they are using Lothair to mask their involvement, we can claim that we are merely attacking Lothair, not Quisto,” Henry says.

Boleyn shifts closer to him. “Exactly. And Lothair is small and weak. We – you – are strong.”

Henry pulls her onto his lap. “I will destroy their ships, and when I have done so I will take our fleet and sail to Lothair and wage swift war on them.”

“It will send a message to Quisto that we should not be underestimated,” she says, running a hand down his chest.

“And with Lothair ours, it will be the start of the Elbenese empire,” Henry says into her ear. Then he pulls back, doubt clouding his features. “Do you wish this, Boleyn? It will be a sacrifice for you, too. And with Blount sick…”

She leans her forehead against his.

“I will hold the bordweal while you are gone, my love. If I have to sacrifice all of Brynd to Cernunnos, if I have to fasten myself to the spirit stone every hour of your absence, I will hold it.”

Henry claims her mouth with his. She is barely aware of Cromwell and Wolsey leaving the room.

Henry leaves for the east coast the next morning.

From the port of Garclyffe to the villages that nestle in the shade of the Hyfostelle Mountains and further south to the fairy reeds of the Fietherford, the call goes out for men to join the glorious war.

The nobility of Elben compete to see who can send the most fighting bodies.

The greatest recruiter of all is Henry himself, his youth eternal, his power undeniable. All believe, though none say it, that some of the king’s divine magic might be shared with them. That they, too, might become more than mere men if they join his cause.

Brynd feels empty without him, despite the efforts of Boleyn’s siblings.

In only a few weeks, they transform the castle.

As Henry sets sail in his royal warship, George fills the dank hallways with candles and bunches of dried flowers.

The faded cornicing in the banqueting hall is painted bright blue to match the garlands of fabric that fall from the minstrels’ gallery and the rugs strewn across the stone floors.

Every fireplace is lit at dawn, every table adorned with piles of iced wafers.

As the Elbenese warships rain cannons upon Lothair’s fleet, Mark goes into Pilvreen and trawls the port of Garclyffe, returning to Brynd with musicians ready to fill the castle with folk songs.

As what remains of Lothair’s navy turns tail and attempts to sail back to safety, Mary commissions artists to replace mould-ridden portraits and rusted metalwork.

Rochford, who shares Boleyn’s love of finely illustrated manuscripts, takes it upon herself to oversee the restocking of Brynd’s library.

But for all Boleyn’s promises to hold the bordweal with the strength of dragons, she finds herself uncommonly tired. There are few days where she can rouse herself from bed before midday.

“He is still alive,” Mary says, unusually sharply, from her vigil at Boleyn’s bedside.

“It’s not because of that,” Boleyn says. Why must Mary always compare her grief with others’ feelings?

“Then why this lethargy, B.? It makes you very tiresome.”

Boleyn forces herself out of bed, even though she feels as though her ankles are in chains.

It is not until Boleyn receives word that the Lothairian warships have been destroyed that she understands what is happening to her.

She and George climb up to the very top of the lightning tower, where they sip on mulled wine and stare out over the clear sky and still sea.

A quiet celebration. A justification of Boleyn’s strategy.

“And look, a new moon,” George says, pointing up at the orb. It is fitting , she thinks. And then she thinks, My course should have begun by this moon . And then she knows.

“I am with child,” she says unthinkingly, because the realisation is too great to hold inside herself.

Once she says it, though, she is glad that it is to George.

Henry would have been too overjoyed. Mary would have fussed and grown all terse.

George’s eyes widen, and he turns to her fully, a smile brimming.

“Are you happy?” he says.

She laughs. “Yes. Yes.” She has energy for the first time in weeks. She grabs George’s hands and together they jump like children around the silent tower. When they are out of breath, he envelops her in his arms.

“I warn you, I am going to be a very irresponsible uncle,” he says, his head next to hers.

“I actively encourage you to be. He will need some irresponsibility in his life.”

George pulls back, takes her by the shoulders. “If anyone can guarantee a boy through sheer force of will, I do believe it is you, Boleyn. But—”

Boleyn kisses him on the cheek. “Do not grow serious, brother. It doesn’t suit you.”

He accepts the diversion. She understands him, but she is not yet ready for the wave that she can already feel on the horizon of her thoughts.

Soon a thousand worries will crash over her: what if she is mistaken?

When should she tell Henry? When should she tell others?

What if it is not a boy? What if she loses it?

For now, she wants to rest in the pool of contentment.

There is one concern, though, that she must address now. “You’re not angry, or sad, or…?”

“Jealous?” George finishes for her. He cups her cheek lightly. “Do not worry about us, sister. If Rochford has a babe, we will be happy. If she does not, we will be happy, just the three of us. We do not need anyone else.”

“You always were my favourite brother,” she says. It’s an old jest, always certain to make him laugh.

They lean on the tower battlements, side by side.

“And you were always my favourite sister,” he says quietly.

In the still triumph of that night, a pulse in her womb, real or imagined, everything is perfect.