“No, but I worship one,” Howard manages to say. She dare not look at the others; if she looks away from Culpepper, she may miss a hint of any deception.
“And I worship one also,” Culpepper says. He is as earnest as he was when he brought her that wine on the day of the dragon-baiting.
“How long have you known?” Howard asks. There is no point in pretending any more. All that she can do is to work out whether he is truly loyal to her.
“Guess,” he says, cocking his head.
She thinks back to the moment in the courtyard outside her wing at High Hall, when she sought to help Boleyn escape. He certainly did not know then. He was even churlish at her demands. But he knew by the time Henry brought him to Plythe. She decides to flatter him: “Not long after our first meeting.”
He beams. “So you do remember me.”
“Of course I do.”
He stands, evidently deciding that it is safe to do so. For an instant, he is a little too close to her, and he seems to realise it because he steps back, out of her space. He still has not looked at any of her companions.
“I heard rumours about the Moon Ball a few days after the trouble at Brynd, and could not rest until I had unearthed the truth,” he says.
“Who else knows?”
He shrugs. “I dared not ask for the very same reasons I assume you dared not ask me.” He swallows, as if he doesn’t want her to see how hurt he is over her distrust.
She tries to see the situation through the eyes of her fellow queens, to understand what she should do next, but she cannot think herself into their heads. She cannot imagine any of them finding themselves here: for the only one of them brave enough to help Boleyn the way she did, all those moons ago, is Seymour. Yet Seymour would never have surrounded herself as Howard has surrounded herself. If Howard is to see a way forward, she must do it through her own eyes, with her own wit.
“Do you pledge yourself to me?” she asks Culpepper.
“You have my whole life,” he says. He gives the promise lightly. She tries not to judge him for it: who but she can know the struggle of finding the right words?
“Charge me with any task,” he says.
He is asking for a test, not a task. Such a request is unlikely to comfort her: she knows all about tests and passing them with a disloyal heart. The air is oppressive. Too many are watching her.
“You have the king’s ear?” she says.
“I have his favour, and that is the same thing.”
It is not. She should know.
“I want you to find out where the Moon Ball is going to be held,” she says. It is the only information she can think of that will help them without giving away more to Culpepper than she is comfortable doing.
He bows. “Consider it done.”
He leaves without a single glance at any of the others. Not even Legh, who he previously treated as an intimate.
They all of them wait until they can no longer hear his boots.
“Do you trust him?” Lady Tylney says.
“I do not know,” Howard replies. She looks down at her hands. The glimmer of the bordweal light has vanished. She cannot help but feel as though something has been stolen from her: she should be elated,but all she can feel is doubt. A reckoning is coming, and she must know who is truly on her side.
That night, Howard climbs into bed beside Legh. It is as if they are children again, girls of ten and eight, inseparable in their shared loneliness. Legh stirs and turns, still half asleep, to face Howard.
“Wake up, sister,” Howard whispers. She squeezes Legh’s arm.
“Howard?” Legh mumbles.
“I wish to talk to you.”
At first, she thinks Legh has fallen asleep again, but then she sits upright with a start, almost toppling Howard out of the bed.
