“Charles Brandon,” she says, replacing the flutter in her chest with rock.
“Princess,” he replies, hauling himself up as though it is far too much effort to show her respect. She rolls her eyes. “If you will insist on calling me by that unimaginative, youthful nickname, you can at least bow to me.”
He does so, bowing so low over her outstretched hand that it becomes insulting once more. When he rises, he takes his time examining her body. She is suddenly keenly aware that the last time he saw her, she was a girl. No matter that she still attracts attention wherever she goes. No matter that she bathes in phoenix blood to maintain her youthful complexion. She is still a woman of thirty-five, standing before a manwho fucked her last when she was eighteen. She cannot hold back the ageing tide entirely.
She raises her chin and makes sure that he seesherexamininghimas well. He must be in his forties now, and it shows. His waist is thicker than she remembers, and those who look closely may see that his ash- brown hair is streaked with grey. He still has the same insouciant manner that renders him handsome at whatever age: an untamed stallion. One that dares the rider to mount.
“Well, well, well, Cecilia Tudor, I never thought to see you in these halls again,” he says. The mockery is familiar. When she was younger, he had teased her for being so young, for being his friend’s little sister, for trying to play on his level. But today she is equal to it.
“Charles Brandon. I really thought you would have found yourself a house of your own by now, instead of clinging to my brother’s doublet still.”
Charles laughs, showing all his teeth.
“Why would I want my own house, where I have to pay for my own food and my own servants and take responsibility for things? The horror of it.”
Cromwell coughs. “Was it me you wished to see, Your Majesty, or my learned Lord Brandon?”
Cecilia bites her lip. Cromwell is right – she has been sidetracked, and in doing so she has given Brandon power. Briefly, she wonders at the two of them being in the same space. As far as she remembers, Charles was just as clear on the proper tiers of nobility as she was, yet he seems to be waiting on the inferior man. Why?
She pulls the shard of glass from the length of blue velvet she wrapped it in, and holds it up to the light.
“I took this from Seymour before I escaped. She attempted to hide it from me. I would like you to tell me why it was so precious to her.”
For the first time since her entrance, Cromwell looks genuinely interested. He places the letter he was reading on a nearby table and approaches.
“May I?” he asks. She hands it over reluctantly.
“It isminenow,” she says as he carries it closer to the window. Brandon follows him, and the two men examine the glass.
“Fascinating,” Cromwell mutters.
“Broken glass,” Brandon says, and turns back to Cecilia. “So, my lady, what did you learn in Perfugi?”
Usually, she would entertain the man. But Cromwell is turning the shard over and over, and the more he does so, the more she feels on the precipice of something wonderful. There is something obscene about the way he is examining the piece, as though he is peering beneath a woman’s shift.
“You know what it is,” she says, side-stepping Brandon and taking the glass from Cromwell.
“I have a suspicion. You see the patina, and the curve of the surface?”
“I have noted it, yes.”
He touches it again. “And you only found the one piece?”
How dare he avoid telling her what he knows when it wasshewho did the hard work of finding it? She snatches it from his grasp. “What. Is. It?”
“I think you have found part of asunscína, Your Majesty,” he says.
Brandon snorts. “That was a tale for children, surely?”
If Cromwell responds, Cecilia doesn’t hear his words. Asunscína. She is holding ancient power. Power that is part of her very being, the way that stories told to children form the core of the adult they become. She can barely breathe.
“How can you know?” she whispers.
“The thought of them interested me for a while, so I found out all I could about them,” Cromwell says.
Brandon huffs a laugh. “You are such a little gargoyle, Cromwell, with all your books. Go hunting, man. Go fuck a woman. Or a man. Or neither. Or both.”
“Quiet,” Cecilia says.
