“You are safe, Howard,” he whispers. “You are safe. You are safe.”
She says, her voice very thin, “I’m sorry. I don’t know … I just can’t.”
“Let us simply hold each other, if that is what you would prefer.”
He pulls the blanket from the mattress and wraps it around her trembling shoulders. He kneels in front of her.
“You do not owe me anything, Katheryn, just as I owe you nothing but my respect. You can make all the promises in the world, but some promises must be broken.”
Howard frowns. “It’s not that I don’t desire you. I do. I want to …” Warmth creeps up her neck. “I want to feel you inside me. But …”
“It is all right,” he says again, smiling up at her. “We are safe together. You taught me that.”
She holds up a hand, and Florin presses his palm against hers.
“Tell me again,” she says.
“You are safe. You are safe. You are safe.”
She kisses him again, shrugging the blanket from her shoulders so that he almost topples backwards. She straddles him as he kneels on the floor, tangling her hands in his lovely curls.
“Keep saying it,” she whispers.
“You are safe, my queen.”
Their words are not poetry, full of shifting meanings and hidden mires. Their language is solid; firm, open ground like the hills ofPlythe. She guides his hand to her breast, where his finger flicks across a nipple. Pleasure shoots through her, from breast to belly to groin.
“You are safe too,” she says, running her hands over his chest.
“You are safe,” he says, as she moves his hand down to dive beneath her shift. She does not want him to stop, but she must test him one last time. She must have one final proof that this night will not crack her further.
“No,” she says, and he stops, his hand darting back immediately.
She moves his hose so she can see his hardness, and this time she locks eyes with him as she grasps him.
“You are safe,” he says.
“And you are safe,” she replies. They press their foreheads together as she guides him inside her. They stay still like that for a while, simply feeling the closeness of the other. As they begin to move, Howard marvels, light-headed. She never thought she could be aroused by a man who could control himself with her, but she has never been more aroused.This, she thinks, as she lets thought fly away,is true coupling. The night is full of the words of power.Noandyesare handed back and forth between them like a needle, passing a thread through their wounds.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Cleves
They leave Seymour’s tent at dawn, just as the rest of the camp is awakening. The first test will be whether the guards at High Hall’s gates will permit them through. They go separately, so that if one of them is caught, the plan can continue. Guards line the perimeter walls, more than she has ever seen at High Hall.
Praying that Seymour manages to slip in behind her, Cleves makes her way towards the gate where the extra servants – those recruited outside High Hall to service the needs of the thousands of guests – are being given directions. A harried-looking man, officious but not unpleasant, stands on a podium clutching a long parchment and a quill, ticking off tasks as he assigns them. Cleves joins the queue of workers. Elben and its queues. She sighs. The person in front of her, a Feorwan sailor from the look of their cap and sandy hair, turns to her and grins. “What we do for a bit of coin, eh?” they say.
Cleves grunts in agreement, then chances a bit of conversation, masking her accent. “And a sight of the king, don’t forget.”
It is the Feorwan’s turn to grunt now. They turn away, evidently deciding that someone loyal to the monarch of Elben is not worth further conversation. Cleves’s heart beats with strange optimism. The Feorwans will make for good allies if they can be promised some independence. If Cleves harboured any doubts about weakening Elben’s power in the wake of their presumed victory, those doubts are ebbing away. Theirs will be a different kind of might; one based in freedom, not control.
Oh no. She is becoming idealistic.
The Feorwan is assigned to latrine duty, and steps aside with a grimace. Cleves almost gives them a look of sympathy, for she has no doubt the task is mired in prejudice, but she cannot risk her own role. She bobs a curtsey to the foreman.
“What are your skills?” he says, peering at her over his glasses.
She bobs once more for good measure. “I can carry a good weight,” she says.
