“Hmm.” He looks her over, his eyes lingering on the shadow of her arm muscles. The man nods. “Very well. Report to the kitchens.”
Close enough. She will be able to slip into the maze of servant passageways easily from there, and they will be so busy that her absence should not be noticed for some time.
She keeps her eyes on the ground as she walks back along the line, only glancing up to note Seymour joining the back of the queue. Their eyes lock for the briefest of moments, and Cleves’s hand brushes against Seymour’s as she passes.
As she makes her way towards the door to the servants’ entrance, she notes the colours of their tunics, indicating which queen they serve. Blue, white and gold. Aragon, Parr and Howard. They are all inside. The first part of their plan is in place.
The kitchens that serve the king and his guests stretch across the centre of the palace, with vents out to courtyards at each corner to allow smoke and smells to escape. The scent of roasting meat and bubbling gravy is overpowering. For the next few hours Cleves is occupied wholly in her new work, hefting bags of grain and fruit from pantries to the different cooks at their stations. She welcomes the distraction. As the light outside dims and the first fireworks are released, turning the night sky into a garden of many coloured blooms, the head cook shouts, “Places!” and the servants who will be ferrying dishes to the banqueting hall line up. Cleves ducks behind them and into one of the passageways leading to the wine cellars.
She has rehearsed the directions in her head a thousand times, but she still wishes she had Howard’s memory as she makes her way through the twisting servants’ staircases which lead up, up to the hall. When she hears the roar of the guests’ conversation and the music of the entertainment, she breathes easily once more. She keeps herhead down, stepping neatly to one side whenever she crosses paths with another servant, acting as though they are both far too busy with whatever work they are doing to question each other.
There is a nook at the top of the hall, behind and to one side of the minstrels’ gallery, which is full of musicians. They play a royal tune: an Elbenese tune by an Elbenese composer. From this position, she can look down to the top table at the opposite end of the hall. There is Henry, sitting in the middle of a long line of subservient women. Cleves’s eyes skate along them. At the last Moon Ball, each queen hosted her own table. This year Henry’s dominance is asserted. There is Parr at one end, and Aragon at the other in her wheelchair, Princess Tudor by her side. Mary Boleyn is on Henry’s right-hand side, Howard on his left with her little lapdragon, restored to his true colouring, draped around her shoulders, and Cecilia beside her. Cleves’s hands clench in anticipation. There is nothing to suggest that their plan is going awry. All Cleves has to do is wait for the binding cloths to be produced, and then allow herself to be captured, if they have not already spotted her.
The eating is interminable. As she watches everyone stuff themselves, she begins to feel a little ill at the display of excess. Having so recently been near starving, the sight of so much food is revolting. By the time Henry raises a hand for silence, her legs are aching with the effort of standing still for so long. Cleves shakes some feeling back into them, and peers out once more to see if she can hear whatever lies her husband is going to use to manipulate his audience.
“My people,” he says, standing up, his arms out. Cleves hates that when the room falls silent it is not because of any divine power, or his kingly birthright, but because of his natural charm. “My people,” he says again, and his voice is quieter now, as though he is about to let them in on a secret. Even Aragon and Parr lean in.
“What a year we have endured,” he says. He looks like a martyr. “Treason, heresy, our enemies amassing beyond and within our borders. I have tried to shoulder the burden of it all. I thank you for your faith in me.” He pauses. Cleves’s heart beats painfully. She has the strongest sense of being back in that castle, waiting for the men who had captured her family to decide their fates.
“The Moon Ball is a celebration of Elben’s queens.” Henry raises an eyebrow, and the hall titters. There are only four queens to celebrate, and it is clever of him to acknowledge the irony. It reflects his humiliation onto those who have humiliated him; onto the queens who as far as he knows remain faithful to him. Mary Boleyn smiles, attempting toshare in the laughter. Aragon and Parr look stoically forward. Howard, though: Howard is watching their husband like a hawk. How could Cleves have ever thought her dull?
“Nay, nay,” Henry continues. “We should celebrate our queens. And tonight we must celebrate them even more, for I have a great favour to ask of them. A favour that will secure them in history as the saviours of Elben.”
The whisper that flows around the hall at this is an icy wind. None of the queens sitting at the high table betray any shock beyond a tensing of muscles. When Henry turns to them now, he holds each of their gazes one by one, testing their fealty.
Charles Brandon nods to one of Henry’s men, and they duck out of the room. This is it. She tears herself away from her hiding spot and makes her way down the passageway.
She can hear Henry in the hall beyond, talking about loyalty, about the old edict of “humble, loyal and true” that has been used for centuries to deny the queens their own powers. By the time Cleves has secreted herself in a nook near the dais, Henry has come to his point. Cleves grips the wall, peering out, waiting for the moment when the box containing the binding cloths must be produced.
He turns to Howard, Mary, Parr and Aragon. Cleves’s eyes are not drawn to them, though, but to his sister Cecilia. When Cleves met her, she was vibrant, taller than her natural height, vicious in a rather charming way. Now, though, she looks as if she is masking exhaustion. There is something brittle about her.
Cleves hears Seymour join her, delighting in the fact that she knew it was her from the softness of her movement. She is wearing a simple gown, the frontlet and headpiece secured with pins that gleam with tips of umber and gold. Cleves leans into her as they watch the proceedings. Seymour squeezes Cleves’s waist.
Henry continues: “All know that the bordweal weakens thanks to the treachery of three of my queens. One of those queens is dead. The remaining two are living still.”
He pauses, then turns to face her and Seymour, as though he has traced her journey from kitchens to gallery to dais all along. Perhaps he has. “And here they are,” he says, holding a hand towards the two of them as if inviting them to a dance. She feels someone approach from behind, and pretends to attempt an escape. Charles Brandon catches her around the waist, and someone else takes Seymour.
So, let it begin.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Howard
Howard schools her features as Cleves and Seymour are thrust, still struggling, before her table. She must be the rose without a thorn for a little longer. A smooth and pretty object with fragile petals. Something to be consumed, smelled, plucked and displayed. Something with no way to protect itself from such treatment. Something with no other purpose.
Henry struts towards the two captured queens. His limp is barely visible, the bandage that must be around his thigh covered with hose of gold velvet.
Lord Brandon pushes Cleves to her knees, and Henry stands over her.
“Queen Cleves, if I had known you could look like this …” He raises eyebrows at the assembled courtiers, enjoying their laughter. Their gaze rakes across Cleves’s body. She holds her head high, and Howard tries not to let the pride show on her face.
Cleves smiles up at Henry. “Even if I had looked like this all along, I would still have found a way to avoid your touch, husband.”
Henry flushes. Cleves does not need to detail her deceit on their wedding night. All she needs to do is sow questions in the guests’ minds. Sometimes questions can be more destructive than answers.
“It matters not,” Henry says, attempting to regain his audience. He has not even glanced at Seymour: she is beneath even his words.
Cromwell, at one corner of the hall, begins to clap. The sound catches, and soon every courtier is applauding the arrests of the two traitor queens. Howard joins in, clapping more loudly than anyone else. Henry bows. “Here is the start of the remedy!” he shouts. Quiet resumes.
