Here, on the other side of the gatehouse, the narrow footprint of the palace widens to incorporate hunting grounds, herb gardens and jousting lawns. The cymbal sound of the Kyttle Falls is muted by a row of beech trees.
Howard looks back towards the palace. When she first saw it, she thought it looked like something chopped from the heavens, or raised by godly hands from the riverbed.
And she is set on a path that means she could lose it all.
“Here we are,” Henry says. Howard turns her attention to the makeshift arena.
The two thrones have been set on the lawn, side by side, for the monarch and his queen. Her throne is almost as magnificent as Henry’s: a mahogany seat carved with her emblem – a nightingale – entwined with the Tudor rose. Naked women and fauns frolic across the wood, so that when she sits on it, she is stuffed between an orgy. Henry seats her gallantly and cocoons her hand in his. She clenches the other in her lap.
The rest of the court takes their places at the barriers, the higher- ranking nobility sitting and the lower ranks standing behind them. Cromwell and Wolsey have seats affording the best view. They confer with each other in low tones, the least interested in the spectacle about to play out before them. Howard casts her eye across her inner circle, ensuring her ladies are behaving themselves. Ursula Askew stands a little distance from the others. It is unlike her to not be in the centre of a gathering, and Howard wonders whether there has been some disagreement.
Seated at the front, on account of being Howard’s half-sister, is Legh. Beside her is Lady Tylney, and behind them stands Susanna Horenbolt. Susanna despises violence of any kind. They all joke that she is too soft for court. Lady Tylney reaches a hand over her shoulderand, without looking, takes Susanna’s. Howard is very aware of the way in which Henry is holding hers. Is it loving? Is it caring, as Tylney’s is? Or is it because Howard is his, and the ring upon her finger is not symbol enough of his possession?
She wonders what Voda Kelaverinn would make of all this bloodsport.
“Are you excited, little rose?” Henry says.
She startles, then covers it with a fluttering hand across her chest. Henry’s eyes follow her fingers. She used to liken him to a wolf. Now she wonders if he is a vulture.
“Of course, my king.”
“Have you laid a bet with young Culpepper yet?”
She doesn’t let herself look at the man in question.
“A bet?”
Henry tweaks her cheek. “Is there any substance in that beautiful head of yours? A bet on the sport. On the winner.”
Was that an insult or a compliment?
“Oh. No.” Is she being too dull? Or does he enjoy her dullness?
She cocks her head and leans over the arm of her throne, letting her dress fall off her shoulder. “All I shall wager is that you could defeat any creature in that arena,” she says. He stills, searching her eyes. Then he leans towards her, their foreheads touching. “You are quite ravishing, Howard, do you know that? I can hardly bear to watch the sport with you here and so tempting.”
There it is – the ember of desire that has been so absent lately.
“I could be more tempting still, if it would not be so scandalous,” she says. On impulse, she leans over even further and nips his earlobe. She feels sure of herself for the first time in many moons. She knows what she must do and say at last. She is the Howard she was raised to be, not the Howard that Boleyn and Cleves and all those other women want her to be.
The ember fades.
Henry lifts her from her throne and pulls her into his lap. She can feel his hardness through her gown, digging into her lower back. He holds her round the waist with one hand. The other he slips beneath her gown, letting its folds conceal his arm as he finds her core and dips a finger into her.
“Wet for me already,” he whispers.
“Of course, my king,” she says. She finds a fixed point – the apex of the trees on the other side of the arena – and stares at it as he pushesone, two, three fingers inside her. It is delicious and scandalous and she didn’t ask for it, and yet sheiswet and getting wetter, so it must be what she wants.
A stir goes around the arena, and for a moment Howard thinks that the courtiers have noticed what is happening on the king’s throne. But then she sees movement from beyond the treeline, where Plythe’s bestiary is situated, and she catches her breath.
Culpepper is leading a dragon across the lawn. Its front and hind legs are manacled, two by two, so it is forced to walk in an awkward, loping gait. There is an iron muzzle over its long jaw. A wild dragon. Tame dragons are bred for particular jobs – small to be lap dragons; large wings and eyes and smaller bodies for hunting dragons; cropped wings and muscled back legs for the dragons sometimes employed in labour in the fields or mines; pearlescent scales and more fat than muscle for the ceremonial dragons used in royal weddings. This dragon has none of those features. Its front legs are as long as its back legs, and its wings are in perfect proportion to its body, which is gnarled and covered with the scars that accumulate from a life of catching cattle and battling other dragons for territory.
Culpepper expertly lashes the dragon’s hide, darting this way and that with a long whip. He has another set of chains in his other hand, ready to manacle the dragon to the stake embedded in the centre of the arena.
“Will it be a fair fight?” Susanna asks Lady Tylney, just loud enough for Howard to hear.
“It will certainly be entertaining,” Lady Tylney replies, with a tight glance towards the king.
Culpepper fastens the dragon to its stake, and the beast utters a stifled roar at this further indignity. Culpepper lashes it again, then turns and grins at Henry. “Your Majesty, the creature is hungry!”
