“One moment, my king!” Howard says, staring at the paper. How is she going to protect herself? Voda Kelaverinn was the only person in her court who knew of her treachery. He was a safe secret-keeper, his loyalties tied only to her and Boleyn. The others at Plythe? Their ties to Elben run deep. Their fortunes, their families, are owed to the king. Who among them can she ask for help without risking all?
“Howard,” Henry calls again, deeper and sharper.
She goes to the little wooden chest that holds the cloths for her monthly courses, prising up the false bottom beneath the fabric. A handful of letters are stowed there – most of them love letters from her childhood, some rare missives from her father. She adds the cipher and replaces the false wood bottom and the cloths, and slips back into Henry’s chamber.
The king is sitting up in bed.
“What were you doing?” he says. His injured leg is bent awkwardly. She must be careful.
“Goldfoot was chasing a bee,” she says. “I had to let the poor thing out of the window before he caught it.”
Henry’s eyes crinkle with mirth. “Of course you would wish to save a bee, my dear. You are very soft-hearted. Especially with that badly behaved pet of yours.”
Howard does not bother to correct him. When he gave Goldfoot to her as a wedding gift, she tried to show him how much trouble she went to to train the creature, but he did and does prefer to joke about Goldfoot’s stupidity. She climbs back into bed and starts to rest her head upon his shoulder, but he manoeuvres her so that she is straddling him.
“Again, Henry?” she says, laughing.
“How can you expect me to keep my hands off of you when you look so delicious?” he says, grinding against her. She laughs again, even asher stomach flutters with panic. She has not been able to conjure the desire, and she is worried that it is starting to show. That his feelings will be hurt. She does not want to make him feel lesser.
She leans down and kisses him, gently, to indicate that she wants to make love slowly. “This is the longest you’ve ever stayed with me, my king,” she says, her lashes fluttering against his cheeks. “Thank you.”
He twists to look at her. “Is it truly?”
“I think so.”
He strokes her cheek with one hand. The other fondles her breast. “I have not loved you as I should have, Howard. My sweetest of queens. My rose without a thorn.”
He kisses her again. A rose without a thorn, she thinks, as she surrenders to him. That is a sweet thing to say. He can be so very kind to her. But then another thought flits through her head: does that not make her incomplete?
Henry does not tire of her until the rest of the court has broken their fast and the golden bells of the palace tower have chimed the tenth hour. He dresses languorously, pausing before he must pull his hose over the bandage on his thigh. Howard is almost out of her mind. She keeps very still in the bed, lest Henry notice how every part of her is desperate to leap from the room. She has two hours. Two hours to fool a friend or confide in them, and she still cannot decide which is safer.
Henry curses under his breath as the hose snags on the bandage. Briefly, the fabric rides up. Howard bites her lip to keep from crying out. The flesh beneath the bandage is grey and seething, a dark reflection of the Kyttle Falls far below. Is it the play of light in this room that makes the wound appear like a tangle of shadowy maggots? Or is Henry’s stolen power at war with Boleyn’s prophecy?
Henry glances at her, and she quickly closes her eyes. He would not want her to have seen that.
“Do not pretend with me, Howard,” he says. “I have had enough of that with my wives.”
The little bird in her chest flutters, trying to escape, as she sits up. She is his rose without a thorn. She must be so very soft and smooth. She thinks of her father and her aunt towards the end, when they were in one of their moods. She had to thread honesty through compliments then too, or face their wrath.
“You have not wanted me to ask about it before, my king. I did not know whether you would want me to now,” she says. She focuses on the beading of her blanket, pressing copper and amethyst balls into the pads of her thumbs.
“She was a witch,” Henry says.
Howard is about to reference Boleyn when she remembers that she is not supposed to know that Boleyn caused the wound. Howard was never there, on that cliff beside the folly at Brynd. As far as Henry knows, no one witnessed Boleyn’s bow-work, and the path of her arrow, except Henry and Boleyn herself. No one has publicly acknowledged the injury. Howard almost incriminated herself.
“Who?”
She has never noticed before how small his eyes are. Were they always so, or is this some change in his physique? Or is it that he has never watched her with such suspicion? She is a rose. She opens the petals of her face towards him, as though he is the sun.
“Boleyn, who else?” he spits.
She flutters a hand to her face. “Truly? She did this? So the rumours were true?”
“They usually are.”
The bird inside her squeals to be released. She has heard the rumours surrounding her. That she is a whore, loose, a slut, a penny tart, mouth open, legs wide, an easy cunt. She may have no thorns of her own, but she wears those names, pricked under her skin. Mostly she is numb to them, but they will nick her from time to time. In this moment, though, they sear.They usually are. It is another test.
She crawls towards him. There is a draught coming from one of the windows, and goosebumps rise on her arms. She wills them warm: Henry must not suspect that they mean fear.
