Johana blushes. Though Fergus cannot know it, he has accused him of a sin that Johana, at least, regards as worse than violence upon an animal.
“I am no brute, sir,” Johana says. “And nor are my servants.”
Fergus shrugs. “Brute or no, there’s some brutish practices in this world.”
He wanders over to the lame horse and throws one arm around the animal’s neck, feeding it a morsel of carrot with the other.
“But with time, and reasoning, and understanding of what brought them to you, you’ll find a way,” he says. The horse whickers in agreement.
Cleves and Johana say their farewells to Fergus. In the courtyard outside, Cleves leans against the stables and inhales the scent of the gethlewe flowers that drop like lilac stars from branches that embrace the building’s white brick. Johana crosses his arms. “Well, I have reasoning, but I do not understand the Dowager Queen and I fear we do not have time. What do you make of my chances?”
Cleves pats his arm. “Were I a gambling woman, I would bet on you all day, cousin.”
The truth is, she does not need Johana totameCecilia, or persuade her to their side. She merely needs him to keep her imprisoned long enough for Cleves to work out how to use her to her advantage. She knows this much about Henry’s younger sister: there is no accord that can be made safely with Cecilia Tudor.
“I wish you would ask something else of me, cousin,” he says.
“This is what I need from you, Johana. I am sorry it does not involve courting handsome masters of horse.”
Johana peers inside the stables, seeing whether Fergus is still there. “Heisvery handsome. I think I might marry him.”
“He is already married to a far better man than you.”
In fact, Cleves was the one to make the match.
“You leach my visit to Elben of all possible excitement,” Johana says. Cleves pushes off the wall and hooks her arm into his as they walk back towards the castle.
“Do not say such things,” she says. “With any luck, I will author an uprising, and then you shall have more excitement than you could ever desire.”
“Violence begets violence, as your man said,” Johana says. It is as though he has slapped her. She looks up at him but sees no cruelty in his expression. He squeezes her arm, and sighs. “Sometimes we all have to do things we would rather not, when necessity wills it. For now, I will be your gaoler. I will keep the king’s sister so secure that we will have no need of chains.”
Cleves stops, gripping Johana’s arm.
“That’s it,” she says.
Johana prises her hand away. “Have you finally gone mad?”
“Chains,” she says. “What is the one tradition that all queens of Elben must undertake?”
Johana frowns. “Your strange clasping of the castle stone?”
“No!” She bounces on her toes. “That is different for each castle, and the king does not partake. But weallare bound to him during our wedding ceremony.”
Johana’s expression clears. “The silly cloths.”
“The silly cloths.”
She had almost laughed out loud when Bishop More had bound her and Henry together with the purple velvet. But then the pain had begun; something so visceral and unlike anything she had experienced before. She has never forgotten it. And now she understands why: it was granting her power, the power she was about to receive from the goddess, to another.
“It is so simple, though,” Johana says.
“The best tricks always are. And that makes the remedy simple also.”
“Destroy the silly cloths?”
She beams at him. “Oh cousin, your mind is as one with mine. It is quite beautiful.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
