Chapter Six Howard
CHAPTER SIX
Howard
On the day Voda Kelaverinn is due to leave Plythe, Howard sits in her receiving chamber with her ladies all around her.
Goldfoot, her little dragon, is nestled in her lap, his hot breath curling a few stray threads of her silk gown.
She idly scratches at a patch of bare skin on her scalp, hidden by her curls. Lord, but it itches.
Her receiving chamber is not as dramatic as Boleyn’s was at Brynd, but it brings Howard an immense sense of peace.
It sits at the side of the palace, and the windows are in the newer style: a series of arches that bounce across the room, each one looking out upon the River Kyttle and, beyond, the Swegan Sea.
In the mornings, like now, the sun skates over the water below instead of assaulting the windows.
In the few pauses between her ladies’ conversations, the songs of the Swegan whales vibrate through the stone, filling the space with a mournful tune that undercuts the laughter.
“What think you, Your Majesty?” Ursula says.
They are looking at her expectantly, hands paused over their needlework or prayer books. Howard shakes her head. “My thoughts flew away with me. What were you discussing?”
Lady Tylney leans forward from her window seat and pretends to whisper in Ursula’s ear. “She was thinking of His Majesty,” she says, and the others grin.
Howard strokes Goldfoot. “Am I truly so predictable?”
“You are in love,” Lady Tylney says. Howard hopes her smile does not betray the sudden clench of her stomach.
It is true that she owes Henry everything.
She may be a nobleman’s daughter, but the king plucked her from obscurity nevertheless.
She should be his: heart, body and soul.
Until Boleyn, that was the truth around which she had shaped her queenly self.
“We were talking of the strange religions gaining traction abroad,” Ursula says, her eyes wide and earnest.
“What strange religions?” Howard says.
Ursula closes her prayer book, covering the title with the palm of her hand. “Their preachers are women, Your Majesty. They speak of ancient goddesses.”
The women fall silent. Howard and her ladies have never spoken of such matters before. They do not have a map for how to navigate such subjects. Howard must be the mapmaker.
Lady Tylney’s nervous laughter cuts through the hush. “I told her not to talk of such things,” she says. Ursula blushes. The other women continue to stare at Howard.
“I am mistress of Plythe alone, not of anyone’s soul,” Howard says eventually. “I am glad that we can all speak freely within these walls. We are old friends, are we not? We love each other through all.”
There is general agreement, and the conversation moves on to safer subjects.
A love scandal in a foreign land, impropriety at court and shared girlish memories of girlish shared bedchambers.
Adjusting Goldfoot so that his sleeping form is draped over her shoulders, Howard rises and goes to the window.
If she stands right at the edge, she can see the courtyard.
There is the carriage, all arranged to take Kelaverinn to Sweillan.
She wonders whether he will take all of the books he made her commission.
It is not as though she will ever read them. They were all for him.
“I heard that the King of Capetia greeted Mary Boleyn very warmly,” Howard’s half-sister, Legh, says. She is lying on her back on the floor, like she used to do when they lived with their aunt. Howard wants to tell her to sit up, but she does not wish to unbalance the easy company they all keep.
Susanna Horenbolt looks up from her easel in the corner. “That is old news. When I served Queen Cleves, we heard tell she was his mistress for a time.”
Legh sits straight up, covering her mouth in shock. “Did you serve Queen Cleves, Susanna? Really? You have never before mentioned it!”
Susanna dips her head behind her easel as the other ladies laugh.
“Let us be kind,” Howard murmurs, but they do not hear her.
There he is. Voda Kelaverinn walks slowly towards the carriage. He carries a single bag made of tired brown velvet; the same one he arrived with. Howard tries to spy whether he has any servants with further belongings, but she can see none.
“Your Majesty?” Lady Tylney says.
“What?” Howard is sharper than she should be.
Tylney motions towards the steward hovering in the doorway.
He picks his way around Legh, who is back to lying on the floor, and presents Howard with a letter.
Howard does not need to ask who it is from.
The Voda is the only person who has ever formed a handwriting style solely for her ease of reading.
“Is it a love letter?” Ursula says, more to the other ladies than to Howard herself.
Howard breaks the seal, hoping that her pointed silence will indicate her displeasure.
Your Majesty,
I take my leave of you with all the fondness and gratitude in the world. Teaching you has been an honour: your remarkable memory and open spirit are every tutor’s treasure. If I may be so bold, you have made being separated from my family bearable, for you put me in mind of my daughters.
I shall pray for your present and future happiness, dear queen.
V. Kelaverinn
“Are you quite well?” Lady Tylney says. She places a hand upon Howard’s forehead, as if she were her mother when she is only ten years Howard’s senior and barren besides.
“Stop it,” Howard says, swatting her away. Tylney cowers. “Stop that too; I’m not going to hit you.”
Their eyes are all fixed on the floor. Goldfoot, woken from his slumber by her movement, nips her ear.
Howard removes him from her shoulders and stands.
She gathers her skirts so they fall properly, and steps right over Legh as she stalks from the room.
Behind her, Goldfoot lets out a mewl of rebuke.
The gallery that forms Plythe’s spine stretches right across the Kyttle Falls.
It is the polished glory of her reign, for she redesigned it herself when she was made queen.
Her footsteps are crisp upon the wooden floor.
Its patterns of cedar and rosewood swirl around her, like the tumbling water beneath the palace.
Like her thoughts. It is not as though she shouted at them.
She starts to run.
The ivory doors to the west courtyard open at her approach, tied by a mechanism linked to the palace’s spirit stone, which awakens at her footfall. Voda Kelaverinn’s carriage is nearly at the gatehouse.
“Stop!” she shouts, tearing down the steps and across the courtyard. Her shoes are not made for cobbles. The driver has not heard her.
“Stop!” she shouts again, raising a hand. The guards at the gatehouse spot her and step in front of the carriage.
By the time she is level with the vehicle, her curls are flying across her face and she is damp with sweat. Plythe has ever been a humid territory, and not even her fine silk and taffeta gown can withstand exertion in this climate.
“Your Majesty,” Voda Kelaverinn says, peering out at her with a frown. She steps back, not wishing him to feel uncomfortable in her presence. He opens the carriage door and steps out.
Only, once they are facing each other, Howard finds she does not know what to say. In the corner of her vision, she sees the driver shrug at the guards.
“You did not take the books,” she says eventually.
“My wish was that you would make your way through them yourself, in time.”
He folds his hands over his stomach. She fixes her gaze on the set of painted bangles that she has never seen him without: the black a symbol of his marriage; the orange, yellow and red symbols of his children.
She cannot say what she knows she must in front of the guards and driver who are watching them. To do so would be to admit to thoughts of infidelity and treason.
“Shall we take one final walk along the escarpment?” Kelvarinn says. She nods, watches as he speaks a few words to the driver and passes the man a coin for his time. She should compensate him for that.
They make their way to the edge of the courtyard, where high walls muffle some of the sound of the waterfall.
They have taken many such strolls before, and Howard cannot help but notice that he keeps more distance between them than in the past. She remembers her failed kiss, his startled breath, and closes her eyes against the shame.
“I had intended my letter to comfort you, Your Majesty, but I fear it only troubles you further,” he says.
“It was a kind letter. You are very kind.”
They come to a natural halt before a gap in the wall which affords a view across the river. Howard swallows. She does not look at him when she says, “You likened me to your daughters, Voda.”
“Yes. You are of an age with my eldest.”
“The Princess Tudor is older than me.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
She places a hand on the stone sill. Is he being deliberately obtuse? The irony that she must be the one to spell this out to him.
“My husband still desires me, despite me being of an age with his daughter.”
Kelaverinn remains silent. She darts a look at him. Perhaps he is realising that it need not be a barrier, her being so much younger than him. Perhaps she could whisk him back into the palace for a farewell tryst. She turns to him fully.
“I am very beautiful, sir.”
“You are as beautiful as any young woman can be, Your Majesty.”
She swallows again. Dare she admit to her adventures before her marriage? Well, she has pushed this far.
“No man has ever turned me down when I have taken a fancy to him.”
She waits for him to admit his mutual attraction, to renounce his moral nonsense. He sighs, and his features soften further.
“I am sorry that it is so,” he says.
The heat takes her fully, but there are still guards and workers watching them from a distance.
“You profess to be open-minded, yet you presume to judge me?” she says.
“My judgement is not for you.”
Howard huffs. She has seen the way Lady Tylney wrinkles her nose when Howard kisses her husband, or when he takes liberties with her in company. This is the province of prudish elders, who think that a woman of Howard’s age cannot know her own mind.
“Your lectures grow tiresome, Voda,” Howard says, putting a hand upon her hip to soften the jibe.
“Then my departure is for the best.”
She cannot crack this patient shell of his.
It almost makes her want to try to kiss him again, to prove that he feels something towards her.
She may be working against Henry now for Boleyn’s sake, but how can she make Kelaverinn see that before the king plucked her from the lice-infested hole of her aunt’s estate, she was a nothing?
Theirs was an equal transaction: she gave him her youth; he gave her the highest consequence that a woman can possess.
“I am so fortunate. I have lived a dreamer’s life, sir,” she says.
“Have you? I will tell you this, now that we are no longer beholden to each other. It is not the dream I would dream for any of my daughters.”
“You would not wish them to be queens of your land?”
“Some jewels are not worth the cost, no matter how brightly they shine.”
That is nonsense too. She fingers the rings upon her hand, the cobalt spinels at her throat.
Across the courtyard, the driver of Voda Kelaverinns’s carriage coughs loudly. Perhaps he has deemed the single coin no longer sufficient for this delay. Kelaverinn glances at him, then looks back at Howard with an intensity she does not like.
“May I ask you a question, Your Majesty?”
“Of course.”
“Have you ever told the king what you enjoy?”
“The king is very generous to me.”
Why is she so defensive of the man she is trying to topple? Kelaverinn cocks his head, waiting for a direct answer.
“He has very good taste. His gifts always suit me well.”
Still, he waits.
“Very well. No,” she says. She rolls her eyes, taps her foot. Why did she leave her ladies’ company for this? At least they never ask her such tiresome questions.
“Then may I suggest that this be your final study under my tutelage? Tell him, when next you see him. Tell him what you enjoy.”
Howard smirks. “What do you suppose I will learn?”
“Well, at the very least it will bring you and your husband, as attentive as he is, closer, will it not?”
Suddenly she understands: this is his way of tempering her disappointment.
He hopes to direct her affections back towards Henry instead of upon him.
He is defending himself, poor man. And while his refusal hurts, goodness knows she has refused certain men in her time. It had to happen once in her life.
“I am sorry to have behaved inappropriately towards you, sir,” she says.
Inexplicably, Kelaverinn sighs again. “All is forgotten. Now, I shall return to the carriage and allow this poor man to deliver me to Sweillan.”
They walk peaceably back to the gate, and Howard watches as her tutor climbs awkwardly into the carriage. Once he is seated, he peers out at her and presses his hands to his chest – the Uuvek way of showing respect, as the Elbenese remove their caps.
“You are an excellent student, Your Majesty,” he says, as the driver cracks his whip. “You always learn. Always.”