Chapter Twelve Howard #2
“First blood,” Culpepper says. “It will go quicker now.”
Henry is caught up in the sport, his fingers moving faster. Howard cannot shake the sense that she is not a full being but her husband’s garland. A pretty star in the intense infinity of night.
The dragon catches one of the hounds in its jaws, snapping the little dog’s body this way and that. Bones click and shatter, even above the cheers of the crowd. Susanna covers her mouth with gloved hands. Then the dragon tosses the broken hound up into the air and swallows it whole.
Culpepper laughs and, without warning, Howard climaxes around Henry’s fingers.
“Good girl,” he says, withdrawing his hand, wiping it on her silk gown.
“Thank you,” she says, as she always does.
The rest of the hounds quickly follow the first. Some of them realise the futility of the fight and turn tail, only to be caught as they run, or even more cruelly caught by the men on the other side of the barriers and tossed back into the arena.
As the crowd jeers, a great brown bear is lined up just beyond the barriers to be the dragon’s next opponent.
Howard watches it all with the strangest feeling that she is not in her body.
She watches herself watching the gore, and she watches Culpepper cheering.
He suspects her, she is sure of it, or why else would he have mentioned the fake shipment to Perfugi?
Surely if he were going to tell Henry what he suspects, he would have done so already and her neck would be on the block.
So why has he not? He must want something from her, but what can she give him that Henry could not give him more of?
Sex? She is beautiful, yes, but he does not seem like the kind of man who would love someone to the point of self-destructive obsession. He is no Thomas Wyatt.
The bear is pushed into the arena, and the crowd leans forward as one, anticipating a more even fight, for the bear has iron spikes welded to its claws. The dogs were a trifle; the bear is the meat of the afternoon.
“Now we shall have sport,” Henry says. He squeezes her thigh with such force she knows she will bruise.
But the dragon is in the throes of a blood famine, and the bear is not prepared.
The dragon pounces upon the creature before it can raise its paws, rending the bear’s head from its body and tossing it into the crowd, where a lesser lord holds it aloft, his mouth open to catch the blood as it drips onto his tongue.
“Shit,” Culpepper mutters. He shrugs. “I did tell it to drag things out a little. It seems it did not listen to me, Your Majesty.”
Henry laughs. “Shall I make it listen?”
Before any of them can ask what he means, Henry lifts Howard from his lap and stands, raising his arms like a conquering hero. Howard slinks back to her own throne, aware of the darkened patch of moisture on the bright blue silk of her gown.
The effect on the crowd is immediate, such is the power he radiates. Howard knows that part of that power rightly belongs to her, by dint of her divine connection to Plythe, but by god if he doesn’t contain his own innate power of a different kind. She cannot look away from him.
Henry leaps over the barrier and into the arena.
Howard and some of the other women cry out in alarm.
Even some of the men cover their faces. Cromwell is gripping the arm of his chair.
Legh and Susanna are among those who make the sign of Cernunnos, fingers shaped to form the God’s antlers. Howard spies Ursula’s lip curl.
The dragon slowly arches its neck towards this new assailant. Its bloodied jaws snap in warning, but it is limping and tired.
“Allow your king to entertain you,” Henry says.
As the dragon contracts its neck, ready to strike, Henry lifts one hand, stretching it out towards the creature.
Howard feels a ripple of agony, sharp and brittle, beneath her ribcage.
She gasps, clutching at her breast. A blast of bordweal light shoots from Henry’s hand.
It hits the dragon in the chest, and the beast roars the roar that is stuck in Howard’s throat.
She and the dragon are connected in their pain.
She knows she must not make a sound, must not display weakness or fear or knowledge, but her organs are being wrung out.
She has felt this once before: at the Moon Ball, when she was the chosen victim of Henry’s wrath.
Then the other queens had used their combined power to defend her. She has no such saviours now.
“Your Majesty? Are you all right?” a voice is saying, a hand on her shoulder.
“Yes. Yes,” she whispers, trying to make it so.
“Let me help you,” the voice says. Culpepper. Let me help you.
“Wine,” she whispers.
He returns within an instant with the wine, and helps her to straighten. Their fingers feather against each other as she takes the goblet. His hands hover, close to her agony but not touching. Respectful.
“Are you all right, wife?” Henry says. She didn’t see him return.
The dragon is barely alive, slumped in a heap upon the ground. Culpepper steps back.
“Our entertainment is tired,” Henry tells him. “Take it away. It will be healed by my next visit, and then we can enjoy more sport.”
Culpepper does as he is told. She watches him whip the dragon to its feet. Its neck is angled strangely as it stumbles from the arena.
“Did you enjoy my power, darling?” Henry says.
“Mmm,” Howard replies. He holds her chin. Makes her look at him.
“I said, did you enjoy my power? I did it for you, after all.”
He laughs at her confusion. “Did I drive your memory from you with my fingers, sweetheart? You wagered, remember? That I could defeat any creature in that arena?”
It is a test. The other queens had warned her that he would do this. She slips into the Howard he wants her to be. It is as easy as slipping beneath warm sheets in winter. Her hand plays with the patch of darkened silk, drawing his eyes.
“You did, my king. Do I win?”