Free Brazen by Katherine Longshore

what the country would be like if she came to power with her spite and her need for revenge.
    Then there’s Fitz. And Margaret, the king’s niece.
    It’s treason to speak of—or even picture—the death of the king, making the succession a touchy subject to discuss.
    “The act declares that King Henry’s first marriage was invalid and therefore Princess—
Lady
Mary cannot inherit.” Margaret looks at me pointedly. “Because she’s a bastard.”
    She means Fitz will never inherit, either. Which is good for me. Or at least my marriage. No French princess would want to marry a bastard. They’d get in line to marry the next king of England.
    “We knew that already,” Madge says.
    “
Some
people didn’t,” Margaret snaps. The people who support Katherine of Aragon.
    Like my mother.
    Madge just shrugs.
    “They’re also saying that everyone will have to take an oath,” Margaret continues, “that the succession is valid. That Queen Anne is the true queen.”
    “But she is,” Madge says.
    “Lady Mary doesn’t think so,” I tell her. But I am watching Margaret. She grew up with Lady Mary. And I wonder if she supports Lady Mary’s right to inherit. Or does she support her own?
    “Anyone who won’t sign it is a traitor.” Margaret pauses to let that sink in. “And can be executed accordingly. Even speaking out—against the oath, the king, Queen Anne—could lead to imprisonment.”
    I am glad no one ever listens to my mother. Except me. Because the things she says would send her straight to the Tower.
    “He wants to control everything,” Margaret murmurs. “Lives, love, faith, words. Probably even the afterlife.”
    “Shhh.” If what Margaret says is true, she’s putting us all in danger.
    But Margaret doesn’t listen. “Look at his daughter. She’s been betrothed countless times. She has believed herself in love. Every. Single. Time.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous, Margaret,” Madge sniffs. “She was betrothed to the dauphin when she was two.”
    “And remained so for three years!” Margaret stands straight as a poker. She keeps her hands folded tightly together. But her body leans forward, her face screwed up in emotion, the passion behind her words breaking through the mask of royalty.
    “And then the emperor.” She loses her grasp on her hands and they fly up over her head in despair. “She thought he was the most handsome man she’d ever met. A six-year-old girl madly in love with a grown man.”
    Margaret frowns in disgust.
    “And now she’ll never marry at all. Or if she does, it will be the second half sibling of some minor backwater prince. It was once even proposed she marry FitzRoy. Did you know that? That the king would have married his bastard daughter to his bastard son?”
    The very idea makes me feel sick.
    “She may be the king’s daughter,” Margaret says, and her eyes hold pain and anger in equal measure, “but it has done her little good. Just as I have garnered no profit from being the king’s niece. I am eighteen years old. And my life, my love, my marriage—my very survival—are all beholden to him. To be dispensed at the king’s pleasure.”
    “He
is
the king,” Madge says, as if this explains and resolves everything.
    “He’s not God,” I say. “There have to be some things he doesn’t control.”
    “He will not control me,” Margaret says. “He may control my inheritance. He may control my past and my future. But he will not control my feelings. Not my mind. I am not his.”
    I feel an ache within me—one of recognition and complicity. The king may control my marriage, but am I not in command of my emotions?
    Margaret goes very still, perhaps thinking she’s said too much, but she doesn’t ask us not to tell. In this court, asking such a thing is an assurance that everyone will know before we sit to supper.
    We stand in an awkward silence until Madge tosses her head.
    “Well,” she says, “no one will control me, either.”
    “No