One queen exiled. Another headed for the gallows. Both hungry for revenge. England’s most infamous queens unite in vengeance against Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn is going to die, and neither her cleverness nor her witchery can save her. So when her late rival, Catalina de Aragón, miraculously appears in her cell at the Tower of London on the eve of her execution, very much alive and offering a daring escape plan, no one is more surprised than Anne. Lina doesn’t have Anne’s magic--but she has just as much hate for England’s wretched king. Severed from her daughter and stripped of all her influence, Lina breathes only for the Hellebore Sisterhood, a clandestine and powerful society with a vested interest in keeping both queens alive . . . and using their particular skills to advance womankind. Anne and Lina’s old rivalries pale in comparison to a common enemy. And they''re not alone. Anna von Kleve, Kat Howard, and even Catherine Parr all have their own bones to pick with the king. One by one, they capture their pawns, infiltrating the court and eliminating the men who plotted against them. Always inching closer to their true target . . . And they want his head.

Autorentext
Jillian Laine is an author and journalist. She has written multiple children’s books and has worked as an acquisitions editor, book festival director, and literary award judge. She and her husband live with their pride of cats in the Great Lakes State. Henry Tudor Must Die is her first novel.

Leseprobe
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Anne Boleyn

May 18, 1536

Her execution was set for dawn.

Anne stared out the window into the night, her chambers in the Tower of London offering a bird's-eye view of the sprawling city below. Smoke and fog blurred the buildings and muffled the sounds of the Thames rushing by, but the heavens were clear. Anne glared at the golden stars, jealous of their freedom, furious that they would shine again tomorrow night and she wouldn't be there to see it. The audacity of the world to go on without her was more than she could bear.

Death was unwelcome, but it was no surprise. Once Henry had set his sights on Jane Seymour, Anne had known only two fates awaited her: exile or death. She had forced the same choice on the queen who came before her, though Anne didn't dare acknowledge the irony of her situation.

Exile would have been a far more comfortable fate, but then again, anything would have been more comfortable than the heap of rock masquerading as the Tower of London. It was no wonder the royal family had virtually abandoned it and turned it into a prison-the White Tower, the castle's main keep, was grim and crumbling and positively infested with rats. Not even the fire she kept burning at all hours of the day and night could keep them away.

On cue, one skittered across the floor at Anne's feet, stopping just a handsbreadth from her stockinged toes.

"Ah, Tudor. Good to see you again." Anne had named all the rats who visited her cell Tudor, in honor of her husband. Truly, it was more an insult to the rats than it was to Henry. "Don't even think about trying to take a bite out of me tonight. I will happily curse you to be reborn a human king, the vilest of all creatures."

The rat showed no fear, chittering at her with something akin to laughter.

Anne laughed along with it, the sound eerie and echoing in the confines of her chambers. It felt good to let the dark thing in her chest loose, to let the sharp edge of hysteria slice deeper when she was this close to the end. She leaned back in the moldering velvet chair of her cell and howled at the ceiling until she was breathless. Outside her door, a guard shifted uneasily, his armor creaking.

"You see, Tudor, kings are weak," she confided in the rat. Her voice was hoarse from hours of disuse-she had hardly spoken in days. "They hide behind their crowns and their swords, their Bibles and their lies, until they appear strong."

Henry, who often found the truth more of a hindrance than a help, had gotten creative with his own lies, accusing her of adultery, incest, and treason, charges no one had dared defy during the sham they called a trial. He'd had five men killed to support his claims, including George-dear God, George-Anne's younger brother who'd been given a traitor's death just the day before. Anne could still hear the dull thud of axe on flesh, and her laughter shattered into a sob. She heard the guard startle before clanking away down the hall, closing the door at the other end as though wood and iron could block out her madness.

"I will kill them all," she promised the rat, or perhaps just herself. "I will claw my way back from hell if I have to, but I swear I will kill them."

She had a list, of course. The king. His scheming lackey, Thomas Cromwell. Her bastard of an uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who had presided over her trial and found her guilty.

Maybe even Jane Seymour for getting her into this mess in the first place.

Anne had known Henry was drifting, but after enduring three years of his mistresses-and worse, three years of his attention-she'd welcomed the space. Jane hadn't seemed like a threat; Anne would never have expected the pale, meek lady-in-waiting to lure another woman's husband into her bed. But she should have realized Jane wasn't just a dalliance like the others, that Henry was plotting an end for her the same way he had for Catherine of Aragón before her. If Anne had been paying attention, she would have studied the old spells, kept her bloodletting knife close, and laid her cursework before Henry ever had a chance to destroy her.

It was too late for all that now. Her beautiful, fiery Elizabeth had been wrenched from her arms, screaming as Anne was dragged away to the Tower. It was some consolation that her spell books were hidden where no one could ever find them, though it wasn't like she could have done much with them anyway-she hadn't been brought so much as a bread knife with her meals. Anne knew the soldier outside wasn't clenching his spear closer because he was guarding a disgraced queen but because he suspected he was guarding a witch.

Henry's lies hadn't come nearly as close to the truth as the rumors that had trailed Anne all her life. Men-and some women-saw an educated, willful female and whispered witch to weaken Anne's influence and appease their fragile egos. None of them realized the word was a compliment, the result of decades of study and the countless pale scars that decorated Anne's fingers, which she kept gloved or glamoured to avoid detection. They didn't know that none of their words or whispers could ever frighten her, not when she had the power to bend the world to her will with the right words and a few drops of blood.

Anne regarded the rat, who had taken to cleaning its whiskers in the firelight. "He should have tried me for heresy," she confided in the rodent. "At least then he would have been right."

"Looking to give them another reason to swing the sword tomorrow?"

Anne jumped at the sound of a woman's voice on the other side of her cell door-she had heard no footsteps approach. A key turned in the lock and the door swung open, revealing a hooded figure silhouetted against the torchlight. The guard was still gone, shirking his duty.

Warily, Anne got to her feet, and even the rat sensed that now would be a good time to scurry back into the shadows. "Who are you?" she demanded.

The woman drew back her hood, and Anne's breath caught in her throat. She knew that face, though it had more lines and hardness than when she'd last seen it three years before.

"You." Anne blinked, sure she was hallucinating. "You're supposed to be dead."

The woman snorted. "Soon you will be too."

Anne was familiar with illusions so real they'd fool the sharpest mind. But never once had she imagined she …