Henry looks irritated. He should not have to manage this. Cromwell is supposed to manage it for him. Ease out the Boleyns, ease in the Seymours. His business is more kingly: praying for the success of his enterprises, and writing songs for Jane.

‘Leave it a day or two, sir, and I will interview him apart from his father. I think in Lord Wiltshire’s presence he feels the need to strut and posture.’

‘Yes, I am not often wrong,’ Henry says. ‘Vanity, that’s all it is. Now listen.’ He sings:

‘The daisy delectable,

The violet wan and blue.

I am not variable…

‘You perceive it is an old song that I am trying to rework. What pairs with blue? Apart from “new”?’

What else do you need, he thinks. He takes his leave. The galleries are lit by torches, from which figures melt away. The atmosphere at court, this Friday evening in April, reminds him of the public bath-houses they have in Rome. The air is thick and the swimming figures of other men glide past you – perhaps men you know, but you don’t know them without their clothes. Your skin is hot then cold then hot again. The tiles are slippery beneath your feet. On each side of you are doors left ajar, just a few inches, and outside your line of sight, but very close to you, perversities are occurring, unnatural conjugations of bodies, men and women and men and men. You feel nauseous, from the sticky heat and what you know of human nature, and you wonder why you have come. But you have been told that a man must go to the bath-house at least once in his life, or he won’t believe it when other people tell him what goes on.

‘The truth is,’ Mary Shelton says, ‘I would have tried to see you, Master Secretary, even if you had not sent for me.’ Her hand shakes; she takes a sip of wine, looks deeply into the bowl as if divining, then raises her eloquent eyes. ‘I pray I never pass another day like this one. Nan Cobham wants to see you. Marjorie Horsman. All the women of the bedchamber.’

‘Have you something to tell me? Or is it that you just want to cry on my papers and make the ink run?’

She puts down the cup and gives him her hands. He is moved by the gesture, it is like a child showing you her hands are clean. ‘Shall we try to disentangle it?’ he asks gently.

All day from the queen’s rooms, shouting, slamming doors, running feet: hissed conversations in undertones. ‘I wish I were gone from the court,’ Shelton says. ‘I wish myself in another place.’ She slides her hands away. ‘I should be married. Is that too much, to be married and have some children, while I am still young?’

‘Now, do not be sorry for yourself. I thought you were marrying Harry Norris.’

‘So did I.’

‘I know that there was some falling out between you, but that would be a year ago now?’