‘I think I understand why.’

Mary looks up. ‘I know you are laughing at us. But it was horrible. For me it was. Because I thought that it was a jest between them that Harry Norris loved her, and then I saw it was not. I swear he had turned pale and he said to Anne, will you spill all your secrets or only some? And he walked away and he did not even bow to her, and she ran after him. And I do not know what she said, because we were all frozen like statues.’

Spill her secrets. All or only some. ‘Who heard this?’

She shakes her head. ‘Perhaps a dozen people. They could not help but hear it.’

And then, it appears, the queen was frantic. ‘She looked at us ranged about her, and she wanted to get Norris back, she said a priest must be fetched, she said Harry must take an oath that he knew her to be chaste, a faithful good wife. She said he must take back everything said, and she would take it back too, and they would put their hands on the Bible in her chamber, and then everybody would know that it was idle talk. She is terrified Lady Rochford will go to the king.’

‘I know Jane Rochford likes to carry bad news. But not such bad news as that.’ Not to a husband. That his dear friend and his wife have discussed his death, with a view to how they will console themselves after.

It is treason. Possibly. To envisage the death of the king. The law recognises it: how short the step, from dreaming to desiring to encompassing. We call it ‘imagining’ his death: the thought is father to the deed, and the deed is born raw, ugly, premature. Mary Shelton does not know what she has witnessed. She thinks it is a lovers’ quarrel. She thinks it is one incident in her own long career of love and love’s misfortunes. ‘I doubt,’ she says dully, ‘that Harry Norris will marry me now, or even trouble himself pretending he is going to marry me. If you had asked me last week has the queen given way to him, I would have told you no, but when I look at them now, it is clear such words have passed between them, such looks, and how can I know what deeds? I think…I don’t know what to think.’

‘I’ll marry you, Mary,’ he says.

She laughs, in spite of herself. ‘Master Secretary, you will not, you are always saying you will marry this lady and that, but we know you hold yourself a great prize.’

‘Ah well. So it’s back to Paris Garden.’ He shrugs, he smiles; but he feels the need to be brisk with her, to hurry on. ‘Now understand me, you must be discreet and silent. The thing you must do here – you and the other ladies – you must protect yourselves.’

Mary is struggling. ‘It could not tend to bad, could it? If the king hears, he will know how to take it, yes? He may suppose it is all light words? No harm? It is all conjecture, perhaps I have spoken in haste, one cannot know that anything has passed between them, I could not swear it.’ He thinks, but you will swear it; by and by you will. ‘You see, Anne is my cousin.’ The girl’s voice falters. ‘She has done everything for me –’