Even pushed you into the king’s bed, he thinks, when she was carrying a child: to keep Henry in the family.

‘What will happen to her?’ Mary’s eyes are solemn. ‘Will he leave her? There is talk but Anne does not believe it.’

‘She must stretch her credulity a little.’

‘She says, I can always get him back, I know how. And you know she always has. But whatever has happened with Harry Norris, I will not continue with her, for I know she would take him from me and no scruple, if she has not already. And gentle-women cannot be on such terms. And Lady Rochford cannot continue. And Jane Seymour is removed, for – well, I will not say why. And Lady Worcester must go home for her lying-in this summer.’

He sees the young woman’s eyes move, calculating, counting. To her, a problem is looming: a problem of staffing Anne’s privy chamber. ‘But I suppose England has enough ladies,’ she says. ‘It were well she began again. Yes, a new beginning. Lady Lisle in Calais looks to send her daughters over. I mean, her daughters from her first husband. They are pretty girls and I think they will do very well when they are trained.’

It is as if Anne Boleyn has entranced them, men and women both, so that they cannot see what is happening around them and cannot hear the meaning of their own words. They have lived in stupidity such a long season. ‘So do you write to Honor Lisle,’ Mary says, with perfect confidence. ‘She will be for ever your debtor if she gets her girls at court.’

‘And you? What will you do?’

‘I’ll take thought,’ she says. She is never put down for long. That’s why men like her. There will be other times, other men, other manners. She hops to her feet. She plants a kiss on his cheek.

It is Saturday evening.

Sunday: ‘I wish you had been here this morning,’ Lady Rochford says with relish. ‘It was something to witness. The king and Anne in the great window together, so everybody in the courtyard below could see them. The king has heard about the quarrel she had with Norris yesterday. Well, the whole of England has heard of it. You could see the king was beside himself, his face was purple. She stood with her hands clasped at her breast…’ She shows him, clasping her own hands. ‘You know, like Queen Esther, in the king’s great tapestry?’

He can picture it easily, that richly textured scene, woven courtiers gathered about their distressed queen. One maid, as if unconcerned, carries a lute, perhaps en route to Esther’s apartments; others gossip aside, the women’s smooth faces uptilted, the men’s heads inclined. Among these courtiers with their jewels and elaborate hats he has looked in vain for his own face. Perhaps he is somewhere else, plotting: a snapped skein, a broken end, an intractable knot of threads. ‘Like Esther,’ he says. ‘Yes.’