He nods. The privy chamber carry unwritten messages, it is one of their tasks. They come and go between the king and his peers, sometimes between the king and foreign ambassadors, and no doubt between the king and his wife. They do not brook questioning. They cannot be held to account.

Lady Rochford sits back. She says softly, ‘Before they were married, she used to practise with Henry in the French fashion. You know what I mean.’

‘I have no idea what you mean. Were you ever in France yourself?’

‘No. I thought you were.’

‘As a soldier. Among the military, the ars amatoria is not refined.’

She considers this. A hardness creeps into her voice. ‘You wish to shame me out of saying what I must say, but I am no virgin girl, I see no reason not to speak. She induced Henry to put his seed otherwise than he should have. So now he berates her, that she caused him to do so.’

‘Opportunities lost. I understand.’ Seed gone to waste, slid away in some crevice of her body or down her throat. When he could have been seeing to her in the honest English way.

‘He calls it a filthy proceeding. But God love him, Henry does not know where filth begins. My husband George is always with Anne. But I’ve told you that before.’

‘He is her brother, I suppose it is natural.’

‘Natural? Is that what you call it?’

‘My lady, I know you would like it to be a crime to be a fond brother and a cold husband. But there is no statute that makes it so, and no precedent for your relief.’ He hesitates. ‘Do not think I am without sympathy for you.’

For what can a woman like Jane Rochford do when circumstances are against her? A widow well-provided can cut a figure in the world. A merchant’s wife can with diligence and prudence take business matters into her hands, and squirrel away a store of gold. A labouring woman ill-used by a husband can enlist robust friends, who will stand outside her house all night and bang pans, till the unshaven churl tips out in his shirt to chase them off, and they pull up his shirt and mock his member. But a young married gentlewoman has no way to help herself. She has no more power than a donkey; all she can hope for is a master who spares the whip. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘that your father Lord Morley is a scholar I hold in great esteem. Have you never advised with him?’

‘What is the use?’ She is scornful. ‘When we married he said he was doing his best for me. It is what fathers say. He paid less mind to contracting me to Boleyn than he would to selling a hound puppy. If you think there’s a warm kennel and a dish of broken meats, what more do you need to know? You don’t ask the animal what it wants.’