She says, ‘I am not talking about his being a witness. I am telling you he spends time in her chamber. Alone with her. And the door closed.’

‘In conversation?’

‘I have been to the door and heard no voices.’

‘Perhaps,’ he says, ‘they join in silent prayer.’

‘I have seen them kiss.’

‘A brother may kiss his sister.’

‘He may not, not in that way.’

He picks up his pen. ‘Lady Rochford, I cannot write down, “He kissed her in that way.”’

‘His tongue in her mouth. And her tongue in his.’

‘You want me to record that?’

‘If you fear you won’t remember it.’

He thinks, if this comes out in a law court the city will be in an uproar, if it is mentioned in Parliament the bishops will be frigging themselves on their benches. He waits, his pen poised. ‘Why would she do this, such a crime against nature?’

‘The better to rule. Surely you see it? She is lucky with Elizabeth, the child is like her. But suppose she gets a boy and it has Weston’s long face? Or it looks like Will Brereton, what might the king say to that? But they cannot call it a bastard if it looks like a Boleyn.’

Brereton too. He makes a note. He remembers how Brereton once joked with him he could be in two places at once: a chilly joke, a hostile joke, and now, he thinks, now at last, I laugh. Lady Rochford says, ‘Why do you smile?’

‘I have heard that in the queen’s rooms, among her lovers, there was talk of the king’s death. Did George ever join in with it?’

‘It would kill Henry if he knew how they laugh at him. How his member is discussed.’

‘I want you to think hard,’ he says. ‘Be sure of what you are doing. If you give evidence against your husband, in a court of law or to the council, you may find yourself a lonely woman in the years to come.’

Her face says, am I now so rich in friends? ‘I will not bear the blame,’ she says. ‘You will, Master Secretary. I am thought a woman of no great wit or penetration. And you are what you are, a man of resource who spares no one. It will be thought that you drew the truth out of me, whether I was willing or no.’

It seems to him little more need be said. ‘In order to sustain that notion, it will be necessary for you to contain your pleasure and feign distress. Once George is arrested, you must petition for mercy for him.’

‘I can do that.’ Jane Rochford puts out the tip of her tongue, as if the moment were sugared and she can taste it. ‘I am safe, for the king will take no notice, I can guarantee.’

‘Be advised by me. Talk to no one.’

‘Be advised by me. Talk to Mark Smeaton.’

He tells her, ‘I am going to my house at Stepney. I have asked Mark for supper.’