From the council chamber, she is escorted to her own rooms, to dine. At two o’clock, he is heading there, with Audley the Lord Chancellor, and Fitzwilliam by his side. Mr Treasurer’s affable face is creased with strain. ‘I was not happy this morning in council, to hear her told so bluntly that Harry Norris has confessed. He confessed to me he loved her. He didn’t confess to any act.’

‘So what did you do, Fitz?’ he asks him. ‘Did you speak up?’

‘No,’ Audley says. ‘He fidgeted and stared into the middle distance. Didn’t you, Master Treasurer?’

‘Cromwell!’ It is Norfolk who is roaring, swatting his way through the throng of courtiers towards him. ‘Now, Cromwell! I hear the singer has sung to your tune. What did you do to him? I wish I had been there. This will furnish a pretty ballad from the printer’s shop. Henry fingering the lute, while the lutenist fingers his wife’s quim.’

‘If you hear of any such printer,’ he says, ‘tell me and I will close him down.’

Norfolk says, ‘But listen to me, Cromwell. I do not intend this bag of bones to be the ruin of my noble house. If she has misconducted herself, it must not bear on the Howards, only the Boleyns. And I don’t need Wiltshire finished off. I just want his foolish title taken off him. Monseigneur, if you please.’ The duke bares his teeth in glee. ‘I want to see him diminished, after his pride these past years. You will recall that I never promoted this marriage. No, Cromwell, that was you. I always warned Henry Tudor of her character. Perhaps this will teach him that in the future he should listen to me.’

‘My lord,’ he says, ‘do you have the warrant?’

Norfolk flourishes a parchment. When they enter Anne’s rooms, her gentlemen servants are just rolling away the great tablecloth, and she is still seated under her canopy of estate. She is wearing crimson velvet and she turns – the bag of bones – the perfect ivory oval of her face. Hard to think she has eaten anything; there is a fretful silence in the room, strain visible on every face. They must wait, the councillors, until the rolling is performed, till the folding of the napery is accomplished, and the correct reverences made.

‘So you are here, uncle,’ she says. Her voice is small. One by one she acknowledges them. ‘Lord Chancellor. Master Treasurer.’ Other councillors are pushing in behind them. Many people, it seems, have dreamed of this moment; they have dreamed that Anne would plead with them on her knees. ‘My lord Oxford,’ she says. ‘And William Sandys. How are you, Sir William?’ It is as if she finds it soothing, to name them all. ‘And you, Cremuel.’ She leans forward. ‘You know, I created you.’

‘And he created you, madam,’ Norfolk snaps. ‘And be sure he repents him of it.’

‘But I was sorry first,’ Anne says. She laughs. ‘And I am sorry more.’