‘Ready to go?’ Norfolk says.

‘I do not know how to be ready,’ she says simply.

‘Just come with us,’ he says: he, Cromwell. He holds out a hand.

‘I would rather not go to the Tower.’ The same small voice, empty of everything except politeness. ‘I would rather go to see the king. Can I not be taken up to Whitehall?’

She knows the answer. Henry never says goodbye. Once, on a summer’s day of still heat, he rode away from Windsor and left Katherine behind; he never saw her again.

She says, ‘Surely, masters, you will not take me like this, as I stand? I have no necessities, not a change of shift, and I should have my women with me.’

‘Your clothes will be brought to you,’ he says. ‘And women to serve you.’

‘I had rather have my own ladies of my privy chamber.’

Glances are exchanged. She seems not to know it is these women who have given evidence against her, these women who crowd around Master Secretary everywhere he moves, keen to tell him anything he wants, desperate to protect themselves. ‘Well, if I cannot have my choice…some persons at least from my household. So I can keep my proper state.’

Fitz clears his throat. ‘Madam, your household is to be dissolved.’

She flinches. ‘Cremuel will find them places,’ she says lightly. ‘He is good about servants.’

Norfolk nudges the Lord Chancellor. ‘Because he grew up with them, eh?’ Audley turns his face away: he is always Cromwell’s man.

‘I do not think I shall come with any of you,’ she says. ‘I will go with William Paulet, if he is pleased to escort me, because in the council this morning you all abused me, but Paulet was a very gentleman.’

‘By God,’ Norfolk chuckles. ‘Go with Paulet, is it? I’ll lock you under my arm and drag you to the boat with your arse in the air. Is that what you want?’

With one accord, the councillors turn on him, and glare. ‘Madam,’ Audley says, ‘be assured, you will be handled as befits your status.’

She stands. Gathers her crimson skirts, raising them, fastidious, as if she will not now touch the common ground. ‘Where is my lord brother?’

Last seen at Whitehall, she is told: which is true, though by now the guards may have come for him. ‘And my father Monseigneur? This is what I do not understand,’ she says. ‘Why is Monseigneur not here with me? Why does he not sit down with you gentlemen and resolve this?’

‘No doubt there will be resolution hereafter.’ The Lord Chancellor is almost purring. ‘Everything will be provided to keep you in comfort. It is arranged.’

‘But arranged for how long?’

No one answers her. Outside the chamber, William Kingston waits for her, the Constable of the Tower. Kingston is a huge man, the king’s own build; he conducts himself nobly, but his office, and his appearance, have struck terror into the hearts of the strongest men. He remembers Wolsey, when Kingston went up-country to arrest him: the cardinal’s legs went from under him, and he had to sit down on a chest to recover. We should have left Kingston at home, he whispers to Audley, and taken her ourselves. Audley murmurs, ‘We could have, certainly; but don’t you think, Master Secretary, that you’re frightening enough on your own account?’