Without a word, he passes the letter to Wriothesley. Who looks up from it, and when he speaks his tone is hushed. ‘What has she done, Master Secretary? Perhaps something we have not yet imagined.’

He looks at him, exasperated. ‘You are not going to begin on that witchcraft business?’

‘No. But. If she says she is not worthy, she is saying she is guilty. Or so it seems to me. But I do not know guilty of what.’

‘Remind me what I said. What kind of truth do we want? Did I say, the whole truth?’

‘You said, only the truth we can use.’

‘I reiterate the point. But you know, Call-Me, I shouldn’t have to. You’re quick on the uptake. Once should be enough.’

It is a warm evening, and he sits by an open window, his nephew Richard for company. Richard knows when to keep silence and when to talk; it is a family trait, he supposes. Rafe Sadler is the only other company he would have liked, and Rafe is with the king.

Richard looks up. ‘I had a letter from Gregory.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘You know Gregory’s letters.’

‘“The sun is shining. We have had good hunting and great cheer. I am well, how are you? And now no more for lack of time.”’

Richard nods. ‘He doesn’t change, Gregory. Though he does, I suppose. He wants to come here to you. He should be with you, he thinks.’

‘I was trying to spare him.’

‘I know. But perhaps you should let him. You cannot keep him a child.’

He broods. If his son is to become accustomed to the king’s service, perhaps he should know what it involves. ‘You can leave me,’ he says to Richard. ‘I might write to him.’

Richard pauses to shut out the night air. Outside the door his voice runs on, giving kindly commands: bring down my uncle’s furred gown, he may want it, and take in to him more lights. He is sometimes surprised if he knows someone cares for him, cares enough to think of his bodily comfort: except for his servants, who are paid to do it. He wonders how the queen finds herself, amid her new Tower household: Lady Kingston has been set among her attendants, and though he has placed women of the Boleyn family around her, they might not be those she would have chosen for herself. They are women of experience, who will know how the tide is running. They will listen keenly to weeping and laughter, and any words like, ‘It is too good for me.’

He believes he understands Anne, as Wriothesley does not. When she said the queen’s lodgings were too good for her, she did not mean to admit her guilt, but to say this truth: I am not worthy, and I am not worthy because I have failed. One thing she set out to do, this side of salvation: get Henry and keep him. She has lost him to Jane Seymour, and no court of law will judge her more harshly than she judges herself. Since Henry rode away from her yesterday, she has been an impostor, like a child or a court fool, dressed in the costumes of a queen and now ordered to live in the queen’s rooms. She knows adultery is a sin and treason a crime, but to be on the losing side is a greater fault than these.