‘What happened to her?’

He says gently, ‘We could not mend her.’ He glances up at the fool. She is grinning in her corner, and jerking her fists apart in a snapping motion. Why does Anne keep the thing? She should be sent to a hospital. Anne scrubs at her cheeks; all her fine French manners fallen away, she uses her knuckles, like a little girl. ‘What is the news from Kimbolton?’ She finds a handkerchief and blows her nose. ‘They say Katherine could live six months.’

He does not know what to say. Perhaps she wants him to send a man to Kimbolton to drop Katherine from a height?

‘The French ambassador complains he came twice to your house and you would not see him.’

‘I was busy,’ he shrugs.

‘With?’

‘I was playing bowls in the garden. Yes, twice. I practise constantly, because if I lose a game I am in a rage all day, and I go looking for papists to kick.’

Once, Anne would have laughed. Not now. ‘I myself do not care for this ambassador. He does not give me his respect, as the envoy before did. None the less, you must be careful of him. You must do him all honour, because it is only King Francis who is keeping the Pope from our throats.’

Farnese as wolf. Snarling and dripping bloody drool. He is not sure she is in a mood to be talked to, but he will try. ‘It is not for love of us that Francis helps us.’

‘I know it is not for love.’ She teases out her wet handkerchief, looking for a dry bit. ‘Not for love of me, anyway. I am not such a fool.’

‘It is only that he does not want the Emperor Charles to overrun us and make himself master of the world. And he does not like the bull of excommunication. He does not think it right that the Bishop of Rome or any priest should set himself up to deprive a king of his own country. But I wish France would see his own interest. It is a pity there is not a skilled man to open to him the advantages of doing as our sovereign lord has done, and taking the headship of his own church.’

‘But there are not two Cremuels.’ She manages a sour smile.

He waits. Does she know how the French now see her? They no longer believe she can influence Henry. They think she is a spent force. And though the whole of England has taken an oath to uphold her children, no one abroad believes that, if she fails to give Henry a son, the little Elizabeth can reign. As the French ambassador said to him (the last time he let him in): if the choice is between two females, why not prefer the elder? If Mary’s blood is Spanish, at least it is royal. And at least she can walk straight and has control of her bowels.