Henry has turned white. ‘Think what you are saying.’ He approaches Brandon as if he might knock him down; which, if he had a poleaxe, he could. ‘My wife is carrying a child. I am lawfully married.’

‘Oh.’ Charles blows out his cheeks. ‘Yes, as far as that goes. But I thought you said –’

He, Cromwell, hurls himself towards the duke. Where in the name of Satan’s sister did Charles get this notion? Marry into France? It must be the king’s plan, as Brandon has none of his own. It looks as if Henry is carrying on two foreign policies: one he knows about and one he doesn’t. He takes a grip on Brandon. He is a head shorter. He doesn’t think he can move half a ton of idiot, still padded and partly armed. But it seems he can, he can move him fast, fast, and try to get him out of earshot of the ambassador, whose face is astonished. Only when he has propelled Brandon across the presence chamber does he stop and demand, ‘Suffolk, where do you get this from?’

‘Ah, we noble lords know more than you do. The king makes plain to us his real intentions. You think you know all his secrets, but you are mistaken, Cromwell.’

‘You heard what he said. Anne is carrying his child. You are mad if you think he will turn her out now.’

‘He’s mad if he thinks it’s his.’

‘What?’ He pulls back from Brandon as if the breastplate were hot. ‘If you know anything against the queen’s honour, you are bound as a subject to speak plainly.’

Brandon wrenches his arm away. ‘I spoke plain before and look where it got me. I told him about her and Wyatt, and he kicked me out of the court and back to the east country.’

‘Drag Wyatt into this, and I’ll kick you to China.’

The duke’s face is congested with rage. How has it come to this? Only weeks ago, Brandon was asking him to be godfather to the son he has with his new little wife. But now the duke snarls, ‘Get back to your abacus, Cromwell. You are only for fetching in money, when it comes to the affairs of nations you cannot deal, you are a common man of no status, and the king himself says so, you are not fit to talk to princes.’

Brandon’s hand in his chest, shoving him back: once again, the duke is making for the king’s person. It is Chapuys, frozen in dignity and sorrow, who imposes some order, stepping between the king and the heaving, boiling mass of the duke. ‘I take my leave, Majesty. As always I find you a most gracious prince. If I am in time, as I trust I shall be, my master will be consoled to have news of his aunt’s final hours from the hand of his own envoy.’

‘I can do no less,’ Henry says, sobered. ‘God speed.’

‘I ride at first light,’ Chapuys tells him; rapidly, they walk away, through the morris men and the bobbing hobby horses, through a merman and his shoal, skirting round a castle that rumbles towards them, painted masonry on oiled wheels.