He takes a breath. Lisle, mayor, insults, Lisle. Calais, Dublin, secret funds. He wants Chapuys to get to Kimbolton in time. But he doesn’t want Katherine to rally. You should not desire, he knows, the death of any human creature. Death is your prince, you are not his patron; when you think he is engaged elsewhere, he will batter down your door, walk in and wipe his boots on you.

He sifts his papers. More chronicles of monks who sit in the alehouse all night and come reeling to the cloister at dawn; more priors found under hedges with prostitutes; more prayers, more pleas; tales of neglectful clergy who won’t christen children or bury the dead. He sweeps them away. Enough. A stranger writes to him – an old man judging by his hand – to say that the conversion of the Mohammedans is imminent. But what sort of church can we offer them? Unless there is sweeping change soon, the letter says, the heathens will be in more darkness than before. And you are Vicar General, Master Cromwell, you are the king’s vicegerent: what are you going to do about it?

He wonders, does the Turk work his people as hard as Henry works me? If I had been born an infidel I could have been a pirate. I could have sailed the Middle Sea.

As he turns up the next paper he almost laughs; some hand has laid before him a fat land grant, from the king to Charles Brandon. It is pastureland and woodland, furze and heath, and the manors sprinkled through it: Harry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, has made over this land to the Crown in part payment of his massive debts. Harry Percy, he thinks: I told him I would bring him down for his part in destroying Wolsey. And by God, I have not broken sweat; with his manner of life he has destroyed himself. It only remains to take his earldom away, as I swore I would.

The door opens, discreetly; it is Rafe Sadler. He looks up, surprised. ‘You should be with your household.’

‘I heard you had been at court, sir. I thought there might be letters to write.’

‘Go through these, but not tonight.’ He bundles over the papers for the grants. ‘Brandon may not get many such presents this New Year.’ He tells Rafe what has passed: Suffolk’s outburst, Chapuys’s amazed face. He does not tell him what Suffolk said, about how he was not fit to deal in the affairs of his betters; he shakes his head and says, ‘Charles Brandon, I was looking at him today…you know how he used to be cried up as a handsome fellow? The king’s own sister fell in love with him. But now, that big slab face of his…he has no more grace than a dripping pan.’

Rafe pulls up a low stool and sits thinking, forearms laid on the desk, his head pillowed on them. They are used to each other’s silent company. He inches a candle closer and frowns at some more papers, makes marginal marks. The king’s face rises before him: not Henry as he was today, but Henry as he was at Wolf Hall, coming from the garden, his expression dazed, drops of rain on his jacket: and the pale circle of Jane Seymour’s face by his side.