‘He escaped. And it was not us who killed Curdy, but some others we have been forced to work with. They are concerned with finding Anne Askew’s writings, but we are not.’ I spoke slowly and carefully: I saw I had his attention. ‘I am interested only in the other manuscript, which they do not know about. The one stolen from the Queen.’ I leaned forward. ‘A book which, if published, could do great damage to the Reformist cause. Just when her majesty’s troubles appeared to be over, and the tide beginning to swing against Bishop Gardiner, you steal it. Why, Master Leeman?’

He did not reply, but looked at me through narrowed eyes, calculating. A slight blush appeared on his pale cheeks and I wondered if he was remembering his oath to the Queen, which he had broken. I continued quietly. ‘I traced you through the guard Gawger, whom you bribed, and the carpenter who gave you the substitute key for the Queen’s chest.’

‘You have learned much.’

‘Not enough. Where is the book now?’

‘I do not know. Greening had it. Whoever killed him took it.’

‘And who was that?’ He did not answer, but I sensed he knew more. He looked at me, then surprised me by saying, in a scoffing tone, ‘You think the danger to the Queen is ended, if the book I took is recovered?’

‘So it has seemed. I have lately been at court, Master Leeman.’

He answered, weariness and scorn mingling in his voice: ‘It is not over. How did you learn the name Bertano, if you do not know who he is?’

‘Greening’s neighbour, Okedene, heard you arguing loudly in Greening’s shop, shortly before Greening was killed. He heard the name Bertano mentioned as an emissary of the Antichrist.’

Leeman nodded slowly. ‘Yes. The Queen may be a good woman, and perhaps in her heart she recognizes the Mass as a blasphemous ceremony, but because of Bertano she is doomed anyway. The King is about to receive a secret emissary from Rome. That can only mean he is going to return to papal servitude. Many would fall then, Catherine Parr chief among them.’And then I felt a chill as I understood. ‘Bertano is the official emissary of the Pope,’ I breathed.

‘Whether that is true or not,’ Nicholas said angrily, ‘you broke your oath to guard and protect her.’

‘In the end she is no more than another of the idle rout of nobles and princes, the refuse of mankind.’ Leeman spoke so fiercely, I wondered again whether his conscience pricked him.

Nicholas frowned. ‘God’s death, he is an Anabaptist. That mad company of schismatics. He’d have all gentlemen murdered and their property given to the rabble.’