So anyone who knows the king knows that this report of plague is a lie, and that the truth must be that this is the start of the queen’s ordeal. First, house arrest, while the inquiry goes on, then a charge, then a court hearing, then judgement, the sentence, and death. Thus it was for Queen Katherine, for Queen Anne Boleyn, so it will be for Queen Anne of Cleves.

‘I will see him before I leave?’ she asks, poor little thing, her voice is trembling.

‘His Grace bade me come to tell you to leave tomorrow morning. He will visit you, without doubt, at Richmond Palace.’

She staggers and her legs buckle beneath her; if I were not holding her up she would fall. The duke nods at me, as if commending a job well done, then he steps back and bows, and takes himself from the room as if he were not Death himself, come for the bride.

I lower the queen into her chair and send one of the girls for a glass of water, and another running to the cellarer for a glass of brandy. When they come back I make her drink from one glass and then the other, and she lifts up her head and looks at me.

‘I must see my ambassador,’ she says huskily.

I nod, she can see him if she likes; but there will be nothing he can do to save her. I send one of the pages to find Dr Harst. He will be dining in the hall, he finds his way in every mealtime to one of the tables at the back. The Duke of Cleves has not paid him enough to set up his own house like a proper ambassador; the poor man has to scrounge like a mouse at the royal board.

He comes in at a run, and recoils when he sees her, seated in her chair, doubled over, as if she has been knifed in the heart.

‘Leave us,’ she says.

I drift to the end of the room but I don’t go right outside. I stand as if I am guarding the door from the others coming in. I dare not leave her alone, even if I won’t understand what is being said. I cannot risk her giving him her jewels and the two of them slipping away through the private door to the garden and the path to the river, even though I know there are sentries on the piers.

They mutter in their own language, and I see him shake his head. She is crying, trying to tell him something, and he pats her hand, and pats her elbow, and does everything but pat her head like a whipper-in might soothe a fretting bitch. I lean back against the door. This is not the man who can overthrow our plans. This man is not going to rescue her; we need not fear him. This man will still be desperately worrying about what he can do to save her as she climbs the scaffold. If she is counting on him for help, then she is as good as dead already.