Catherine Edgecombe is nervous, she says she does not know what she is to say, she is afraid of one of the churchmen cross-questioning her, and trapping her into saying the wrong thing, heavens, even the truth might slip out if she were to be harried—how dreadful would that be! But I am as much at ease as a bitter old fishwife gutting mackerel. ‘You won’t even see them,’ I predict. ‘You won’t be cross-questioned. Who would challenge your lies? It’s not as if there will be anyone wanting the truth, it’s not as if there will be anyone speaking in her defence. I imagine you won’t even have to speak. It will all be drawn up for us, we’ll just have to sign it.’

‘But what if it says . . . what if they name her as a . . .’ She breaks off and looks downriver. She is too afraid even to say the word ‘witch’.

‘Why would you even read it?’ I ask. ‘What does it matter what it says above your signature? You agreed to sign it, didn’t you? You didn’t agree to read it.’

‘But I would not have her harmed by my evidence,’ she says, the ninny.

I raise my eyebrows but I say nothing. I don’t need to. We all know that we have set out in the king’s barge, on a lovely summer day, to be rowed up the river to destroy a young woman who has done nothing wrong.

‘Did you just sign something? When you? Before?’ she asks tentatively.

‘No,’ I say. There is a salt taste of bile in my mouth so strong that I want to spit over the side into the green, swift water. ‘No. It was not done as well as this for Anne and my husband. See how we are improving in these ceremonies? Then, I had to go into court before them all and swear on the Bible and give my evidence. I had to face the court and say what I had to say against my own husband and his sister. I had to face him and say it.’

She gives a little shudder. ‘That must have been dreadful.’

‘It was,’ I say shortly.

‘You must have feared the worst.’

‘I knew that my life would be saved,’ I say crudely. ‘And I imagine that is why you are here today, as I am, as is Lady Rutland. If Anne of Cleves is found guilty and dies, then at least we will not die with her.’

‘But what will they say she has done?’ Catherine asks.

‘Oh, it will be us who say.’ I give a harsh laugh. ‘It will be us who accuse her. It will be us who make the accusation and swear to the evidence. It will be us who will say what she has done. They will just say that she will have to die for it. And we will find out her crime soon enough.’

* * *