‘But . . .’

‘If you do not release him he will be rid of you anyway.’

‘How can he?’ she demands.

I look at her. ‘You know.’

She dares me to say it. ‘What will he do?’

‘He will kill you,’ I say simply.

Richard Beard moves away so that he can deny he ever heard this. The ambassador glares at me, uncomprehending.

‘You know this,’ I say.

In silence, she nods.

‘Who is your friend in England?’ I ask her. ‘Who will defend you?’

I see the fight go out of her. ‘I have none.’

‘Can you get a message to your brother? Will he save you?’ I know he will not.

‘I am innocent,’ she whispers.

‘Even so.’

KATHERINE, NORFOLK HOUSE, LAMBETH,

9 JULY 1540

I cannot, I cannot believe it: but it is so. My grandmother has just told me, and she has just had it from my uncle Norfolk, and he was there, and so he knows. They have done it. They have examined all the evidence and announced that the king’s marriage to Queen Anne of Cleves was never valid and they are both free to marry someone else, as if they had never been married to each other at all.

I am amazed. All that wedding, and the gown, and the beautiful jewels and gifts, and us all carrying the train and the wedding breakfast and the archbishop . . . none of it counted. How can that be? The sables! They didn’t count either. This is what it is to be king. He wakes up in the morning and decides he is to marry and he does. Then he wakes up the morning after and decides he doesn’t like her, and voilà! (this is French, it means something like: gracious, look at that!), voilà! He is not married. The marriage was never valid and they are now to be seen as brother and sister. Brother and sister!

Only a king could do such a thing. If it were done by an ordinary person you would think him a madman. But since he is king nobody can say that this is madness, and not even the queen (or whatever she happens to be now) can say this is madness. We all say: ‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty’, and he comes to dinner with my grandmother and me tonight and he will propose to marry me and I will say: ‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty, thank you very much’, and never, never say that this is mad, and the work of a madman, and the world itself is mad that it does not turn on him.

For I am not mad. I may be very stupid, and I may be very ignorant (though I am learning French, voilà!) but at least I don’t think that if you stand in front of the archbishop and say ‘I do’, then that doesn’t count six months later. But I do see that I live in a world that is ruled by a madman and governed by his whims. Also, he is the king and head of the church, and God speaks to him directly, so if he says that something is the case then who is going to say no to him?