She blanches white at that. ‘He would never send me to the Tower,’ she whispers. ‘You always think of that. You always harp on about that. It happened only once, to one wife. It will never happen again. He adores me.’

‘He loves his niece and yet he will send her to Syon to imprisonment and heartbreak, and her lover to the Tower and death,’ I predict. ‘The king may love you, but he hates to think of others doing their own will. The king may love you, but he wants you like a little queen of ice. If there is any unchastity in your rooms he will blame you and punish you for it. The king may love you, but he would see you dead at his feet rather than set up a rival royal family. Think of the Pole family—in the Tower for life. Think of Margaret Pole spending year after year in there, innocent as a saint and as old as your grandmother, yet imprisoned for life. Would you see the Howards go that way too?’

‘This is a nightmare for me!’ she bursts out; poor little girl, white-faced in her diamonds. ‘This is my own brother. I am queen. I must be able to save him. All he has done is fall in love. My uncle shall hear of this. He will save Charles.’

‘Your uncle is away from court,’ I say dryly. ‘Surprisingly he has gone to Kenninghall. You can’t reach him in time.’

‘What does he know of this?’

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘You will find that he knows nothing about it. You will find that if the king asks him he will be shocked to his soul at the presumption. You will have to give up your brother. You cannot save him. If the king has turned his face away, then Charles is a dead man. I know this. Of all the people in the world: I know this.’

‘You didn’t let your own husband go to his death without a word. You didn’t let the king order his death without praying for mercy for him!’ she swears, knowing nothing, knowing nothing at all.

I do not say: ‘Oh, but I did. I was so afraid then. I was so afraid for myself.’ I do not say: ‘Oh, but I did; and for darker reasons than you will ever be able to imagine.’ Instead, I say: ‘Never mind what I did or didn’t do. You will have to say goodbye to your brother and hope that something distracts the king from the sentence of death, and if not, you will have to remember him only in your prayers.’

‘What good is that?’ she demands heretically. ‘If God is always on the king’s side? If the king’s will is God’s will? What good is praying to God when the king is God in England?’

‘Hush,’ I say instantly. ‘You will have to learn to live without your brother, as I had to learn to live without my sister-in-law, without my husband. The king turned his face away and George went into the Tower and came out headless. And I had to learn to bear it. As you will have to do.’