‘But she was not charged,’ I whisper, nodding to the door where her ladyship has gone. ‘And your mother was not charged. Just George.’

‘My mother was newly come to court.’ Catherine starts to gather up the silks. ‘And an old favourite of the king. Lady Rochford was not charged for she gave evidence against her husband and the queen. They would not accuse her, she was their chief witness.’

‘What?’ I am so astounded I give a little scream, and Catherine glances at the door behind us as if she fears someone hearing us. ‘She betrayed her own husband and sister-in-law?’

She nods. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she repeats. ‘My mother says that there is no value in thinking of old scores and old wrongs.’

‘How could she?’ I am stammering with shock. ‘How could she do such a thing? Send her husband to his death? Accuse him—of that? How can Lady Rochford be so trusted by my uncle? If she betrayed her own husband and her queen?’

My cousin Catherine rises from the floor and puts the silks in the box, as she was ordered. ‘My mother commanded me to trust nobody at court,’ she observes. ‘She said, especially Lady Rochford.’

All this leaves me with something to think about. I cannot imagine what it was like, all that long time ago. I cannot imagine what the king must have been like when he was a young man, a healthy young man, perhaps as handsome and desirable as Thomas Culpepper is now. And what must it have been like for Queen Anne my cousin, admired as I am admired, surrounded by courtiers as I am surrounded, confiding in Jane Boleyn, just as I do.

I cannot think what this means. I cannot think what it means to me. As Catherine says, it was a long time ago, and everyone is different now. I cannot be haunted by these old, sad stories. Anne Boleyn has been a shameful secret in our family for so long it hardly matters whether she was innocent or not, since she died a traitor’s death in the end. Surely, it does not matter to me? It is not as if I have to follow her footsteps, it is not as if there is a Boleyn inheritance of the scaffold and I am her heir. It is not as if any of this makes any difference to me. It is not as if I should learn from her.

I am the queen now, and I shall have to live my life as I please. I shall have to manage as well as I can with a king who is no husband to me at all. He has hardly been out of his rooms for a month, and he will not admit me even when I go to his door for a visit. And since he never sees me, he is never pleased with me and I have had nothing from him for months: not even a trinket. It is so rude of him and so selfish that I think it would quite serve him right if I were to fall in love with another man.