‘I know it is not true. But we have to consider the worst that could be said. And try to guard against it. Shall I write to your brother?’

‘He won’t help me,’ I say sullenly. ‘I am alone.’

‘Then we must prepare,’ he says. ‘You have good horses in your stables?’

I nod.

‘Then give me some money and I shall have other horses ready all the way down the road to Dover,’ he says decisively. ‘The moment I think that it is going against you, we can leave the country.’

‘He will close the ports,’ I warn. ‘He did the last time.’

‘We won’t be trapped again. I shall hire a fishing boat to serve us,’ he says. ‘We know now what he can do. We know what lengths he will go to. We will get away before they have even decided to arrest you.’

I look at the closed door. ‘There will be someone in my service who will know that you have come to warn me,’ I say. ‘Just as we have a man in his service, he will have put a spy here. I am watched.’

‘I know the man,’ Dr Harst says with quiet pleasure. ‘And he will report my visit today but he will say nothing more. He is my man now. I think we are safe.’

‘Safe as mice under the scaffold,’ I say bitterly.

He nods. ‘As long as the axe falls on others.’

I shudder. ‘Who deserves it? Not me, but not little Kitty Howard either! What did she and I ever do but marry where we were bid?’

‘As long as you escape it, my job is done,’ he says. ‘The queen must look to her own friends for help.’

KATHERINE, HAMPTON COURT,

NOVEMBER 1541

Now, let me see, what do I have now?

Surprise, surprise! I have no friends and I thought I had dozens.

I have no lovers, and I thought I was pestered by them.

I don’t even have a family, as it turns out, they are all gone.

I have no husband for he won’t see me, and I don’t even have a confessor for the archbishop himself has become my inquisitor. Everyone is so mean to me and it is so unfair, I don’t know what to think or say. They came to me when I was dancing with my ladies, and said that it was the king’s orders that I was not to leave my rooms.

For a moment—I am such a fool, grandmother was right when she said that there never was a greater fool than me—I thought it was a masque and that someone would come in costume and capture me, and then someone would come in costume and rescue me and there would be a joust or a mock battle on the river or something amusing. The whole country had said prayers on the Sunday to thank God for me, so I was expecting some kind of celebration on the day after. So I waited in my room, behind the locked doors, looking forward to a knight errant coming, perhaps even a tower coming to my window, or a mock siege, perhaps a cavalcade riding into the garden, and I said to my ladies: ‘Here’s a good joke, I expect!’ But we waited all day in my room and even though I rushed and changed my dress to be ready, no-one came and I called for music and to make merry and then Archbishop Cranmer came and said that the time for dancing was over.