She shrugs. ‘Queens before,’ she says. ‘Now: Anne of Cleves.’

Either this is a high courage; or it is the stoicism of the very stupid.

‘Are you not afraid?’ I ask very quietly.

She understands the words, I know she does. I can see it in her stillness and the sudden attentive tilt of her head. She looks at me directly. ‘Afraid of nothing,’ she says firmly. ‘Never afraid.’

For a moment I want to warn her. She is not the only brave girl to sit in this box to be honoured as queen and then end her life stripped of her title, facing death alone. Katherine of Aragon had the courage of a crusader, Anne the nerves of a whore. The king brought them both down to nothing. ‘You must take care,’ I say.

‘I afraid of nothing, am,’ she says again. ‘Never afraid.’

ANNE, WHITEHALL PALACE,

JANUARY 1540

I was dazzled by the beauty of the palace of Greenwich, but I am shaken to my shoes by Whitehall. More like a town than a palace, it is a thousand halls and houses, gardens and courts, in which only the nobly born and bred seem to find their way around. It has been the home of the Kings of England forever, and every great lord and his family have their own houses built inside the half-dozen acres of the sprawling palace. Everyone knows a secret passage, everyone knows a quick route, everyone knows a door that is conveniently left open to the streets, and a quick way down to a pier on the river where you can get a boat. Everyone but me and my Cleves ambassadors, who are lost inside this warren a dozen times a day and who feel more stupid and more like peasants abroad each time.

Beyond the gates of the palace is the city of London, one of the most crowded, noisy, populous cities in the world. From dawn I can hear the street sellers calling, even from my set of rooms hidden deep inside the palace. As the day goes on the noise and business increases until it seems that there is nowhere in the world that can be at peace. There is a constant stream of people through the palace gates with things to sell and bargains to make and, from what Lady Jane tells me, a continual stream of petitions for the king. This is the true home of his Privy Council; his parliament sits just down the road at the Palace of Westminster. The Tower of London, the great fortified lodestone of every king’s power, is just down the river. If I am to make this great kingdom my home I shall have to learn my way around this palace, and then find my way around London. There is no point in hiding in my closet, overwhelmed by the noise and the bustle, I have to get out into the palace and let the people—who crowd in their thousands from dawn till nightfall—look at me.