I stay, kneeling on the hearthstone, till the clock on the table strikes four with its silvery little chime and I realize that I have been in a trance of prayer for hours. I have prayed and I believe that I have been heard. I have spoken and I believe I have been answered. No priest took my confession or gave me absolution, no church took my fee, no pilgrim badges or miracle cures or little pieces of trumpery helped me to come into the presence of God. I simply asked for His great mercy and I received it, as He promised in the Bible that it should be granted.

I rise up from the floor and I get into my bed, shivering a little. I think, with a sense of great wonderment, that I have been blessed, as God promised I would be blessed. I think He has come to me, a sinner, and that I have, by His grace, been granted forgiveness and the remission of my sins.

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

SUMMER 1544

The army is setting sail for France; Thomas Howard has already gone with the vanguard but still the king delays.

“I have summoned my astronomer,” he says to me as we leave Mass one morning. “Come with me and see what he advises.”

The king’s astronomer is as skilled as any of the European scientists in understanding the movement of the stars and the planets, and he can also identify a favorable date for any venture depending on which planet is in the ascendancy. He treads a difficult course between describing the known and observable movement of the heavens, which is philosophy, and the art of fortune-telling, which is illegal. To suggest that the king might be ill or injured is treason, so anything he sees or foresees has to be described with extreme caution. But Nicholas Kratzer has drawn charts for the king many times before, and knows how to phrase his warnings and advice to stay inside the law.

Henry tucks my hand under his elbow and leans on his page on the other side as we walk to his privy chamber. Behind us come the rest of the court, the king’s noblemen and my ladies. Somewhere among them is Thomas Seymour; I don’t glance round. I think that God will hold me to my resolution. I will not glance round.

We walk through the presence chamber and most of the court waits here, only a few of us going inwards to the privy chamber, where a great table has been pulled into the center of the room, spread with charts weighted down with little astrological symbols made of gold. Nicholas Kratzer, his blue eyes twinkling, is waiting for us, holding a long pointer in one hand and rolling a couple of the little gold figures in the other. He bows low when he sees us and then waits for the king to command him.