“Yes,” I say. I wonder if I am safe to keep the picture of Thomas. The king is at the very center of the design, Thomas’s beloved profile half hidden at the back. Nobody looking at the picture could guess that I wanted it for the tiny glimpse of him. I could keep it safely hidden away, with my study books, with the manuscript of the psalms that I have translated. I could keep it tucked inside my Bible. Nobody would know that I long to see his face when I open the page.

Hone shows me the other designs he has made. They will be a sequence, telling the story of the invasion of France, the alliance with Spain, and the triumphant siege. The window for the chapel is one of thanksgiving and celebration. An angel blesses the campaign, the king rides home under an arch of laurel leaves, angels look down on him.

“I’ll have it ready for when the king arrives,” he promises me. “I go to Kent tomorrow with the pieces of glass and we will lead them in place there, for fear of breakages. We will be ready. The lead will be cooling as he enters, but we will be ready.”

I let him gather up his papers and prepare to bow. I push back the portrait of Thomas Seymour with the other designs.

“Did you not want this, Your Majesty? Shall I get it framed for you?”

“It’s of no matter. I’ll wait till I can see the real thing in glass,” I say indifferently. Katherine Howard went to the gallows on the evidence of one note that she wrote to Thomas Culpepper in her silly childish little hand, misspelled, with a tear blot, asking if he was well. I don’t dare to have anything that could ever be cited against me. I don’t even dare to keep a charcoal sketch of his profile half hidden at the back of a crowd. Not even that.

LEEDS CASTLE, KENT,

AUTUMN 1544

The king’s arrival at his castle is staged like a masque. It is all for show. The steward of his household and the master of horse have arranged all the details with my stewards and we have our places as precisely as if we were learning a dance. At eight o’clock the grateful people of Kent start to assemble on either side of the road leading to the castle and the first yeomen of the guard take their posts along the road to hold back the wildly excited crowd, or, in the case of their not being wildly excited, to lead the cheers and command applause.