“Thomas More was no traitor. Margaret Pole, the king’s cousin, was no traitor, she was an old lady of sixty-seven! Bishop John Fisher was a saint, Thomas Cromwell was a loyal servant, Robert Aske and all the Pilgrims of Grace held a royal pardon. Katherine Howard was a child, Jane Rochford was mad: he changed the law so he could behead a madwoman.”

I am trembling as if I have an ague. I clamp my jaw to stop my teeth chattering. “What are you saying? Thomas, what are you saying to me?”

“I am saying what you know already, what we all know but none of us dares to say. He is a madman. Kateryn, he has been mad for years. We have sworn loyalty to a madman. And every year he is blinder and more dangerous. None of us is safe from his whims. I saw it. I finally saw it in France, for I have been blind too. He is a murderer without cause. And you will be his next victim.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“That is why he will kill you. He cannot bear excellence.”

I lean back against the cold stone wall. “Thomas, oh, Thomas, this is a terrible thing to say to me!”

“I know. This is the man who let my sister die.”

He crosses the little hall in two swift strides and he wraps his arm around me and kisses me savagely, as if he would bite me, as if he would devour me. “You are the only person I would say this to!” he says urgently in my ear. “You have to keep yourself safe from him. I won’t speak to you again. I may not be seen with you, for both of our sakes. Guard yourself, Kateryn! God keep you. Good-bye.”

I cling to him. “It can’t be good-bye again! I will see you. Surely, now you are home, now we are at peace, I will at least see you every day?”

“I am the new admiral of the king’s navy,” he says. “I shall be at sea.”

“You’re going back into danger! Not now, when the whole court is safely home?”

“I swear to you, I will be safer at sea than you with that killer in your bed,” he says grimly, and he wrenches himself from me, and goes.

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

AUTUMN 1544