This autumn, with the king back in my bed and my room filled once more with the sickly odor of rotting flesh, I start to dream again. It is always the same dream. I walk up a damp circular stair, one hand on the clammy stone wall, one hand holding the flickering candle. A cold draft swirling up from the floor below warns me that I am not alone, there is someone coming up the stairs after me. The fear of whoever is silently following me drives me upwards, stepping quickly on the stairs so my candle flame bobs in the breeze and threatens to go out. At the top I am faced by six doors arranged in a circle around the landing, as small as the entrances to cells. I think that they will be locked but when I go to the first door and take hold of the ring, it turns easily, silently in my hand. I think then that I will not enter. I don’t know who is inside, and I can smell a miasma of putrefaction as if there is something bad behind the door, as if there is something rotting in the room. But then I hear a step on the stair behind me and I know I have to go onward and get away from whoever is following me. The door yields, and I go inwards, the door is snatched and locked behind me, I am captive, my candle flame blows out, and I am in darkness.

In the complete blackness of the enclosed silence of the room, I hear someone stealthily move.

* * *

The king’s need for allies becomes acute as French attacks on our shipping increase. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the French will raid our coastal towns and ports, perhaps even invade. The king has reports from his spy network, and from our merchants, that his lifelong rival and enemy King Francis of France is arming his fishermen and merchantmen, and building his own warships. It is a race to see who can muster the greatest fleet and we are lagging behind the French, who boast that they rule the Narrow and even the Northern Seas.

At this time of danger, Thomas is never at court. He is at Portsmouth, Plymouth or Dartmouth, Ipswich, Shoreham or Bristol, supervising the building of new ships, the refitting of old ones, and the muster and training of crews. Now he has his own ship of the line, he lives on board reviewing those ships that he has pressed into service, trying to find men to enlist as fighting soldiers on the unstable wooden castles that are built onto the decks of the merchantmen and little fishing ships.