I look at her pale face and see a reflection of my own unease. This is not a masque, this is not one of the expensive spectacles that the court loves; this is going to be a genuine sea battle fought between our ships and the French in sight of land. I will see what Thomas faces. I will have to watch as his ship is bombarded.

“Do you know who is commanding which ship?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “Some new admirals were named last night at dinner,” she says. “The king has honored his friends with commands so that they can take part in the battle. My husband wasn’t very happy at new men being put in command the night before they have to fight. But he is overall commander of land and sea, and, thank God, he stays on land.”

“Why, are you afraid of the sea?”

“I am afraid of all deep water,” she confesses. “I can’t swim. But then nobody in armor can swim. Few sailors know how and none of the soldiers would be able to stay afloat in their heavy jackets.”

I stop her with a small gesture. “Perhaps nobody will have to swim.”

There is a ragged cheer from the quayside as the king’s newly refitted ship Mary Rose spreads her beautiful square sails and throws out ropes to the galleys to drag her out to sea.

“Oh, there she goes. Who is her commander?”

“Tom Seymour, God bless him,” Catherine says.

I nod and raise my hand to my forehead, as if to shield my eyes from the sunshine. I think, I can’t bear to watch him sail out to battle, and chirrup like one of my songbirds, as meaningless and as stupid as they. “It’s quite windy,” I remark. “Is that good?”

“It’s a benefit for us,” Uncle Parr reassures me. He is standing with my ladies, his hands shading his eyes, staring out to sea. “They have fighting galleys that can get amongst our ships in flat calm. They can row wherever they like. But on a day like today, when we can cram on sail we can burst out of the harbor and bombard them. We can come down on them like the wind, with the wind behind us.”

Everyone falls back as the king comes to stand beside me, his head high, gulping in the sea air. “It’s certainly a beautiful sight,” I remark as one by one his ships are dragged out of port, raising their sails and being set free, like flying doves, like seagulls out to sea. The court cheers as each ship, the Peter, and the Henry Grace à Dieu, and the ships we have stolen from the Scots, the Salamander and the Unicorn, go past our vantage point. Then suddenly, as if a cloud has passed over the sun, we fall silent.

“What is it?” I ask Henry.