“No, it isn’t. They are proposing another wife more amenable to returning the church to Rome.”

“Who?” I scoff.

“Catherine Brandon.”

“Now I know that you are mistaken,” I say. “She is more of a reformer than I am. She named her dog after Bishop Gardiner. She’s openly rude to him.”

“They think she will join them if they offer her the throne. And they believe that the king likes her.”

I look at my sister. Her face is turned away from me, fixed on the embers of the fire. She fidgets, putting on dry wood.

“Is this what you came in to tell me? Did you come so late tonight to warn me that the king is thinking of another wife? That I must defend myself?”

“Yes,” she says, still not meeting my eyes. “I am afraid so, yes.”

The fire crackles in the silence. “Catherine would never betray me. You’re wrong to say such a thing. She’s my friend. We study together, we think alike. It’s really vile, Nan, it’s black babbling to say such a thing.”

“It’s the crown of England. Most people would do anything for it.”

“The king loves me. He doesn’t want another wife.”

“All I am saying is that the king is sentimental over her, he’s always liked her, and now she is free to marry, and they will be pushing her forward.”

“She would never take my place!”

“She would have no choice,” Nan says quietly. “Just as you had no choice. And anyway, some people say that he has been her lover for years. They say that Charles and he shared her. Charles never refused the king anything. Perhaps when he got a beautiful young wife, young enough to be his daughter, the king had her too.”

I get to my feet and go the window. I want to throw open the shutters and let the night air into the room as if the place stinks like the king’s bedroom of corruption and disappointment.

“This is the vilest gossip,” I say quietly. “I should not have to hear it.”

“It is vile. But it is widely repeated. And so you do have to hear it.”

“So what now?” I say bitterly. “Nan, do you always have to be so ill tongued? Must you always breathe sorrows in my ear? Are you telling me that he would put me aside for Catherine Brandon? Shall he have a seventh wife? What about another after her? Yes, he likes her, he likes Mary Howard, he likes Anne Seymour! But he loves me, he favors me above all others, more than any previous wife. And he has married me! That means everything. Can’t you see that?”