“Nobody. That’s the problem. There are more and more people in the country, more and more people at court who think as we do. Almost all of London. But we have no one of importance on our side but Thomas Cranmer. None of us has the king’s ear. That’s why it has to be you.”

“To hold the king to reform?”

“Only that. Nothing more. Just to hold him to the reforms that he himself started. Our brother, William, is sure of it too. This is the greatest work that could be done, not just in England but in the world. This is a great opportunity for you, Kat. It is your chance to be a great woman, a leader.”

“I don’t want it. I want to be rich and comfortable and safe. Like any woman of any sense. All the rest is too much for me. It’s beyond me.”

“It’s too much for you unless God holds you up,” she says. “Then you will be triumphant. I will pray for that. We’re all praying for that.”

* * *

The king comes to Lady Mary’s rooms and greets her first, as he will do until our wedding day, when I shall become the first lady of the kingdom and have my own rooms. Then he will greet me first, and she and every woman in the kingdom will follow in my train. When I review the ladies who looked down their noses at mere Kateryn Parr but will have to bow to the floor to Queen Kateryn, I have to hide my smug delight. He takes a seat between the two of us, which creaks under his weight as two squires lower him down. They bring him a footstool, and a page bends over and gently lifts the heavy leg onto it. The king wipes the grimace of pain from his face and turns to me with a smile.

“Sir Thomas Seymour has left us. He would not stay even a day, not even for the wedding. Why d’you think that is?”

I raise my eyebrows in calm surprise. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. Where has he gone?”

“Don’t you know? Have you not heard?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“Why, he’s gone to do my bidding,” he says. “He is my brother-in-law and my servant. He does just what I command him, whatever I command him. He is my dog and my slave.” He bursts out in a sudden wheezy laugh and Edward Seymour, the other royal brother-in-law, laughs loudly too, as if he would have no objection to being described as a dog and a slave.

“His Majesty has trusted my brother with a great mission,” Edward tells me. He appears to be pleased, but all courtiers are liars. “My brother, Thomas, has gone as ambassador to Queen Mary Regent of Flanders.”