“Why do I have to do this?” I pant. “Why do I have to pretend that I am not publicly insulted?”

Nan’s face is very pale and her voice is flat. “Because if you see a dead wife as your rival, you will be a dead wife,” she predicts. “People are already saying that he will remarry. People are already saying that he does not like your religion, that you are too much for reform. You have to face them down. You have to please him. You have to walk in to dinner tonight like a woman whose position cannot be questioned.”

“Who questions me?” I yell at her. “Who dares to question me?”

“I am afraid that you are widely questioned,” she says quietly. “Already, the gossip has started. Almost everyone questions your fitness to be queen.”

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

WINTER 1545

In the quiet days before the start of the Christmas feast the king is troubled and openly irritated that neither his traditional advisors nor his new thinkers can get a truce with France. Charles of Spain is now urging that a truce be made so that he is free to turn on his own subjects. He is determined to stamp out the reformers in Flanders and the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. He says that he and Henry must forget their enmity against France to confront a greater danger. They must all three join together to make war against the Lutherans. He says that this must be the new crusade, that they must make war against people who are such sinners they think that the Bible is the best guide to life.

I pray for the safety of the men and women of God in England, in Germany, in every corner of Christendom, who have done nothing wrong but have read the Word of God and study it in their hearts. Then they speak. Why should they not? Why should the scholars of the church and the priests of the church and—yes—the bullies and soldiers of the church be the only ones who can announce the truth as they see it?

Stephen Gardiner, still in Bruges, still desperately trying to gain a peace treaty with France, is passionately for peace with France and Spain, arguing in favor of a bloodstained crusade against Lutherans everywhere, especially in Germany, to start at once.

“God only knows what he is offering, what he is promising on my behalf,” Henry grumbles to me as we sit quietly playing cards together one evening.