“Who can doubt His blessing?” I assert boldly, gripping my hands on the arms of the chair, nerving myself to go on. “Since you are so well and so strong and so potent, and we have had so many happy months together? Two and a half years of success? Your capture of Boulogne and the defeat of the Scots? Our happiness with your children? Who can doubt that God smiles on you, a king like you? He must smile on your marriage too? A marriage of your own choice when you honored me with your favor. Who can doubt that God smiled on me when you chose me, and when you persuaded me, against my own humility, that I might become your wife? We cannot doubt that God loves you and inspires you. We cannot doubt that you have His favor.”

I have saved myself. I see the pleased smile spread across his face as he relaxes into sleep. “You are right,” he says. “Of course. And a child born to you must follow. God’s blessing is on me. He knows that I have only ever done the right thing.”

* * *

The doctor, Sir William Butts, does not come back to court as he promised. He died of his fever, far away from the court, and we don’t even hear of it until after Christmas. The king says that no one else understands his constitution, no one else can keep him well as Doctor Butts could do. He feels that it was wrong and selfish of the doctor to leave court so abruptly and die in such inconsiderate haste. He takes the drafts that Doctor Wendy prepares for him, he keeps him at his bedside night and day, but he complains that he will never be well now that Doctor Butts is not there to soothe his temper and diminish his fever.

“And we have lost a good friend and an advisor,” Anne Seymour remarks to me and to Catherine Brandon. “Doctor Butts would often ask the king to ignore a piece of gossip against a Lutheran, or to release a preacher. He never declared his own opinions, but he often asked the king to be merciful. He was a good man to have at the king’s side.”

“Especially when the king was in pain and angry,” Catherine agrees. “My husband used to say that Doctor Butts could soothe the king when no one else could do it. And he was a most honest believer in reform.” She smooths out her skirt and admires the shine on the satin. “But still we make progress, Anne. The king has asked Thomas Cranmer to make a list of old superstitions in the church that should be banned.”

“How do you know? What has he told you?” Anne asks. I hear the hostility in her voice and remember that she is always anxious about someone who might rise in prestige and diminish her, or her husband.