“Not my notes on the sermons! Not the translation of the Gospels! I need them. I am in the middle of—”

“Everything,” she says fiercely. “Everything. Every single thing but the King’s Bible and the king’s own writings.”

“You won’t come to dinner?”

“I’ve no appetite,” she says. “I won’t come.”

“You’re never going to miss dinner!” I say, trying to be cheerful. “You’re always hungry.”

“I never ate a single meal in Syon Abbey when I lived there with Kitty Howard under arrest. My belly was stuffed with fear. And I feel like that now.”

* * *

The king dines in the great hall before his people, sending out the best dishes to his favorites, raising his cup to toast his best friends. The court is crowded, for the members of the Privy Council are all here, having worked up an appetite for their dinner with the questioning of Tom Howard. There are many who would be glad to see the younger son from such a great family take a tumble into the quietness of prison for a while and come out with the Howard pride humbled. Those who have been offended by the persistent rise of his father take a pleasure in humiliating the son. Those of the reformed faith are glad to see a Howard squirm. Those who are traditionalists direct their malice at the ardent young scholar. One swift glance tells me that young Tom is not at dinner: not on the table for the young friends and companions, not at the foot of the Howard table. Where can he be?

His father, the Duke of Norfolk, is completely impassive at the head of his family table, rising to his feet to toast the king when he sends down a massive haunch of beef, bowing respectfully to me. There is no way of knowing what is going through the old man’s head. He is a great friend of the old church, devoted to the Mass; but he denied his own beliefs and rode against the Pilgrimage of Grace. Though his heart was with the pilgrims who had enlisted to defend the old church, and fought under the banner of the five wounds of Christ, the duke declared martial law, ignored their royal pardons, and killed them one by one in their little villages. He hanged hundreds of innocent men, perhaps thousands, and refused to allow them to be buried in sanctified ground. Whatever his loyalties, whatever his loves, he cares for nothing as much as keeping his place at the side of the king, second in wealth and honor only to Henry. He is determined that his house shall succeed and become the greatest in England.