From the darkened royal rooms comes an announcement: the king is ill again. The fever mounting from his wounded leg burns in his brain and enters every joint of his aching body. Doctor Wendy is in and out of his chambers, trying one remedy after another; the doors are shut to almost everyone else. We hear that they are cupping him, draining the blood from the great bloated body, tapping the wound, grinding gold pieces into it and then washing them out with jugs of lemon juice. The king moans with pain and they station guards to keep people out of the great presence chamber and the gallery beyond, so that no one shall hear him sob in agony. He does not ask for me; he does not even reply to my messages wishing him well, and I don’t dare to enter without invitation.

Nan says nothing, but I know that she is remembering when the king locked himself away from Katherine Howard as they went through her little letters and her household accounts looking for a payment or a gift for Thomas Culpepper. Now, as then, the king hides in his rooms, watching, and listening, but never giving himself away.

Some days I wake in the morning certain that today they will come for me, and I will go in my royal barge, my new royal barge, which has given me such foolish pleasure, upriver to the Tower. I will enter through the watergate on the swelling tide, and they will take me, not to the royal rooms, but to the ones that overlook the green, where the prisoners are held. A few days later and I will watch from the barred window as they build a wooden scaffold and know that it is for me. A confessor will come in and tell me that I must prepare myself for death.

On these days I don’t know how to get out of bed. Nan and the maids dress me as if I were a cold doll with a set face. I go through the motions of queenship, attending chapel, dining before the court, walking by the river and throwing a ball for little Rig, watching the court at play, but my face is stiff and my eyes are glassy. I think that if the day comes that there is a knock on my door I will shame myself. I will never find the courage to climb the ladder to the scaffold. I will never be able to speak as Anne Boleyn spoke. My legs will fail and they will have to push me up the steps, as they did to Kitty Howard. I will not fight for my life like Margaret Pole. I will not go cheerfully in my best coat like Bishop Fisher. I am as inadequate to this task as I am to my marriage. I will fail at my death as I have failed as queen.