But it is the king who authorizes these arrests, the king who has authorized all of them since the spring herding of scholars and preachers and people related to me. The Privy Council will make inquiries, name names, demand explanations, but the king alone decides who shall be arrested. Either he signs his name, the signature scrawled carelessly, the warrant held on the sheets of his sickbed, or he tells the men he trusts in his chamber, Anthony Denny and John Gates, to use the dry stamp of his signature, and ink it in later. But either way, the warrant is brought to him for his personal express approval. He may be groaning in pain, he may be half asleep, drugged with painkillers and strong wine, but he knows. This is not a plot by papists at his court moving against my beliefs and my friends without the king’s knowledge, taking advantage of his sickness and fatigue. It is a plot by the king, himself, against my beliefs and against my friends—perhaps even against me. This is the king setting the dogs to fight, but this time favoring one side against the other, putting a fortune on the outcome. Favoring my enemies against me, putting me, his wife, into the dog pit.

“She’s here. Anne Askew is here, right here! Now!” Joan Denny rushes into my rooms and kneels before me, as if her legs cannot hold her up.

“She has come to see me?” I cannot believe that she would take such a risk, knowing that her teachers and mentors are in the Tower. “She cannot come in. Tell her I am sorry but—”

“No! No! Arrested! Summoned to see the Privy Council. They are questioning her now.”

“Who told you?”

“My husband. He says he will do what he can for her.”

I take a breath. I want to tell her that Anthony Denny must make sure that my name is not mentioned, or at any rate, not repeated to the king. But I am so afraid, and so ashamed of my fear, that I cannot speak. I am so afraid of what Anne might say, what she might tell the Privy Council. What if she says that she preached heresy to us, and that we listened? What if she tells them that I am writing my own book, filled with forbidden knowledge? But I cannot tell Joan, who has listened with me, who studies with me, who prays beside me, that my first thought is to save my own fearful skin. I am afraid and ashamed of my fear.

“God keep her safe,” is all I say out loud.

“Amen.”

* * *