They hold her overnight, somewhere in this great rambling palace. As my maid dresses me for dinner I ask her where Anne Askew might be. She does not know. There are dozens of windowless cellar rooms and attic rooms and treasure rooms that can be locked from the outside. If they don’t care for her comfort or safety, they could simply throw her in the guardhouse. I dare not send anyone to look for her. At dinner, Bishop Gardiner intones an interminable grace and I bow my head and listen to him mouthing the Latin words, knowing that half the room cannot understand him; and he does not care because he is completing his ritual, his private ritual, he does not care that they are as children asking for bread and receiving a stone. I have to wait for him to finish his singsong skimble-skamble, raise my head, and nod for the servers to enter. I have to smile and eat and command the room, laugh at Will Somers, send out dishes to William Paget and Thomas Wriothesley as if they are not plotting my downfall, bow to the Duke of Norfolk, who sits at the head of his family table, his face a bland mask of courtier charm, his reformer son still missing. I have to behave as if I have not a single care in all the world, while somewhere in the great palace, my friend Anne eats the cold leavings from the court’s dinner, and prays on her knees that God will keep her safe tomorrow.

* * *

“They have summoned me to question her.” My brother strolls up to my chair while the court is dancing. My ladies, their faces stiff with smiles, form up into sets and go through their steps.

“Will you refuse?”

“How can I? It’s a test. I am on trial here too, and if I fail they will move on to you. No, I will question her and hope I can guide her to a plea for forgiveness. I know she won’t recant her beliefs; but she might agree that she is ill educated.”

“She knows the Bible backwards and forwards,” I say. “She knows the New Testament by heart. No one can call her ill educated.”

“She can’t argue with Stephen Gardiner.”

“I think you’ll find that she will.”

“Then what am I to do?” William exclaims in sudden impatience. At once he throws back his head and laughs, a courtier’s laugh, to suggest that he is telling me a funny story. I laugh with him, and I tap his hand, my comical brother.

Will Somers lopes past us with a grimace. “If you are ready to laugh at nothing, you might laugh at me,” he says.

I clap my hands. “We were laughing at an old jest, not worth repeating,” I say.

“They’re the only ones I have.”