Thomas appears at my side and bows. “Good evening, Your Majesty.”

“Good evening, Sir Thomas. Your sister-in-law tells me that you have spoken with the king about the Mary Rose.”

He nods. “I had to tell His Majesty that we made an attempt to raise her but that she was stuck fast on the seabed. We’re going to try again with more ships and more ropes. I will send swimmers down to try to make her watertight belowdecks and pump her out. I think it can be done.”

“I hope so. It was a terrible loss.”

“Are you going to see the king?” he asks, his voice very low.

“I go every evening.”

“He seems very displeased.”

“I know.”

“I told him that since my marriage to Mary Howard is not to go ahead, I am still looking for a wife.”

Carefully, I don’t look up at him. He extends his arm. I rest my fingers on it. I sense but I do not grip the strength of his forearm. I walk beside him, our paces matching. If I stepped a little closer, my cheek would touch his shoulder. I don’t step any closer.

“Did you say that you hope for Princess Elizabeth?”

“I did not. He was not in the mood for conversation.”

I nod.

“You know, there was something in Mary Howard’s refusal that I still don’t understand,” he says quietly. “The Norfolks all agreed, Henry Howard the oldest son, and the old duke himself. It was Lady Mary herself who refused.”

“I can’t imagine her father allowing a daughter to have her own way.”

“No,” he says. “That’s true. She would have had to fight like a wild cat to oppose her father and her brother, acting together. She would have had to defy them openly. It makes no sense. I know that she doesn’t dislike me, and it was a good match. There must have been something about the terms of the marriage that were completely unacceptable to her.”

“How unacceptable?”

“Unbearable. Unimaginable. Anathema.”

“But what could such a thing be? She could know nothing against you?”

His wicked smile gleams. “Nothing of that gravity, Your Majesty.”

“And yet you are sure it was her refusal? Her determined refusal?”

“I hoped you might know.”

I shake my head. “I am surrounded by mysteries and worries,” I say to him. “The preachers who spoke in my rooms are arrested, the books that the king gave me to read are banned, it is even illegal to own the king’s Bible, and my friend Anne Askew has been moved from Newgate Prison to the Tower. My ladies are slipping away from my rooms.” I smile. “This afternoon I let my birds go.”

He glances around the room and smiles at an acquaintance as if he is merry. “This is very bad.”

“I know it.”

“Can’t you speak to the king? A word from him would restore you.”

“I’ll talk to him this evening if he is in a good mood.”