She puts out a hand to detain me. “Your Majesty... think... It’s not the bishop who has done this alone. It is the king. He must have signed the warrant for your sister’s arrest. This must all be with his knowledge. It may even be at his request.”

* * *

I lead my ladies to chapel. We put a brave face on it but two maids-in-waiting are missing and three ladies are absent and the court knows, like a pack of anxious hounds, that something is wrong.

Devoutly, we bow our heads to pray. Fervently we take the bread. Quietly we whisper: “Amen! Amen!” as if to declare there is not a thought in our silly heads as to what this really is: wafer or meat, bread or God. We finger our rosaries; I am wearing a crucifix at my neck. Princess Mary kneels beside me but her gown does not touch the hem of mine. Princess Elizabeth kneels on the other side and her cold hand creeps into my shaking grasp. She does not know what is happening, but she knows that something is very badly wrong.

After chapel we take our breakfast in the great hall, and the court is subdued, men talking quietly among themselves and everyone glancing towards me to see how I am taking the absence of my sister, of my two other missing ladies. I smile as if I am completely untroubled. I bow my head for the grace as the king’s chaplain reads it in Latin. I eat a little meat, bread, I sip ale; I mime appetite, as if I am not sick with fear. I smile at my ladies and I glance at the Seymour table. I long to see Thomas as if he were a ship with reefed sails waiting at a quayside, ready to sail away to safety. I long to see him as if the sight of him would make me safe. But he is not here, I don’t expect him, and I can’t send for him.

I turn to Catherine Brandon, the most senior of my ladies at breakfast. “Your Grace, would you inquire if His Majesty the king is well enough to see me this morning?”

She rises from the table without a word. We all watch her walk down the length of the great hall, everyone praying that she will return with an invitation to visit the king’s rooms and that we will find ourselves suddenly high in his volatile favor. But she is not gone long.

“His Majesty is in pain with the injury from his leg.” She speaks calmly but her face is white. “His doctor is with him, he is resting. He says that he will send for you later and that he wishes you a very good day.”

Everyone hears it. It is like a blast from the horns of the hunt. It is open season on heretics at court and everyone knows that the greatest prey, the one who carries the greatest bounty on her head, is me.