I nod. I know that I have to. I put my head down and I put my lips against the encrusted tip. With a single cruel gesture he takes a handful of my hair and thumps the back of my head, so my face is smacked by it and it bangs against my teeth and the pearls scrape my lips. I don’t pull back from the pain. I hold my face still as he works it in a parody of abuse against my mouth over and over again till my mouth is bruised by the jewels and the embroidery and my lips are bleeding.

He is exhausted, his face flushed and sweating. The ivory codpiece is smeared with my blood as if he had deflowered a virgin with it. He drops back on his pillows and sighs as if he is deeply satisfied. “You can go.”

* * *

It is very late when I come out of the king’s bedroom and close the door quietly behind me. I walk stiffly across the privy chamber and into the presence chamber where his pages are waiting.

“Go in,” I say to them my hand hiding my bruised mouth. “He wants a drink and some food.”

Nan and Maud Lane stand up from their seats at the fireside. The double doors between the privy chamber and the bedroom muffled my cry; but Nan can tell at once that there is something wrong.

“What’s he done to you?” she asks, scanning my white face, taking in the bruising, the smear of blood at my mouth.

“It’s all right,” I say.

We walk to the queen’s side of the palace in silence, I know that my gait is awkward, I can feel my linen gown sticking to the weals from the whip. I go through the private galleries and into my bedroom. Maud curtseys and closes the bedroom door. Nan unlaces my gown. “Don’t call anyone,” I say. “I’ll sleep in my linen, I’ll wash tomorrow.”

“The stink of his wound is on your linen,” Nan warns me.

“It’s all over me,” I say tightly. “But I have to sleep. I can’t bear...”

She shucks off her own gown, and gets into the bed. For once in my life I go to bed without kneeling at the bedside to pray. I have no words tonight, I feel far from God. I slide between the cool sheets. Nan blows out the candle with a quick puff and the darkness forms around us from the shadows in the room and then I can just see the outline of the wooden shutters limned with the dawn light. We lie in sleepless silence for a long time. My little silver clock chimes four. Then she speaks: “Did he hurt you?”

“Yes,” I say.

“On purpose?”

“Yes.”

“But you are forgiven?”

“He wanted to break my spirit and I think he has done so. Don’t ask me more, Nan.”

* * *