We sleep fitfully, I have no dreams of the dark castle and the woman with the wrenched limbs, or the dead wives behind the bolted doors. One of the worst things that can happen to a proud woman has happened to me, I need not fear my dreams anymore. When the maids come in the morning with the ewer of hot water they find me throwing off my soiled linen and ordering the bath. I want to get the smell of his suppurating leg out of my skin, out of my hair. I want to get a fetid taste out of my mouth. I feel as if I am soiled, I feel as if I am foul and I can never be washed clean. I know that I am broken.

* * *

Shaming me has cheered the king back to health. Suddenly he is well enough to dine with the court, and this afternoon he is wheeled into the garden with me at his side. Nan, Lady Tyrwhit, and little Lady Jane Grey walk with me, the rest of my ladies stroll behind us, and the king holds my hand as I walk beside the chair. There is a spreading beech tree in the center of the king’s privy garden, and he stops the chair in the shade and someone fetches a stool for me to sit beside him. Gingerly I lower myself to the seat. He smiles as he sees I cannot sit without pain.

“You are amused, my lord husband?”

“Now we’re going to see a play.”

“A play? Here?”

“Indeed yes. And when it is over you can tell me the title.”

“Are you speaking in riddles, my lord?” I ask. I can feel my fear rising.

The little iron gate to the privy garden creaks slightly, opens wide, and guards come running in, a huge number of them, crowding into the small garden. There are at least forty of them in the bright livery of the king’s yeomen of the guard. I rise to my feet. For a moment I think that there is a mutiny against the king and he is in danger. I look round for the pages who wheeled him here, for the gentlemen of the court. Nobody is within calling distance. I stand before him; I will have to shield him from whatever comes. I will have to save him if I can.

“Wait,” he cautions me. “Remember, it is a play.”

These are not traitors. They are followed by Lord Wriothesley with a rolled letter in his hand. His dark face is alight with triumph. He comes towards me smiling and he unfurls the letter, showing me the seal, the royal seal. It is a warrant for my arrest. “Queen Kateryn, known as Parr, you are under arrest for treasonous heresy,” he says. “Here is the warrant. You must come with me to the Tower.”