“So that I can talk with His Majesty,” I say simply. “So that I can write in Latin to his son the prince. So that such a great scholar-king does not have a wife who is a fool.”

Will Somers, sitting on the edge of the barge, dangling his long legs towards the water, turns at this. “Only one Fool here!” he reminds us. “And I can’t admit an amateur foolish woman in my guild. How big would such a guild have to be? I should recruit thousands.”

The king smiles. “You are no fool, Kateryn, and you may read what you wish, but I will have no deliveries or visitors from London until the city is free from illness.”

I bow my head. “Of course.”

“I trust that Your Majesty is not reading books of folly,” Stephen Gardiner suggests spitefully.

I can feel myself bristle at the patronizing tone. “Oh, I hope not,” I say with false sweetness. “For it is your sermons that I have been reading, my lord.”

“I do this to protect you as well as the court,” Henry points out.

“I know that you do, and I am grateful for your care of us all,” I say, and it is true. He guards against disease as if it were our worst enemy. He will keep me safe if he possibly can. Nobody has ever thought of my health before. Nobody has ever devised ways to keep me safe. Until I was married to Henry there was no one who cared enough to guard me.

We listen to the musicians who are following in their barge behind us. They are playing a pretty air. “Hear this?” the king says, beating the time on the arm of his chair. “I wrote this.”

“It’s lovely,” I say. “How clever of you, my lord.”

“Perhaps I shall write some more music,” he says. “I think you have inspired me. I shall write a little song for you.” He pauses, listening to his own tune with admiration. “Anyway, it is better that no one comes from London,” he continues. “It’s pleasant to have little business to do in the summer. They never stop with their demands and their requests, urging me to rule for one against another, to favor one against another, to cut a tax or pay a fee. I get tired of them. I am sick of them all.”

I nod as if I think that the burden of showing a shifting favoritism is very heavy.

“You shall help me,” he says. “When we open the court again and all the requests come in. You shall read them and judge with me. I shall trust you to sit beside me and be my only advisor.”

“So there are two fools here, after all,” Will remarks. “Myself, a guaranteed and apprenticed Fool, and here is a new Fool, a fool for love.”