She bows her head as if it is a life sentence, as if she deserves it.

“I shall see him,” I say, going to the door that adjoins his set of rooms, the queen’s doorway.

“You can’t go in.” She steps forwards. “He’s too ill to see you.”

I walk towards her as if I would stride right through her. “I am his wife,” I say levelly. “I am Queen of England. I will see my husband. And you shall not stop me.”

For a moment I think I will have to physically push her aside, but at the last moment she sees the determination in my face and she falls back and lets me open the door and go in.

He is not in the antechamber, but the door to his bedroom is open and I tap on it lightly, and step into his room. He is at the window, the shutters open so that he can see the night sky, looking out, though there is nothing but darkness outside and the glimmering of a scatter of stars like spilled sequins across the sky. He glances round as he sees me come in, but he does not speak. Almost I can feel the ache in his heart, his loneliness, his terrible despair.

“You’ve got to come back to court,” I say flatly. “People will talk. You cannot stay hiding in here.”

“You call it hiding?” he challenges.

“I do,” I say without hesitation.

“They are missing me so much?” he asks scathingly. “They love me so much? They long to see me?”

“They expect to see you,” I say. “You are the King of England, you have to be seen on your throne. I cannot carry the burden of the Tudor crown alone.”

“I didn’t think it would be so hard,” he says, almost an aside.

“No,” I agree. “I didn’t think it would be so hard either.”

He rests his head against the stone window arch. “I thought once the battle was won, it would be easy. I thought I would have found my heart’s desire. But—d’you know?—it is worse being a king than being a pretender.”

He turns and looks at me for the first time in weeks. “Do you think I have done wrong?” he asks. “Was it a sin to kill the two of them?”

“Yes,” I say simply. “And I am afraid that we will have to pay the price.”

“You think we will see our son die, that our grandson will die and our line end with a Virgin Queen?” he asks bitterly. “Well, I have had a prophecy drawn up, and by a more skilled astrologist than you and your witch mother. They say that we will live long and in triumph. They all tell me that.”

“Of course they do,” I say honestly. “And I don’t pretend to foresee the future. But I do know that there is always a price to be paid.”