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“Jane?” I asked, but she was gone.

“The French are foul,” said Sir John. “They lie in wait for us. They have not improved. But the Pope is worse. This new one ... he is much harder than Clement.” He shook his head, seemingly all alert and involved in politics, as he once had been. “They say he sucks his toes.” He cackled, fiendishly.

Edward and Thomas continued eating.

“They say he sucks his toes!” insisted Sir John, so loudly that the ancient timbers above us absorbed it. “And furthermore, the north tower needs repair!”

As soon as was decently possible, I left the hall. Servants got Sir John to bed, and I sought mine. The bed was narrow, hard, and musty. Morning Mass in the nearby parish church was at six. I would attend. Meanwhile I fell asleep with my prayers—for Sir John, for Anne, for myself.

We all attended Mass—the entire Seymour household, save Sir John. It was quick and unembellished. The priest mumbling his Latin was as colourless as the grey stones surrounding him. He mustwaiready been plucked bare.

“A fine crop of pears this year,” said Cromwell, once again picking up my own unspoken thoughts. “The warm, clear May when they flowered, followed by all the rain, was just what a pear tree wants.”

A good thing that something wanted More and Fisher’s wretched rain and storms. Certainly the grain crops hadn’t, nor had the people.

“Try some of its elixir,” said Cromwell, handing me a small silver cup of perry—a fermented drink made from pears. Saluting one another, we sipped. The liquid was smooth and delicate.

“Yes, the rain did them well.”

He put down his cup and looked at me, waiting, his black eyes deep and understanding.

“Crum, I have been hunting in the West for the past fortnight.” I knew he knew that—undoubtedly one of his spies had found his way to Wolf Hall —but it was courteous to volunteer it.

He smiled. “And was the hunting good?”

“Indeed. Hares, stag, roe—we dined to bursting on game every night. I had forgotten how very much I enjoy being a hunter. You hunt, do you not, Crum?”

“With hawks, yes.”

“I’m told you have a fine collection of hawks. Where are your mews?” Not here in London, surely.

“In Stepney.”

“We must hawk together soon.”

“I would be pleased.”

Pause. Enough pleasantries. “We must hawk together indoors first. There is one who flies at too high a pitch, one who never should have been empowered to fly at all—one who must be brought down and sent away,” I said. “Her feathers must be plucked, and she must be sent away, out of the royal mews.”

Was there the smallest hint of a twitch in his lip, a suppressed smile? “The Queen does fly high,” he said, slowly but boldly.

“It is in my power to lower her as surely as I raised her up. I would be rid of her, Crum, I would be rid of her. She is no wife to me.” More than that I would not say; it was not meet. Crum should be privy only to my conclusion, not the reasons behind it.

“You would send her away, or un-wife her? Which is your wish?”

“To un-wife her. That, above all!”

Crum stood up—with my leave—and began to walk a bit. Up and down, up and down, upon the fine polished wood floor of his chamber. He stood by the window and placed his fingertips squarely on a large globe he had mounted on carved legs, and twirled it. The world spun, a glossy pattern of coloured countries and seas.

“If there is a fault with the marriage that invalidates it, the world will consider the Princess Dowager vindicated and restored to her rightful place.”

Katherine. Here in London she seemed nonexistent, vanished into the mists of the fens. Certainly she had ceased to exist for me. But to the Emperor and the Pope, all of England was the same, London no less remote than Kimbolton.

“You will m">The Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not steal.

She had stolen the throne, had stolen the rites and anointing appropriate to a true Queen.

The Eighth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

It forbids lies, rash judgment, detraction, calumny, and the telling of secrets we are bound