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“No one else saw her. She was for your eyes alone.”

“Did the guests ... know I saw her?”

“They knew you saw something. ”

“So they assume I am mad.” I jerked out the words. I had paraded my obsession, my hauntings, in front of the company.

“They assume you were conscience-stricken.” His deep brown eyes, the only youthful feature in his lined face, gazed directly into mine. “How you act from today forward will determine whether they judge you as mad.”

“I am not conscience-stricken!” I muttered. “She deserved to die.”

“That—or mad,” said Brandon calmly. “Those are the only two explanations they will allow you. People are simplistic, my Lord.”

“You know I am not mad,” I began.

“Too strong a strain, for too long, can drive anyone mad.” He was cautious.

“I have never been mad, and I never shall be mad! But you are right, it was foolish to plan such a festivity following an execution. Better just to grieve, and admit one’s grieving. I should have locked myself up in my chambers and wept all day. Then I would feel clean, not more besmirched than ever.”

“Death does not cleanse. Sometimes the loved one—or the hated one—never leaves one’s side. I still miss Mary. Katherine is no comfort. I, too, was a fool.”

I embraced him. “I misjudged you.”

“As others will misjudge you,” he said. “Unless you are careful.”

At once it was important that I tell him all of it. “I was not alone in my chamber. I heard shriekings outside, in the Long Gallery. And then, in the back of the room, there were monks. Whispering together, huddling, pointing, judging.”

He started and looked uneasy. “Shrieks? As of a woman? In the Long Gallery, you say?” Suddenly he flung himself up out of the Spanish chair. “Do you remember when you heard Mass at Hampton Court, in the same Chapel Royal, when the first news of Catherine was coming out?”

“Yes.”

“No one would tell you, then, as they acted on their own authority and feared your anger. When you were at your prayers, Catherine escaped from her guard and sought to find you at Mass. She eluded her watchers and came down the Long Gallery at Hampton. She reached the very doors of the chapel, where she meant to throw herself on your mercy. But just as she was turning the great door-fastener, she was apprehended. Then—”

“She called for me,” I said slowly.

“Trusting that you would hear her. She was so bold she even used your first name, the one forbidden even to me. She dared all. But failed in her attempt. She was dragged away before she could open the doors and intrude on your worship.”

“Was she wearing maiden.”

So she would appear, for all eternity. The virgin-whore. I had seen true.

“She attempted to appeal to your sense of sentimentality.”

So my “sentimentality” was well known, a weakness for users to play upon. Was there nothing of a king that others did not seek to use? From my “sentimentality” to my time on the evacuation-stool after dinner?

“I will always see her as a maiden.” That was true, that was the aching of it. But what of the ghost? Had others seen it?

“I was visited by this sight last night,” I confessed. “The same shrieks, the same calling of my name. This time I opened the door, and looked down the gallery myself. I saw it.”

Brandon frowned. “Were there any other witnesses?”

“None.”

“Set a watch, then. Else you will go mad, and she’ll have done what she set out to do.”

I nodded.

“She hates you,” Brandon said. “She wishes you to come to ruin. Remember that. Thwart her.”

“But why Catherine?” I burst out. “Why not anyone else? I swear, no one else has risen to walk!” I dared not name them, lest that call them forth. Buckingham. Anne. George Boleyn. More. Fisher. Aske. Smeaton. Weston. Norris. Brereton. Dudley. Empson. Neville. Carew. Cromwell. De la Pole. Margaret Pole.

“They were not possessed of the Evil One,” he said smoothly. “Only the Evil One gives power beyond the grave.”

“Anne—”

He could not answer. “Perhaps her soul reincarnated in her cousin Catherine. ”

I shook so profoundly I could not stop. Brandon encircled me with his