VIII

cloves. It is a comfortable if old-fashioned room, with antique tapestries on the walls and the Bishop’s coat of arms carved monumentally large above the fireplace.
    Straight ahead, there’s a figure at the window.
    Good God, the German fashions are strange. The lady’s wearing a high-necked dress and a peculiar wide bonnet that makes her head look like a coal bucket. I can tell from her bearing she’s alarmed to see so many men burst into her chamber. A lifetime ago I used to play this trick on Catherine, dressed as Robin Hood or a Turkish sultan. Her astonishment, I thought at the time, was very pretty.
    “Greetings, Lady Anna,” I say, removing my cap with a flourish and walking forward. “The King has sent you this token.” I work a ring off my little finger and hold it out to her.
    Lady Anna of Cleves is not dimpled; she is not breathtaking. Hers is a long-nosed face – though not, I think, without potential. My enthusiasm is running, after all, at full gallop; I cannot pull up now.
    “Good day, my lord,” she says in a thick accent, laying out each word carefully. “I… thank… His Majesty.”
    As she reaches to take the ring, I catch hold of her hand and raise it to my lips; then, with a quick tug, pull her in for a kiss on the cheek.
    Ladies of the English Court greet such games with giggles and teasing looks, with delight and pretty blushes. Lady Anna gasps and jerks her head away. Below the long nose, her mouth is twisted with disgust.
    For a moment, we are frozen. It is an ugly pose. My neck is still stretched forward, my head still inclined for the kiss, meeting nothing but empty air.
    Then I release her hand and she moves away swiftly, brushing her palms down her skirts and saying something in her own grating language to a lady-servant standing in the corner, who shrugs at her mistress and shoots me a scandalised look.
    My bride then resumes her stance at the window. Resolutely staring out, willing me to leave. In the yard below, the tormented bull bellows and I hear the scrape of its chain against the ground. The bulldogs are barking; I wonder, distractedly, whether one of them has already sunk its teeth into the bull’s snout.
    Thinking this, I am still watching her. My heart is still beating as fast as when I climbed the stairs, as fast as when I grabbed Browne’s sleeve outside the door. But all the hope and excitement I had then has shrivelled.
    I turn. My men, still in their damp-stained cloaks and muddy boots, avert their gaze, each one finding sudden interest in his gloves, the floor, or the weave of the wall-hangings.
    I push past them out of the room.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  III   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    “I like her not.” Absently, I line up the purses on the trestle table: orange velvet, pink satin, white leather, cloth of gold. I don’t see them; I see only that long-nosed face. I say, “She is ugly. She looks like a horse. I can tell you now, I will not be able to get sons on that… that woman .” I turn to Cromwell and smile – but not pleasantly. “So, Thomas. What remedy?”
    Cromwell is standing by the cupboard displaying the gilt cups and plates. We’re in the Presence Chamber at Greenwich, where my New Year’s gifts are on display. Against all those burnished surfaces he’s looking clammy and pale. And edgy. He says, “I know none, sir. But I am very sorry for it.”
    “Really? That’s odd. You’ve never told me before that there is no remedy.” I pick up a pair of spurs, test the spikes, put them down. “In fact, I seem to remember you saying once – I don’t remember the occasion but I remember the words quite clearly – ‘Anything can be done.’ Anything . So. I want you to get me out of this marriage.”
    “But…” Cromwell begins, and checks himself; runs a hand through his hair; starts again. “Sir, as you know, this is not simply a marriage, this is an alliance. With Cleves. To strengthen us against our enemies, who are every day threatening to invade.” He spreads his meaty hands. “And… look, sir, the lady is here . She has completed a long and arduous journey from her homeland. To reject her now would be a very public humiliation, both for the lady and for her brother, the Duke. And if the Duke is pushed into the arms of the Emperor—”
    “He will join the long list of rulers working to deprive me of my throne. And no doubt my life.”
    Cromwell rubs his fingers over his mouth and chin. His shoulders give the ghost of a