VIII

man jealous of his looks and charm.
    And Kate… my devoted, artless Kate. Is this what the boy’s appearance signified: not a death, but an attempt to destroy my happiness?
    I yell, “What are you waiting for? Bring me the wretch who did it. Bring me the man who spewed up this stinking, putrefied fantasy .”
    Denny, having straightened his doublet, hesitantly steps towards me, with something in his hand. “Sir?”
    “ What? ”
    “You might need to take a look at this, sir.”
    Another piece of paper. He pushes it at me quickly then steps back, as if I will bite.
    “What is it?” Holding the paper, I’m still looking at him. He sucks in his lips. He won’t answer.
    I look down. It’s a letter, closely written.
    Master Culpeper…
    I recognise the writing – awkward, clumsy. It is hers. What trick is this?
    I never longed so much for anything as I do to see you…
    …It makes my heart die to think that I cannot be always in your company…
    I am confused; it cannot be hers. I look to the end.
    Yours as long as life endures, Kate.
    And a fault? she had said.
    That she is already married, he had replied.
    And she had laughed.
    I take a step back and jolt against the wall. My legs buckle; the letter crumples as I do, sliding down. My bad leg won’t bend – I fall part of the way; catch myself with my hand against a wooden chest.
    I turn myself into the corner between chest and wall. My fists are shielding my face. I am sobbing.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  VII   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    Dark, dark, dark within. I am plagued by strange dreams, from which I wake smothered by sweatsoaked sheets and an undefinable feeling of dread.
    And I begin to see him everywhere. Scan any mass of people long enough, and I will spot him. In a crowd-lined street, in the stands at a tournament, glimpsed amongst a huddle of courtiers: he is always there – he is always watching me.
    Some days I gaze in the looking glass and see him behind me. Or I see his eyes in mine. Through an archway, I spot him, waiting. If I glance down into the garden he will be standing in the shadows, looking up at me. Sometimes he peeps at me through a half-open door.
    But if I lunge for him, he is never there. I learn not to do it. I learn to endure his appearances. To turn away. I know now that he will never leave me.
    And sometimes I feel movement in my mind, and sometimes none. I am no longer so sure that it is God. And I think of the Devil, and evil spirits, and I shudder… but I know that however viciously they attack me, I will not be defeated; I am a creature of light and blessedness.
    Culpeper goes to the block in December, Kate two months later.
    Evil stalks the land. If you don’t believe it, you are a fool.
    ♦   ♦   ♦
     
    What is this sense I have of being in a speeding cart, racing, horseless, down some steep slope? I dream of it…
    The days pass so quickly – I blink and a year is gone. And somehow the hours of pain are drawn out and lengthened. The pain, and the night. While the sunlight flees from me, and the flowers bloom only for a breath.
    Sometimes I wake and think she is beside me in the dark. Anne. Watching me, her eyes glittering with laughter.
    I wake to find my fingers clawing at the bedcovers, scratching the silk.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  VIII   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    “Sir?”
    “Mm?” I open my eyes.
    “The bandages on your leg. Are they more comfortable now?”
    “A little. You are gentle. Your fingers are more skilled than those infernal doctors’.” I gesture vaguely. “You may read again.”
    The young woman opens the book at its ribbon marker; I settle myself against the cushions piled behind me.
    It is summer again. I have married again. A widow, this time: Kathryn, the sister of one of my Knights of the Garter, William Parr. She is a young lady with a grave, gentle face, a dependable, thoughtful nature and a known past. This morning she has been reading to me from a new translation of the Proverbs of Solomon. As she scans the words, she frowns a little.
    “Let mercy and faithfulness never go from thee; bind them about thy neck, and write them in the tables of thine heart.”
    “Amen to that,” I say. “Put a mark in the margin.”
    She rests the book in her lap, takes a pen from the table beside her and dips it in ink; I watch her draw a small pointing hand on the page.
    The windows are shaded, the room a softly lit clutter of books and papers, maps and medicine boxes. The only sounds are the