VIII

that we are living in sin and always have been. They say our marriage is against the law of God.”
    In my hands is a volume of the Old Testament, its embroidered cover imprinted on my fingers where I’ve been gripping it too tightly. I fumble for the page marked by a ribbon, then turn the book round and hold it out.
    “Leviticus, chapter twenty, verse twenty-one. Read it.”
    She doesn’t register the book – she’s still looking at me. I shove it at her; she doesn’t take it.
    “Hal—”
    “All right, then.” I turn the book back and read, translating the Latin: “ If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing… they shall be childless. It means without sons.”
    I glance up at her, then stare. “You’re not surprised?”
    Her eyes are full, but her gaze is steady – tender. She says, “Something’s happened to you.”
    “My conscience is disturbed.”
    “I don’t mean that. What is it?”
    I look at her, at a loss. Then I say, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
    A fly has come in through an open window; it lands on Catherine’s sleeve. I watch as it moves across the fabric; stops; moves again.
    I look down at the Bible text; it swims slightly. I say, “There was a day… a while ago… I sat down to eat…” The colours of the illuminations are sliding and merging; I blink hard.
    “I don’t know. Nothing looked the same.”
    I haven’t heard her move, but suddenly here she is easing the book out of my hands, drawing me towards the window seat. I let her lead me. As we sit she says gently, “Go on.”
    “Everything was so ugly.” The scene rises before my eyes again: the Presence Chamber; the crush of people, come to watch me eat; the greasy sheen of their hair, the pockmarked skin, their rank odour. And the colours of the tapestries, melting and running as I watched…
    Our knees are almost touching; Catherine is holding my hands. She says, “And… how does everything look now?”
    Like a child, I bury my face in her shoulder. The smell of her skin is so familiar; it feels like home.
    After a while, without moving, I say, “Catherine, our marriage is cursed.”
    “We married in good faith.”
    “We were wrong.”
    There’s a pause. She is breathing steadily. She says, “This isn’t the way to go.”
    Abruptly, I sit up. Then stand. Move backwards, facing her. I say, “You have nothing to fear. You will be treated with great honour. You will lose no comforts: clothes, horses, land, jewels…”
    She is standing too. “You are not yourself. You need me.”
    “I need to be free of you,” I say, and leave the room.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  VI   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    Behind me the packed courtroom watches me go: the lawyers, clerks, bishops. And the judges: two cardinals in their red robes. One of them is Wolsey, the other an ailing Italian named Campeggio, present at the Pope’s insistence. At the lower end of the chamber the common people gawp as I pass, making no noise except for shuffles and whispers. Merchants and their wives, shopkeepers, labourers – all have shoved and jostled for a viewing spot, and many who did not make it are squashed into the anteroom beyond or on the stairs.
    I am wearing my public face: sober, dignified, gracious; fitting for a man struggling with his conscience; fitting for a man coming away from the opening day of the trial that will determine the validity (or otherwise) of his twenty-year marriage.
    I don’t descend the packed staircase; instead I walk on, into an adjoining first-floor gallery heading north, and then strike north-west, as another gallery takes me diagonally across the friary’s gardens and orchards. This leads straight into a new-built covered bridge that crosses the River Fleet and links Blackfriars, inside the City wall, with my palace of Bridewell just outside it.
    It is a grey day, but hot and airless. The Fleet is an open sewer, its banks a public highway. The crowds here are as thick as the stench, their dusty, muddy clothes as brown as the water. As I pass the bridge’s windows I raise my hand to them in acknowledgement, suppressing the urge to grimace at the smell. A lone child shouts and waves – the rest gaze up at me dumbly.
    Once over the bridge, in Bridewell Palace, I walk faster. Guards stand to attention as I approach, courtiers bow and curtsey. I don’t acknowledge them – I have dropped my public mask.
    One of Wolsey’s men is waiting outside the door to my chamber: Thomas Cromwell.