VIII

He’s a bruiser of a man in black velvet. I stop in front of him; dig my finger into his chest. “You can tell the guards: never let the common people into my Court again.”
    “Yes, Your Grace. Your Grace—”
    He’s got something to ask or tell me, but before he can say it I pass into the room and kick the door shut; it slams in his face.
    Slumping into a chair, I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
    “Drink, sir?”
    It’s a goblet, held out by one of my men. I take it and smash it into the hearth.
    “They shout for her. Why not for me? Eh?”
    “Who do?”
    “The common people. The bloody rabble.” I fling my arms wide and yell at the ceiling: “‘Care for nothing, Queen Catherine! Heaven favours you!’… Damn them!” My fists strike the chair-arms. “Can’t they see it’s an act? It’s calculated. She’s been coached , for Christ’s sake.”
    I find that I do need a drink – urgently. I go to the sideboard and pour it myself; some of it slops over the side of the glass. “She went on her knees, do you know that? Grovelled at my feet in front of the whole courtroom, asking for pity, saying that she’s a foreigner and at my mercy, that she’s humble and obedient. And they treat her like she’s the bloody Second Coming.”
    I gulp the drink; wipe my mouth. “And then when I stand up and say I have been in agonies of conscience… say I would be glad to find the marriage good if only someone could prove it to me, what do they do? They snigger behind their – their shit-covered hands.”
    “Because they think you’re lying.”
    I turn. My gentlemen attendants have melted away – perhaps at a nod from Anne. She is standing, unmoving, in the corner.
    “Oh I see ,” I say with sarcasm. “And do you think I’m lying, Anne?”
    She looks back at me evenly. “No.”
    It is nearly midsummer. The windows are open but the muggy heat is unforgiving. Anne – impervious, it seems, to the weather – is dressed in black, with only her face standing out pale in the shadows.
    She says, “I think you would be glad to have it proved. But the only possible proof would be your son, standing here beside you now, aged sixteen.”
    “Seventeen,” I say quietly. That child who lived for fifty-two days. “He would have been seventeen, this last new year.”
    She looks at me, impassive. “Do you dream of him, ever?” she says. “He is your height, perhaps. Your colouring. Strong. A great horseman. Skilled enough with a longbow to rival the best captain in your army. A leader of men in the making. Who loves and fears his father as a god.”
    “You know, sometime I really must ask your brother about your favourite childhood hobby. I believe he will tell me it was tearing the wings off birds. Or drowning puppies.”
    “I’m not being cruel. I’m reminding you why I am here.”
    “You are showing me the prize, Anne – a son, an heir – without giving me the means to achieve it.”
    Her eyebrows rise a fraction. “I have given you the means already.”
    She has shown me books and pamphlets setting out arguments about the role of the Church. Saying that ancient histories and chronicles declare this realm of England to be an empire. That, as such, it is free from the authority of any foreign ruler. And that I, as king of England, have no superior except God.
    Where – these writings ask – does it say in the Bible that a pope should have authority over a king?
    Anne walks forward. In the centre of the room there’s a table strewn with papers relating to the trial. She stops beside it. “Have the case decided here,” she says. “Not like this,” she waves a dismissive hand over the papers. “Not under the Pope’s jurisdiction, under yours . Change your judges. Get rid of Wolsey. He has made so little progress he must be either incompetent or working against you: a nice choice. Get rid of this decrepit Italian cardinal, Campeggio. The Pope, I guarantee you, has given him a secret mission to delay and delay, until I am beyond childbearing age or we all topple into our graves from the tedium of it, whichever is the sooner. Instead, have the Archbishop of Canterbury try the case.”
    I snort. “Old Warham? We’d get nowhere. He refuses to act against Rome.”
    “But what is he now – seventy-nine? Eighty? He can’t live much longer. Then you can appoint a new archbishop who sees the truth.”
    I pour myself another drink; knock it back; look at her. “And if the case is decided