Alice rises from her stool and signals for her escort. The Maidgets to her feet. She is smiling broadly. She has made the archbishop flinch, and himself grow cold, and the Solicitor Generalall but weep with her talk of scalded babies. She thinks she iswinning; but she is losing, losing, losing all the time. Alice puts agentle hand on her arm, but the Maid shakes it off.Outside, Richard Riche says, ‘We should burn her.’Cranmer says, ‘Much as we may mislike her talk of the latecardinal appearing to her, and devils in her bedchamber, shespeaks in this way because she has been taught to ape the claimsof certain nuns who have gone before her, nuns whom Rome ispleased to recognise as saints. I cannot convict them of heresy,retrospectively. Nor have I evidence to try her for heresy.’‘Burned for treason, I meant.’It is the woman’s penalty; where a man is half-hanged andcastrated, then slowly gutted by the executioner.He says, ‘There is no overt action. She has only expressed anintent.’‘Intent to raise rebellion, to depose the king, should that notbe treason? Words have been construed as treasons, there areprecedents, you know them.’‘I should be astonished,’ Audley says, ‘if they have escapedCromwell’s attention.’It is as if they can smell the devil’s spit; they are almost jostlingeach other to get into the air, which is mild, damp: a faint scent ofleaves, a green-gold, rustling light. He can see that, in the yearsahead, treason will take new and various forms. When the lasttreason act was made, no one could circulate their words in aprinted book or bill, because printed books were not thought of.He feels a moment of jealousy towards the dead, to those whoserved kings in slower times than these; nowadays the productsof some bought or poisoned brain can be disseminated throughEurope in a month.‘I think new laws are needed,’ Riche says . ‘I have it in hand.’‘And I think this woman is too leniently kept. We are too soft.We are just playing with her.’Cranmer walks away, shoulders stooped, his trailing habitbrushing up the leaves. Audley turns to him, bright and resolute,a man keen to change the subject. ‘So, the princess, you say shewas well?’The princess, unswaddled, had been placed on cushions atAnne’s feet: an ugly, purple, grizzling knot of womankind, withan upstanding ruff of pale hair and a habit of kicking up hergown as if to display her most unfortunate feature. It seemsstories have been put about that Anne’s child was born withteeth, has six fingers on each hand, and is furred all over like amonkey, so her father has shown her off naked to the ambassadors, and her mother is keeping her on display in the hope ofcountering the rumours. The king has chosen Hatfield for herseat, and Anne says, ‘It seems to me waste might be saved, andthe proper order of things asserted, if Spanish Mary’s householdwere broken up and she were to become a member of the household of the princess Elizabeth my daughter.’‘In the capacity of …?’ The child is quiet; only, he notes, becauseshe has crammed a fist into her maw, and is cannibalising herself.‘In the capacity of my daughter’s servant. What else should shebe? There can be no pretence at equality. Mary is a bastard.’The brief respite is over; the princess sets up a screech thatwould bring out the dead. Anne’s glance slides away sideways,and a sideways grin of infatuation takes over her whole face, andshe leans down towards her daughter, but at once women swoop,flapping and bustling; the screaming creature is plucked up,wrapped up, swept away, and the queen’s eyes follow pitifully asthe fruit of her womb exits, in procession. He says gently, ‘Ithink she was hungry. Saturday evening: supper at Austin Friars for Stephen Vaughan,so often in transit: William Butts, Hans, Kratzer, Call-Me Risley.Conversation is in various tongues and Rafe Sadler translatesadroitly, smoothly, his head turning from side to side: high topicsand low, statecraft and gossip, Zwingli’s theology, Cranmer’swife. About the latter, it has not been possible to suppress thetalk at the Steelyard and in the city; Vaughan says, ‘Can Henryknow and not know?’‘That is perfectly possible. He is a prince of very large capacities.’Larger by the day, Wriothesley says, laughing; Dr Butts says,he is one of those men who must be active, and recently his leg istroubling him, that old injury; but think, is it likely that a manwho has not spared himself on the hunting field and in the tiltyard should not get some injury by the time he is the king’s age?He is forty-three this year, you know, and I should be glad,Kratzer, to have your view on what the planets suggest, for thelater years of a man whose chart is so dominated by air and fire;by the by, did I not always warn of his moon in Aries (rash andhasty planet) in the house of marriage?He says, impatient, we heard very little about the Aries moonwhen he was settled with Katherine for twenty years. It is not thestars that make us, Dr Butts, it is circumstance and necessità, thechoices we make under pressure; our virtues make us, but virtuesare not enough, we must deploy our vices at times. Or don’t youagree?He beckons to Christophe to fill their glasses. They talk aboutthe Mint, where Vaughan is to have a position; about Calais, whereHonor Lisle seems more busy in affairs than her husband theGovernor. He thinks about Guido Camillo in Paris, pacing andfretting between the wooden walls of his memory machine, whileknowledge grows unseen and of itself in its cavities and concealedinner spaces. He thinks of the Holy Maid – by now established asnot holy, and not a maid – no doubt at this moment sitting down to supper with his nieces. He thinks of his fellow interrogators:Cranmer on his knees in prayer, Sir Purse frowning over the day’stranscripts, Audley – what will the Lord Chancellor be doing?Polishing his chain of office, he decides. He thinks of saying toVaughan, below the conversation, was there not a girl in yourhouse called Jenneke? What happened to her? But Wriothesleybreaks in on his train of thought. ‘When shall we see my master’sportrait? You have been at work on it a while, Hans, it is time itcame home. We are keen to see what you have made of him.’‘He is still busy with the French envoys,’ Kratzer says. ‘DeDinteville wants to take his picture home with him when he getshis recall …’There is some laughter at the expense of the French ambassador, always doing his packing and having to undo it again, as hismaster commands him to stay where he is. ‘Anyway, I hope hedoes not take it too quick,’ Hans says, ‘because I mean to show itand get commissions off it. I want the king to see it, indeed Iwant to paint the king, do you think I can?’‘I will ask him,’ he says easily. ‘Let me choose the time.’ Helooks down the table to see Vaughan glow with pride, like Jupiteron a painted ceiling.After they get up from the table his guests eat ginger comfitsand candied fruits, and Kratzer makes some drawings. He drawsthe sun and the planets moving in their orbits according to theplan he has heard of from Father Copernicus. He shows how theworld is turning on its axis, and nobody in the room denies it.Under your feet you can feel the tug and heft of it, the rocksgroaning to tear away from their beds, the oceans tilting andslapping at their shores, the giddy lurch of Alpine passes, theforests of Germany ripping at their roots to be free. The world isnot what it was when he and Vaughan were young, it is not whatit was even in the cardinal’s day.The company has left when his niece Alice comes in, past hiswatchmen, wrapped up in a cloak; she is escorted by Thomas Rotherham, one of his wards who lives in the house. ‘Never fear,sir,’ she says, ‘Jo is sitting up with Dame Elizabeth, and nothinggets by Jo.’Does it not? That child perpetually in tears over her spoiledsewing? That grubby little girl sometimes found rolling under atable with a wet dog, or chasing a peddler down the street? ‘Iwould like to talk to you,’ Alice says, ‘if you have time for me?’ Ofcourse, he says, taking her arm, folding her hand in his; ThomasRotherham turns pale – which puzzles him – and slides away.Alice sits down in his office. She yawns. ‘Excuse me – but sheis hard work and the hours are long.’ She tucks a strand of hairinto her hood. ‘She is ready to break,’ she says. ‘She is brave toyour faces, but she cries at night, because she knows she is afraud. And even while she is crying, she peeps under her eyelidsto see what effect she is making.’‘I want it over with now,’ he says. ‘For all the trouble she hascaused, we do not find ourselves an edifying spectacle, three orfour of us learned in the law and the scriptures, convening dayafter day to try to trip one chit of a girl.’‘Why did you not bring her in before?’‘I didn’t want her to shut the prophecy shop. I wanted to seewho would come to her whistle. And Lady Exeter has, andBishop Fisher. And a score of monks and foolish priests whosenames I know, and a hundred perhaps whose names I don’tknow yet.’‘And will the king kill them all?’‘Very few, I hope.’‘You incline him to mercy?’‘I incline him to patience.’‘What will happen to her? Dame Eliza?’‘We will frame charges.’‘She will not go in a dungeon?’‘No, I shall move the king to treat her with consideration, heis always – he is usually – respectful of any person in the religious life. But Alice,’ he sees that she is dissolving into tears, ‘I thinkthis has all been too much for you.’‘No, not at all. We are soldiers in your army.’‘She has not been frightening you, talking about the devil’swicked offers?’‘No, it’s Thomas Rotherham’s offers … he wants to marryme.’‘So that’s what’s wrong with him!’ He is amused. ‘Could henot ask himself?’‘He thought you would look at him in that way you have …as if you were weighing him.’Like a clipped coin? ‘Alice, he owns a fat slice of Bedfordshire,and his manors prosper very nicely since I have been looking afterthem. And if you like each other, how could I object? You are aclever girl, Alice. Your mother,’ he says softly, ‘and your father,they would be very pleased with you, if they were able to see.’This is why Alice is crying. She must ask her uncle’s permission because this last year has left her orphaned. The day hissister Bet died, he was up-country with the king. Henry wasreceiving no messengers from London for fear of contagion, soshe was dead and buried before he knew she was ill. When thenews crept through at last, the king spoke to him with tenderness, a hand on his arm; he spoke of his own sister, the silverhaired lady like a princess in a book, removed from this life togardens of Paradise, he had claimed, reserved for royal dead; forit is impossible, he had said, to think of that lady in any lowplace, any place of darkness, the barred charnel house of Purgatory with its flying cinders and sulphur reek, its boiling tar androiling clouds of sleet.‘Alice,’ he says, ‘dry your tears, find Thomas Rotherham, andend his pain. You need not come to Lambeth tomorrow. Jo cancome, if she is as formidable as you say.’Alice turns in the doorway. ‘I will see her again, though? ElizaBarton? I should like to see her before …Before they kill her. Alice is no innocent in this world. Just aswell. Look how the innocent end; used by the sin-sodden and thecynical, pulped to their purpose and ground under their heels.He hears Alice running upstairs. He hears her calling,Thomas, Thomas … It is a name that will bring half the houseout, tumbling from their bedside prayers, from their very beds:yes, are you looking for me? He pulls his furred gown aroundhim and goes outside to look at the stars. The precincts of hishouse are kept well lit; the gardens by torchlight are the site ofexcavations, trenches dug out for foundations, earth banked upinto barrows and mounds. The vast timber frame of a new wingjuts against the sky; in the middle distance, his new planting, acity orchard where Gregory, one day, will pick the fruit, andAlice, and Alice’s sons. He has fruit trees already, but he wantscherries and plums like the ones he has eaten abroad, and latepears to use in the Tuscan fashion, to match their crisp metallicflesh with winter’s salt cod. Then next year he means to makeanother garden at the hunting lodge he has at Canonbury, makeit a retreat from the city, a summer house in the fields. He haswork in hand at Stepney too, expansion; John Williamson islooking after the builders for him. Strange, but like a miracle thefamily’s prosperity seems to have cured him of his killing cough.I like John Williamson, he thinks, why ever did I, with his wife… Beyond the gate, cries and shouts, London never still or quiet;so many in the graveyards, but the living parading in the streets,drunken fighters pitching from London Bridge, sanctuary menstealing out to thieve, Southwark whores bawling out their priceslike butchers selling dead flesh.He goes inside. His desk draws him back. In a small chest hekeeps his wife’s book, her book of hours. Inside it are prayers onloose papers which she has inserted. Say the name of Christ athousand times and it keeps fever away. But it doesn’t, does it?The fever comes anyway and kills you. Beside the name of herfirst husband, Thomas Williams, she has written his own name, but she never, he notices, crossed Tom Williams out. She hasrecorded the births of her children, and he has written in besidethem the dates of his daughters’ deaths. He finds a space wherehe will note the marriages of his sisters’ children: Richard toFrances Murfyn, Alice to his ward.He thinks, perhaps I have got over Liz. It didn’t seem possiblethat weight would ever shift from inside his chest, but it haslightened enough to let him get on with his life. I could marryagain, he thinks, but is this not what people are always tellingme? He says to himself, I never think of Johane Williamson now:not Johane as she was for me. Her body once had specialmeaning, but that meaning is now unmade; the flesh createdbeneath his fingertips, hallowed by desire, becomes just the ordinary substance of a city wife, a fading woman with no particularlooks. He says to himself, I never think of Anselma now; she isjust the woman in the tapestry, the woman in the weave.He reaches for his pen. I have got over Liz, he says to himself.Surely? He hesitates, the quill in his hand, weighted by ink. Heholds the pages down flat, and strikes out the name of her firsthusband. He thinks, I’ve meant to do that for years.It is late. Upstairs he closes the shutter, where the moon gapesin hollow-eyed, like a drunk lost in the street. Christophe,folding garments, says, ‘Is there loups? In this kingdom?’‘I think the wolves all died when the great forests were cutdown. That howling you hear is only the Londoners.’Sunday: in rose-tinted light they set out from Austin Friars, hismen in their new livery of grey marbled cloth collecting the partyfrom the city house where the nun has been held. It would beconvenient, he thinks, if I had Master Secretary’s barge, insteadof making ad hoc arrangements when we have to cross the river.He has already heard Mass; Cranmer insists they all hear another.He watches the girl and sees her tears flow. Alice is right; she is atthe end of her invention. By nine o’clock she is unwinding the threads she has spentyears ravelling up. She confesses in style, so hard and fast thatRiche can hardly keep track, and she appeals to them as men ofthe world, as people with their way to make: ‘You know how itis. You mention something and people are at you, what do youmean, what do you mean? You say you’ve had a vision and theywon’t leave you alone.’‘You can’t disappoint people?’ he says; she agrees, that’s it,you can’t. Once you start you have to keep going. If you try togo back they’ll slaughter you.She confesses that her visions are inventions. She never spoketo heavenly persons. Or raised the dead; that was all a fraud. Shenever had a hand in miracles. The letter from Mary Magdalene,Father Bocking wrote it, and a monk put gilding on the letters, ina minute she’ll think of his name. The angels came out of her owninvention, she seemed to see them but she knows now that theywere just flashes of light against the wall. The voices she heardwere not their voices, they were not distinct voices at all, just thesounds of her sisters singing in the chapel, or a woman in theroad crying because she has been beaten and robbed, or perhapsthe meaningless clatter of dishes from the kitchen; and thosegroans and cries, that seemed to come from the throats of thedamned, it was someone above scraping a trestle across the floor,it was the whimper of a lost dog.