Somers poured wine from the flagon, the monkey clinging to his shoulder with practised ease. The King lifted the goblet to his mouth and I caught a glimpse of grey teeth. ‘God’s death,’ he murmured, ‘this endless thirst.’
Somers and the guard went out, closing the door quietly behind them. I gave Paget a quick glance; he looked back with that flat, empty gaze of his. The King, his eyes locking on mine again, spoke in a voice full of quiet menace. ‘So, Master Shardlake, I hear you have been spending time with my wife.’
‘No, your majesty, no!’ I heard the edge of panic in my own voice as I answered. ‘I have merely been helping her to search for, for – ’
‘For this?’ With difficulty the King reached behind him to the desk, his surprisingly delicate fingers clutching at a sheaf of papers. He heaved himself round again, holding it up. I saw the Queen’s writing, the first page torn in half where Greening had grasped it as he died. The Lamentation of a Sinner.
I felt the ground shift beneath me, again I almost fainted. I took deep breaths. The King stared at me, waiting for an answer, the little mouth tightening. Then, from beside me, Paget said, ‘Naturally, Master Shardlake, when I learned from my spy in that Anabaptist group that they had stolen a book written by the Queen, I told his majesty at once. He ordered the book brought to him, and the sect extirpated. It has been in his possession all this time.’
I stared foolishly at the manuscript. All this – all the weeks of anxiety and fear, the terrible thing that had happened to Barak tonight – and the Lamentation had been in the King’s possession all along. I should have been furious, but in the King’s presence there was no room for any emotion but fear. He pointed a finger at me, his voice rasping with anger. ‘Last year, Master Shardlake, when the Queen and I were at Portsmouth, I saw you at the front of the crowd as I entered the city.’ I looked up in surprise. ‘Yes, and I remembered you, as I do all those I have had cause to look on unfavourably. You failed once before to discover a stolen manuscript. At York, five years ago. Did you not?’
I swallowed hard. The King had insulted me in public, then. Yet he would have done far worse had he known that I had succeeded in discovering that particular cache of papers and had destroyed them on account of their incendiary contents. I looked back at him, fearing irrationally that those probing eyes could see into my very mind, that they could see what I had truly done at York, and even my treacherous thoughts this very afternoon about the Anabaptists’ creed.
The angry edge in the King’s voice deepened. ‘God’s blood, churl, answer your King!’
‘I – I was sorry to have displeased you, your majesty.’ It sounded craven, pathetic.
‘So you should have been. And when I saw you last year at Portsmouth, when you had no reason to be there, I had Paget make enquiry, and learned you had visited my wife at Portchester Castle. And that you did lawyer’s work for her. I allowed that, Master Shardlake, for I know that once, before our marriage, you saved her life.’ He nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes, Cranmer told me about that, later.’ His voice had softened momentarily, and I saw that, indeed, he still loved Catherine Parr. And yet he had used her as a tool in his political machinations all these months, had allowed her to go in fear of her life.
His voice hardened again. ‘I do not like my wife receiving visitors unsanctioned by me, so when I returned from Portsmouth I arranged to have you watched.’ He laughed wheezily. ‘Not that I would suspect my Kate of dalliance with an ugly brokebacked thing like you, but these days I watch all those who might take too great an interest in those I love. I have been betrayed by women before,’ he added bitterly. ‘My wife does not know that I watch certain of her male associates. Paget is good at employing discreet men to observe and spy. Eh, Sir William?’ The King half-turned and gave Paget a blow on the arm which made him stagger slightly; he blinked but did not flinch. The movement meanwhile set the King’s whole vast body, uncorseted under the caftan, wobbling and juddering.
I swallowed hard. ‘Your majesty, I hold the Queen in great esteem, but only as her employee, and as a subject admiring of her kindness, her learning—’
‘Her religion?’ the King asked, suddenly and sharply.