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Chapter Text

Catalina de Aragón y Castilla has known since she was a child that her destiny is to marry Prince Arthur, the heir to the English throne, and reign by his side as Queen until God parts them. Why, then, has his father King Henry waited so long to send for her?

The answer to that question shocks her almost to silence.

“The English believe the name on one’s wrist is that of one’s soulmate – one’s greatest Earthly love,” her confessor, Fray Diego, explains once they are on board. “El Rey does not wish you to marry the Prince until your mark appears lest it not read ‘Arthur’. Forgive me, but I have only just learned this today from Sir Edward Howard.”

“Earthly – romantic love?” she gasps, her mouth dropping open. “Do they not use the saint’s mark to discover marranos?”

“Which marranos would that be, Alteza? You are marrying into an entirely Christian kingdom untainted by either Jew or Moor. God in his wisdom knows what each realm needs most; the English require His help not to root out apostasy but to guide their cold hearts into holy matrimony, to assure the perpetuation of the species.”

A reasonable theory, Catalina has to admit. “The northerners do not always give their children saint’s names, do they? There is no St. Arthur to my knowledge.”

“No St. Arthur,” he sighs, “no St. Eleanor, and although Charlemagne was a true warrior for Christ he bore a pagan name as well. There are English saints, of course; Thomas Becket and Richard of Chichester come to mind – but I pray you do not bear the latter name on your wrist.”

That she cannot argue with.

They arrive at Plymouth on the feast of St. Leger (and St. Thomas of Hereford, Diego is quick to point out) and make their way eastward toward London slowly through the pouring rain and sticky mud, their enormous baggage train slowing them down at every turn. “Queen Elizabeth warned my mother that English water is unfit to drink,” she grouses to María de Salinas at the end of a particularly wet day. “She didn’t say how much of it there was.”

By the time they reach the unpronounceable county of Hampshire every member of her party is exhausted to the bone, but none so much as her mother’s ambassador, Don Pedro – which is why she is surprised to hear his voice and that of another carry through the walls of her sleeping tent late one night. “What are they saying?” she asks Doña Elvira.

Her duenna listens for a moment. “Don Pedro is telling – ¡Dios mío!”

She springs out of bed and reaches for her dressing gown. “What is it?”

Elvira’s dark Basque eyes have grown as wide as saucers. “It’s King Henry; he’s here and he’s asking to see you!”

“Here?” she cries. “I – he can’t – Mother would never—”

”His Grace is ordering Don Pedro to bring you out immediately,” she continues. “Fray Diego – he’s there as well – is telling the King of your lady mother the Queen’s orders to keep you covered until the wedding.” Her face suddenly turns brilliant red as one of the men starts to shout. “El Rey is furious! He accuses us of trying to palm off a deformed girl on his son! Alteza…”

“If that is his belief we will have to prove him wrong.” She gestures to her yawning slave to bring her the veil hanging from a hook by the bed; the girl only has time to pin it in place before the tent flap opens and Don Pedro peeks in. “I take it the King is without?” she asks.

“Er, yes,” he stammers, “but you do not have to see him; it is most irregular and your lady mother the Queen has given strict orders that—”

He is interrupted by a shout; with a sigh she allows Don Pedro to lead her out to where a tall grey-haired man, obviously King Henry, is expostulating with her confessor, Fray Diego. “Your Grace, I welcome you,” she says in Latin, interrupting them.

He turns to her in surprise as she drops into a curtsey. “So this is…”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Don Pedro replies, his voice as smooth as silk. “The Infanta Catalina.”

The King raises her from her curtsey but before she can speak again he reaches out and flips back her veil, his eyes widening at the sight of her uncovered hair. “You are – my lady, you must forgive me for the intrusion,” he says after a moment’s pause, “but in this realm unmarried ladies do not veil themselves. I must admit that you do appear more…more mature than I would have expected of a girl of fifteen. Has your soulmark truly not yet appeared?”

She holds up her bare left wrist, unsure if she should take offence at his comment. “My saint’s mark,” and she emphasizes the last words, “will appear in December, sire.”

He frowns at her. “Saint’s mark? Don Pedro…”

Slowly, and with numerous interruptions on the part of the inquisitive King, Don Pedro and Fray Diego explain the difference between the English and Spanish practices, emphasizing God’s wisdom in tailoring the visible sign of His will to the benefit of each realm. “The Catholic Monarchs have themselves been painted with their saint’s marks visible,” Diego adds, “as both are under the protection and care of the Holy Virgin.”

“Then they are truly blessed,” the King replies, crossing himself. “And you, Infanta? Do you expect to bear a saint’s name?”

“An English saint’s, yes, such as Thomas Becket, or – or…”

“Or St. Winifred,” Don Pedro suggests, shooting her a warning glare.

The King’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Ah, but that particular saint is not English but Welsh. What happens when – but I forget myself: you have yet to meet your groom. Arthur, come forward.”

A tall, handsome boy steps out from behind the tent flap, his amber eyes meeting hers as he rises from a bow – and her world changes forever.

Two weeks later they are married at Westminster Abbey; three weeks after that her saint’s mark proves her right. “Thomas,” she says at breakfast, holding out her wrist for Arthur’s inspection. “Spelled in the English manner.”

“We’ll have to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury next summer,” he answers. “Will I bear a saint’s mark, do you think?”

She reaches over to clasp his hand. “You are an Englishman, Turi; I have no doubt you will wake up with your soulmate’s name on your wrist.”

“Your name, then,” he says, smiling brightly, “for there is no one for me but you.”

But before his soulmark appears – indeed, before he is capable of making her his wife in more than name – he sickens and dies, leaving nothing behind but a tomb in Worcester Cathedral and a lifetime of broken dreams.

Chapter Text

Henry VII sips his rich French wine, his eyes on the fire burning brightly in the hearth as fat drops of rain lash against the windows of his study. God’s tears, he thinks idly; Satan’s mark on my only son’s wrist, an heir cursed with heresy – and there is not a thing I can do about it.

If only Arthur or Edmund had lived!

If there was only a way to scrub off the stain the Devil had etched onto Harry’s wrist!

Archbishop Warham had tried to offer him comfort – something about not assuming the Sarum Rite held the force of canon law – but there was no prayer, no act of charity, no holy work that could fix this.

Not since Elizabeth’s death has he felt so bereft, so utterly unmanned.

Is this my fault, Lord? Are you punishing me?

He drops his empty goblet onto the table with a groan and stretches his feet out in front of him. He’s never been a prodigious sinner; oh, he sired a bastard son in his youth but that was years before he met and married the gentle lady whose name graces his wrist, and although he has contemplated remarriage there has always been something – his broken heart, political expediency, and now his failing health – to stay his hand. He has never sent a man to the block without good reason, he has never indulged in debauchery or drunkenness, and if he might with justice be considered avaricious by his subjects he has always given alms in proportion. More to the point, he has never allowed himself to be stained by the slightest hint of heresy. Why, then, has God given his only living legitimate son a soulmark that would in a commoner lead inexorably to the scaffold?

He abandons his bitter musings only upon the arrival of his mother. “My lady Richmond, I asked not to be disturbed.”

“Which is why I have disturbed you,” she replies as she lowers herself into the chair across from his without asking leave. “Your Grace cannot cancel the day’s festivities, let alone immure yourself in your study; you have no choice but to put on a brave face and pretend all is well.”

“I know that,” he sighs, “but…but Henry’s mark isn’t even a saint’s name; I can’t even use the Spanish excuse – what?”

She levels him a knowing look. “And to whom do you owe an excuse, my son? We need only tell Harry not to show his soulmark to anyone – not to Katherine or whomever he happens to marry, and certainly not to…” and she waves a hand.

“God forbid,” he mutters, slouching even deeper into his chair.

“God forbids, yes, but…” and she heaves a sigh as heavy as his own. “You should have been told of this months ago and I apologize for not doing so, but: there was a laundress at Westminster, a girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen – his age, more or less.”

He stares at her. “A laundress.”

“She’s the only one I know of,” she continues, “and that only because she died bearing his child; I had John Fisher arrange her burial. I only tell you now to assure you that not all is lost.”

Had he heard this news on any other day he would have been incandescent with rage; today, however, he clutches at the fact as a drowning man does a rope. “And I was not informed because…?”

“Because you would have stormed and raged and committed the girl to Newgate. Not that you have anything to say on the matter yourself.”

“You well know that when Roland was conceived I was a penniless wanderer with no greater chance of becoming King than – than yon herald in the corridor,” he huffs. “That said, I suppose…what happened to the child?”

“Born too early; it lived long enough to be baptized but…” and her voice trails off. “You should know that I spoke with Harry before I came to you. He is no more pleased with the implications of the mark than you are, but he affects a casual disinterest in its true meaning. He mentioned something about the Greeks after Plato, or perhaps the Romans – but the point is, unlike you he doesn’t consider his soulmark a certain sign of – of heresy and he hasn’t cloistered himself in shame.”

“Perhaps he should,” he grumbles, but before he can speak again his mother rises and holds out her hand; with another groan he takes it, rising and following her out to the Privy Chamber.

Chapter Text

Queen Katherine wears her hair down whenever she can, dresses in dark, richly adorned gowns designed to conceal (or so she thinks) the extent of her spreading figure, hears Mass six times a day, distributes alms with a lavish hand, adores strawberries and abhors onions, is convinced her daughter will be Queen one day, and loves her husband beyond all save the Lord God Himself.

That her husband does not return that love is obvious to all who serve, including Anne Boleyn.

In the six months since Anne was named maid of honour she has borne daily witness to the King’s magisterial disdain for his lady wife. He permits her to preside at his court but takes no notice of her unless duty or courtesy demands it, and even then he barely speaks to her; even when he visits her apartments he is more likely to converse with the ladies of her household (including, to her infinite surprise, Anne herself) than with the woman to whom he once professed himself Sir Loyal Heart.

The sight saddens her more than it perhaps should, but then again she too is mourning the loss of her soulmate’s love – and something tells her Cardinal Wolsey is as much to blame for the Queen’s loss as he is for her own.

Harry Percy is the son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, one of the lords the King depends upon to protect the north from Scots invaders. They met during rehearsals for a tableau staged to welcome the Comte de Hornes to England; Harry, tall, handsome, and possessed of a fine speaking voice, was cast by Master Cornysh (may God give him rest) as Anacreon while Anne accompanied him on lyre as the muse Erato. Acquaintance turned to friendship, then to love; by Candlemas last they had vowed to marry and were almost on the verge of showing each other their marks – and then in a blink of an eye he was gone.

Wolsey had sent him home.

She knows why, of course; the Earl has all but beggared himself protecting the north and the Cardinal, loath either to open his own coffers or to provoke the King’s rage by asking him to contribute to the defence of his own realm, has dug up a star-crossed wretch of a girl whose vast dowry could never compensate for her nasty, spiteful temperament. Harry and Mary Talbot were married before anyone at court had news of the betrothal, probably to prevent Anne’s father from making a complaint to the King, and now Harry languishes in the North with a woman he loathes (and rightly so; if Mary has a soulmate, it slithers) and Anne is left at court pondering her next move.

Fortunately not all is lost. Her father and brother have brought many good books into the realm lately, books that argue against the Pope’s authority and decry the arrogance of cardinals who spit on God’s holy laws while hiding behind the cross. If only she could lift the wool from the King’s eyes and show him that he should be master in his realm in all things and that priests and prelates should bow to him…perhaps if she can do so, she can rescue her soulmate from an unwanted, unhappy, coerced marriage.

She is polishing one of the Queen’s many crowns shortly after Twelfth Night when the King beckons to her. “Put that down, Nan, and come sit with me a while.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

He raises her from her curtsey and leads her to a window seat wide enough for her to sit by his side while he strums an idle tune on his lute. “I have often thought,” he says after a few minutes, “what it would be like to live in the time of King Arthur. Have you ever considered it?”

She seizes the opportunity. “I have, Sire, many times.”

“Of course; who hasn’t? It was a magical world, marvellous in God’s eyes: brave men, pageantry, loyalty and brotherhood, knights serving their king honestly and faithfully, fair maidens and wizards. If only Guinevere had not betrayed her lord husband,” and his hand stills against the strings, just for a moment, “if only she had been faithful, we might still live in that world; I might even still carry Excalibur into battle. For that alone I cannot think but that Arthur was right to order her put to death.”

“A sentence both fit and meet for a Queen who has betrayed her liege lord so vilely,” she agrees, “but I wonder…”

“What is it, Nan?”

She feigns confusion. “Sire, forgive me, but was the fall of Camelot not also in part Guinevere’s father’s fault for forcing Arthur to marry her despite the evidence of her mark?”

His startled frown worries her; she stammers a hasty, semi-incoherent apology but he reaches over and gently takes her hand. “Don’t fret, Nan; I’m not angry, not at you,” he assures her. “I’m only surprised I’ve never thought of it myself. The fall of Camelot, inherent in its rise…but surely it wouldn’t have been right for Arthur to condemn his wife merely for bearing Lancelot’s name on her wrist.”

“Of course not, sire, but how can a king – how can any lord, any man – be secure in his wife’s devotion if God did not choose her as his soulmate? The uncertainty must necessarily cause him great worry and weaken his resolve in all matters.”

That he does not answer; he instead leans back and strums a few idle chords. “If I recall correctly,” he says at last, “King Leodegrance betrothed Guinevere to Arthur on the advice of his priests.”

“Who disregarded the only clear and unambiguous sign we mortals possess of God’s holy will in hopes that Arthur would reward them once he gained the throne.” She shoots him a look from under lowered lashes. “They did it for money, sire, much as priests do today when they coerce young men of high birth into ill-advised marriages, and for far less cause.”

He heaves a sigh before returning to his song, saying only in reply, “That, my dear, I know all too well.”

A few days later he draws her aside. “I’ve been mulling over our earlier discussion about King Arthur,” he says by way of preamble.

She drops into a hasty curtsey. “I thank Your Majesty, but I had no intention that my simple words would task your busy mind—”

But he waves aside her apology and bestows upon her a brilliant smile. “No, you were right to bring the matter to my attention, and I do know the case to which you – modestly and with the greatest propriety, I might add – were alluding.”

She cannot believe her ears: he knows!

”Priests and prelates…” he continues with a sad shake of his head. “Guinevere failed her husband in another crucial way, you know, by not giving him an heir – again, not an offence worthy of burning at the stake, but still one that supports your argument. Suffice to say that I have discussed the issue with my closest advisors and they agree with you.”

“Oh, Your Majesty!” she cries. “I cannot thank you enough…”

“Ah, but you do not have to thank me, my dear; there is nothing I desire more than to be your servant in this matter. Now the season may delay resolution,” and he gestures toward the window, “but I can assure you that all shall soon be well.” He pauses. “I have asked my confessor to gather the evidence needed. Might he attend on you?”

She could fall to the floor in thanks but she contents herself with a demure, “With pleasure, sire.”

Sure enough, Bishop Longland arrives at the Queen’s Apartments the next morning “on a delicate but in its own way great matter,” as he explains to Her Majesty. “I am tasked with examining Mistress Boleyn’s soulmark.”

“A matrimonial issue, I presume?” she asks, but before either Anne or Longland can answer she smiles beatifically and waves over one of the newer maids, a pallid blonde of eighteen fresh out of the Wiltshire countryside. “Mistress Jane, please show Dr. Longland to my closet and remain as chaperone while he examines Mistress Anne.”

Anne doesn’t know why she and the chap-fallen Bishop of Lincoln are in need of a chaperone but it isn’t her place to contradict the Queen; she instead follows the Seymour girl to a richly decorated private room located off the Privy Chamber. “Are you to make the ruling?” she asks the Bishop as she loosens her leather wristlet.

He shakes his head. “Given the serious nature of the case it must go to Cardinal Campeggio in Rome, I’m afraid; my part in this is to collect evidence for Dr. Knight. And in this weather it’s unlikely…ah: it seems His Majesty guessed aright.”

She smiles, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Jane’s mouth drop open at the “Harry” marching across her wrist in black letter hand. “My soulmate was coerced into marriage with another,” she explains as she retightens the lacing. “His Majesty has promised that we will marry as soon as he can arrange for the matter to be resolved.”

For some reason this seems to grievously offend the girl; she turns away with a huff of displeasure and only reluctantly accompanies her back to the Privy Chamber.

Over the next few weeks the atmosphere in the Queen’s household grows as chilly as the weather; Anne finds herself shut out of the usual confidences shared by the maids and is even left behind one afternoon during Her Majesty’s audience with the Imperial ambassador, Don Íñigo. The Queen herself is kindness and courtesy personified but even with her there are signs – a lingering glance, a flicker of fear in her pale blue eyes – that she is on her guard. Only the King seems unchanged, chatting with Anne and challenging her at cards just as he always has. It is decidedly odd but as she can do nothing about it she chooses to put it out of her mind.

“The lists have been posted for the Shrovetide jousts,” the King tells her one frosty February morning after Anne has played him a sprightly galliard on the virginals. “I noticed the name ‘Boleyn’ on my Lord of Exeter’s side. A relative?”

“My brother George, Majesty,” she replies. “He’s just returned to court.”

He grins. “The young buck taking his place among the stags, eh? We’ll show him. I take it you haven’t heard any rumours about the, er, displays?”

“Only that the embroiderers have been busy for weeks. Her Majesty has lamented the delay of the Princess Mary’s Easter gown more than once.”

At mention of his Queen the King’s face falls, but he quickly regains his good humour as the Princess’s name passes her lips. Still, he does not seem particularly worried by the young girl‘s plight and their conversation soon turns back to the upcoming tournament. “I hope to see you in the stands at the joust, Nan, as I have a special surprise for you,” he says. “Will you promise to attend even if you’re ‘accidentally’ left behind?”

“Sire, I wouldn’t miss it for—” and she suddenly realizes that he has something more than just a tournament planned; Harry is coming back to court! “Your Majesty,” she cries, but tears overwhelm her and he draws her into his arms.

“There, there, my dear; dry your eyes,” he murmurs, his hands on her arms as she pulls back, her cheeks aflame as she realizes she’s just hugged the King of England. “I promise you, Nan, everything will be – yes?”

She glances over her shoulder to find a quietly furious Anne Clifford rising from a curtsey. “The Queen has asked if Your Majesty wishes to accompany Her Majesty to the Princess’s apartments. Her Grace has been working on a dompe she wishes you to hear – you and her lady mother the Queen,” she adds, sending a fierce glare in Anne’s direction.

The King stands, but for some reason he turns back. “You don’t mind if I leave you here, Nan?”

“No, sire,” she says, diving into a curtsey as he bids her farewell and leaves the room.

She intends to explain, but all she sees as she rises again is the flick of Lady Clifford’s skirts as she hastens away.

Shrove Tuesday dawns clear and so unseasonably warm that the squires and other young gentlemen who appeared in the lists on the first two days of the tournament are more relieved than put out that they aren’t appearing on the third. “I understand the caparisons are magnificent this year,” she whispers to her cousin Margaret Shelton. “Have you seen Harry yet? The King all but intimated that he would be here.”

“Nan, take care,” Meg begins uneasily as they reach the stand. “Even if Master Percy does appear you don’t know if the King will expect…you well remember what happened to your lady sister.”

Her mouth all but drops open. “I – that was eight years ago, and Mary was entirely to blame. She should have saved her maidenhead for her husband.”

“That might be, but…” and Meg sighs. “Be careful, is all I ask.”

They reach the top of the stairs but instead of being led to the wooden bench behind the Queen with the other maids the page directs them to seats at the front of the stand amidst the noble ladies of the court. Anne looks askance at him but lowers herself into the chair he indicates, politely nodding at Lady Fitzwalter to her left and Lady Wharton on Meg’s right. “Harry’s going to be amongst the jousters; I know it in my heart,” she whispers to her cousin. “Why else would I be given such a prominent spot?”

The trumpets sound and Lord Exeter’s men, competing that afternoon as foreign knights or ‘venans’, enter the yard in a blaze of green velvet and crimson satin embroidered with the image of a man’s heart in flames being cooled by droplets of ‘water’ worked in thread of silver and emerging from a watering can held by a woman’s hand. Lady Fitzwalter begins to natter something about unrequited love but Anne ignores her and keeps her attention fixed on the knight’s faces as they parade by the stand. Her brother is among the group, her cousin Francis Bryan as well, but there is no sign of Harry nor are there any disguised stranger knights. He must be with the tenans, she tells herself as Exeter’s party takes its place at the far end of the tiltyard.

Her stomach is ready to tie itself into knots by the time the King’s men arrive. All gasp in wonder as they enter in a flourish of scarlet, silver, and gold, but Anne can only reach down and touch the favour she’s wound around her left wrist, the one she intends to tie around Harry’s lance…if he is there.

She can’t see him.

Only Meg’s arm around her waist stops her from standing up to get a better look.

It quickly becomes obvious that Harry is not among the tenans but his absence is only the first sign that something has gone dreadfully, terribly wrong; the second is the banner snapping in the breeze above the King’s head showing a man’s heart in a press surrounded by flames – a press operated by the hand of a woman whose sleeve bears…

“Is that the Boleyn falcon?” Meg whispers in her ear.

Around the device curls three words in French: Declare je nos, or ‘Declare I dare not’.

Every gaze turns her way.

“But – but I…” she sputters – and suddenly she understands.

The hours of conversations, the myriad card games, the King’s disdain for his wife, Jane’s anger at her soulmark, the Queen’s fear, the maids’ coolness, Lady Clifford’s fury, and over and above all the realization that she has never once told him her soulmate’s name—

—Harry Percy—

—Harry Tudor—

Somehow, she doesn’t know how, she rises as the King approaches the stand to ask for her – not Queen Catherine’s, not even Princess Mary’s, but her – favour, but as she ties the ribbon around his lance and a thousand eyes beam hate in her direction she recognizes with agonizing clarity that her life as she has known it is over.

In the moment of what should have been her greatest triumph she is completely and irrevocably lost.

Chapter Text

Impatience, Charles Brandon muses, usually serves him quite well.

If he’d waited for Harry – King Henry VIII, as he is to lesser mortals – to reward him with the jewels, lands, and titles he currently possesses he’d still be waiting, for although Harry isn’t the pinchpenny his father was he still prefers to spend his money on his own pleasures rather than his friends’ comfort. Only a few of his closest companions (basically Charles himself, Hal Norris, and Will Compton) have prised enough wealth out of his tight fist to ensure a life of luxury, and of those only he himself has enjoyed the great good luck to have won both a dukedom and the hand of the gentle lady upon whose brow once rested the crown of the Queen of France. And he won those not by waiting but by asking for them.

His famed impatience serves him nothing now: not while Pestilence stalks the land.

He blows out an angry breath and hoists his considerable bulk up to his feet as Mary enters his study, lines of worry etched on her fine high brow. “My lord, is there still no news from court?”

“Not a word from court or anywhere else,” he replies, holding out his arms to her.

She doesn’t cry – she is too much the ‘French Queen’, as the servants call her, to fall apart even when they’re alone – but as she sinks into his embrace he can still feel her pulse thrumming under the fabric of her heavy silken gown. “Do you want me to send a groom down to my agent in Stowmarket?” he asks, wincing as a corner of her gable hood digs into his cheek. “It’s only just gone ten.”

“And what if he returns with the sweat?” she asks, her breath warm against his shoulder. “I don’t want us or the children to fall ill.”

He finds himself almost amused by her Tudorian dismissal of the rest of the household. “Darling, I’ll tell him to stay with Will Cuthbert in town if there’s any doubt. All right?”

She sighs against his chest. “It’s her fault, you know. Why can’t Harry see that?”

Because he’s the king is the answer on his tongue – not that either of them need to be reminded of that.

He summons Ned Hobson and sends the boy off to town before returning to his study, but no matter how much he tries to concentrate on his accounts the numbers swim in front of his eyes and he has to push the book away. Anne Boleyn’s fault – or is it?

God’s vengeance has fallen hard on England over the past three years. First came dry mists that shrouded the sun, then cold rains and famine, and now this pestilence, this sudor anglicus that steals into homes like a thief in the night. He would prefer to lay the fault for this litany of disasters at the feet of the woman Cardinal Wolsey dubbed the ‘night crow’ but his confessor Dr. Jenkins has reminded him time and again that Harry hasn’t given her a choice in the matter; he has pursued her, and if England’s woes are indeed a sign from God Harry is the only one to blame. Charles would like to agree – he likes to think of himself as a fair man who would not blame a woman merely for existing – but the lady in question is so unlikeable, so arrogant, and above all so damned untrustworthy that the gorge rises in his throat every time he thinks of her.

Queen Katherine has his full sympathy, of course. She is Harry’s soulmate (or so he assumes from what he’s gleaned over the years) and has never once in word or deed crossed her lord and master, and yet Harry still speaks of annulments and dispensations and sending Wolsey to Rome to have the matter heard by the Cardinal-Protector. He can only wonder how long this imperiously royal woman, this daughter of Isabella the Catholic, will remain the docile loving wife. If he threatens Princess Mary’s status as heir she will never give in, he thinks, and he can’t find it in his heart to blame her.

Ned returns from Stowmarket in mid-afternoon with two bags overflowing with notes and letters. “No sweat in town, Your Grace: Will’s maid ain’t seen or heard a thing,” he says, beaming at him as he hands over the larger bag. “Should I take the Queen’s letters up?”

“If you would,” he says, but then he frowns. “What’s this about Cuthbert’s maid? Wasn’t he there himself?”

The boy shrugs. “Dot said he left three nights ago without sayin’ a word. She thought he was going up to Sheffield to see his mam.”

“Then you’d better ask the boys in the stable if any horses are missing,” he says after a moment’s thought. “That old mare of his can hardly get him here and back, let alone all the way to Yorkshire.”

Once the boy has run off Charles pours himself a goblet of sack and applies himself to the grim task of discovering whom among his acquaintance has passed beyond the veil. The list seems endless: there’s his neighbour Richard FitzLewis; John Kyme, whom he put into the Commons some years back; Richard Libby, ditto; Joyce Howard, Lord Edmund’s wife; John Clerke; and—

—and Will Compton.

His heart drops into his stomach. He and Will have drifted apart over the past few years as their families have grown but Lady Compton’s news still brings tears to his eyes; he scribbles a note ordering Dr. Jenkins to sing masses for his friend’s soul – for the souls of all the dead – and tries to turn his mind to whatever practical help his widow might need. He cannot imagine…

…no, he can very well imagine all of them being swept up in God’s judgment, and although it might not be Anne Boleyn’s fault none of it would have happened had she never met Harry.

He finishes his wine and thumbs through the rest of the letters. His adult daughters, Anne and Mary, are safe with their husbands (praise God!)…the King and Queen have embarked on a round of pilgrimages in hopes of expiating the realm’s sins…George Boleyn and Hal Norris fell ill at Waltham Abbey but both are expected to recover…the sweat has passed into Wiltshire…deaths in Oxford and Cambridge…now here is something: Wyatt has written that Anne Boleyn and her father have been stricken at Hever.

The news brings him to his feet and before he knows it he’s in the suspiciously empty Great Hall, but before he can call for a page a door flies open and Jenkins bursts into the room headed toward the front entrance, stole and pyx in hand. “Father—”

“It’s Hobson, Your Grace!” he shouts over his shoulder as he runs off. “He’s collapsed!”

“But—”

Charles stares like a fool at the door as it swings shut. For Jenkins to be in such a hurry…

Ned must have come down with the sweat.

He bounds up the stairs toward his wife’s apartments, guilt pooling in his belly, but halfway up he stops: what if he carries the pestilence on his hands or in his breath? What if the letters were contaminated…

But there had been letters for her too; Ned carried a bag upstairs—

He takes the remaining steps two at a time and bursts into the old solar to find Mary and her ladies gathering black fabric and trimmings. “They’re for Lady Compton,” she tells him as she lowers a bolt of what looks like crepe into a trunk. “I take it she wrote Your Grace as well?”

“She did,” he gets out, “but I must speak with you on an another matter; one of great urgency.”

She meets his gaze, her brows creasing – and her face goes absolutely white. “Not Harry!”

“He and Katherine are both well, according to Wolsey’s secretary,” he assures her as he leads her to a chair and kneels before her. “There’s no easy way to tell you this: Ned Hobson might have brought the sweat back from Stowmarket. I just saw Jenkins running to minister to him – with the Host.”

“The Host!” she gasps. “Then he must be—”

But before he can reply she’s back on her feet and barking out orders. “Meg, tell Mrs. Peterson to lock the nursery doors and keep the children and their servants isolated from the rest of the household. Lady Margery, arrange for fires to be laid in every hearth and kept burning day and night until the danger is over. Bet, run down to the servants’ hall and have them set up a makeshift infirmary, and have someone fetch the physician from town. Nan, ask my confessor to attend on me as soon as he can, but don’t interrupt him if he’s administering the Viaticum.”

Her ladies curtsey and hasten away, at least one of them already weeping in fear; once they’re alone Mary turns back to him. “Is there any news of my niece?”

“The Princess was visiting an abbey in Hertfordshire with her parents when news of the outbreak reached them,” he tells her as she sinks into his arms again. “She’s been sent to Ludlow; with God’s grace the sweat won’t spread that far.”

“May God preserve her,” she murmurs. “If she dies Katherine won’t last a year.”

And if Harry follows her neither will I, he thinks.

He could never call his marriage to Mary a mistake, not while he wears the name ‘Tudor’ on his wrist and she ‘Charles’ on hers, but until that moment he’d never considered the danger they would face if Harry and his daughter and heir the Princess were to both die. He certainly hadn’t thought of it the day they married; love, a desperate need to protect his soulmate, and (he is forced to admit) naked greed blinded him to the lion’s den he was blithely stepping into. The lords might accept Mary as Queen over her sister Margaret but they’d never accept him as consort; the day she succeeds to the throne is the day one of them slips a poniard between his ribs.

It isn’t long until Dr. Russell arrives with one of his acolytes, who places a covered tray on the small table directly below Mary’s crucifix. “I thought that under the circumstances Your Graces might wish to confess and receive the good Lord,” the priest says as he removes the cover and arranges the communion vessels to his satisfaction, but before he uncovers the ciborium he glances up at them apprehensively. “I’ve been advised that Master Hobson has breathed his last and that two of the stable hands are apparently also afflicted. Dr. Jenkins is with them at the moment, may the hand of God protect him, and Father Langley is leading the servants in prayer downstairs.”

Charles lowers his head and tries to will away the guilt coursing through him as Russell takes Mary aside to hear her confession. He sent young Ned to Stowmarket; it’s his fault the sweat has reached Westhorpe, his fault that Mary, their children, and their entire household are at risk. Has he committed a sin? He confesses as much when it’s his time to cleanse his soul, and although the priest assures him that he is blameless he can’t shake the feeling that whether his choice constitutes a sin or not, God can’t be pleased with the decision to entrust the lives of his household to the doubtful judgment of a lovestruck sixteen-year-old boy.

Once they’ve received the Lord Dr. Russell sets up a monstrance so that they might adore the Host while they pray the rosary, a custom Mary introduced Charles to upon their marriage. By now he’s used to the weight of the garland in his hand, used to the feel of the cool amber spheres as they pass through his fingers, used to the Apostles’ Creed, the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the Salve, Regina; so used to them, in fact, that he slips into a trance—

—and then Mary lets out an inchoate shriek.

Russell’s face blanches. “Your Grace—”

“The children!” she cries as she leaps to her feet and clutches at her confessor’s arm. “Father, you must go, something terrible is about – no, you might carry the sweat!”

He shoots Charles a panicked look. “Your Grace,” he says to Mary, “I would never harm—”

“Don’t speak to me like that!” she snaps as she pulls away only to drop like a stone in front of the hearth. “I am a King’s daughter and I expect…oh, God, my head! Everything hurts…”

Charles freezes in place, staring in silent horror as Mary begins to roll around on the floor and the acrid stink of piss spreads throughout the room. She has the sweat, the pestilence is in the room, God help them—

A gentle hand on his shoulder shakes him out of his terror. “Might I assist Your Grace in helping the Queen to her rooms?” the acolyte asks.

His mouth is dry as parchment but he somehow forces himself to nod.

With difficulty (for Mary is now shivering so badly they can hardly hold onto her) the two men carry her down the corridor to her bedchamber, where a trio of shocked and alarmed attendants take over. “Your Grace must not put yourself at further risk; we’ll send word if her condition changes,” the white-faced chamberer tells him before shutting the door in his face.

The acolyte – John Rogers, Charles suddenly remembers – gently leads him back to the solar and asks him to sit by the newly kindled fire “for the sake of Your Grace’s health”, as he puts it, but although the heat might serve to draw away the pestilence it does nothing to soothe his conscience; his wife is fighting for her life only because he couldn’t wait a day or two longer for his letters, and no amount of prayer will change that.

He glances around but the priest seems to have disappeared. “Where is Dr. Russell, Tom?” he asks the groom standing by the door.

The boy swallows convulsively. “I – I don’t rightly know, Your Grace; he ran off with his tail between his legs just after you took the Queen to her rooms.”

“He might have gone to change his robes,” Rogers says. “There was a odour…”

But at that he demurs. “That was Mary, I’m afraid. Tom, run downstairs and find out where Russell went, and while you’re at it have food and wine sent up – and thank you for not running away yourself.”

The boy gives a shaky bow. “Yes, sir.”

Once they’re alone Charles invites the acolyte to warm himself by the fire. “I’d be remiss not to thank you as well, John,” he adds, “and not just for helping me with the Queen. Are you not afraid of the sweat?”

“My life is in the hands of the Lord, Your Grace, as are all men’s lives,” Rogers replies with a steady confidence that belies his tender years. “I only pray the maids didn’t suffer too badly.”

“That’s a courageous—” His eyes narrow. ”Maids? What maids?”

“The laundrymaids, Your Grace. Their bodies were discovered after dinner when one of the kitchen boys took the linens out to the washhouse. Mrs. Hull believes they died in the night.”

His heart skips a beat. “So the sweat didn’t arrive with Ned Hobson?”

“It appears not, Your Grace.”

He isn’t sure if he feels more like breaking down in tears or jumping for joy; of course it’s a relief that he isn’t to blame for the arrival of the sweat but at the same time… “I suppose it doesn’t really matter how the pestilence arrived, does it?” he asks. “It’s God’s will either way, but I only wish I knew why. Is the Lord trying to tell the King something, or is it us He is trying to reach?”

“Perhaps we have all wandered too far from what He asks of us,” Rogers suggests. “Your Grace doubtless sees much wickedness at court but I wonder if you realize how deep the rot extends. Even at Cambridge there was so much deceit and corruption one could hardly know who to trust.” He frowns. “At first I thought it the fault of my college’s patron…” and he flushes.

Wolsey, he must mean. “But now?” he prompts.

“But now I fear the corruption begins at the root, perhaps even in the soil. One cannot blame the bell for the errors of the ringer.”

Charles can’t disagree with that.

He sends Rogers down to the chapel to pray for the dead and drops back into his chair, intent on remaining as close to his wife as possible while her life is in God’s hands. He might not be the best husband in England (as the mistress he keeps at Lambeth could surely testify) but he does love Mary – loves her more than he realized even that morning – and as he lowers his head to say a prayer for her safety he feels his heart hardening against all those who brought this pestilence to England and to their home.

The shadows have grown long by the time Jenkins arrives with the welcome news that not a single case of sweat has been reported among the tenants or at any of the smaller manor houses surrounding Westhorpe. “Once again God stalks the highborn and their servants,” Charles says to him, pushing away his untouched supper. “Whom the lesson is for, though, I can’t say. The Boleyn girl’s been stricken but so was Will Compton, may he rest in peace.”

“God’s ways are often inscrutable,” the priest admits. “If his intent is to show the King he is on the wrong path, why threaten his beloved sister? Why take away his close friend?” His lips thin as he glances at the bedchamber door. “I understand from the servants that Dr. Russell departed Westhorpe with some haste. Did he by any chance anoint Her Grace before he fled?”

Charles shakes his head. “We received the Lord but Russell fled the moment Mary fell ill. I can’t say I acted with any great courage either; if young Rogers hadn’t snapped me out of it I might have been at his heels.”

“Your Grace should not confuse momentary panic with outright cowardice; as your confessor I advise you not to give it another thought. That said, I should rectify Russell’s omission immediately.” He pauses. “Has Your Grace sent word to the King?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and heaves a sigh; he knew there was something he’d forgotten. “Harry would kill me if I didn’t; thank you.”

The letter written and sent off with a groom doubtless relieved to be sent away from a plague house, he tries to pray again but memories of his wife – his lovely, gracious wife – instead flood his mind.

Mary laughing at Eltham, her joy so infectious even dour old King Henry can’t help but laugh along with her.

Mary peering up shyly from under lowered lashes during the announcement of her betrothal to Carlos of Castile.

Mary blushing as she and Charles take a turn around her mother’s rose garden at Greenwich.

Mary weeping and pleading with Harry, begging on her knees not to be sent to France.

Mary, dignified and remote on her throne beside King Louis at the palace of Tournelles.

Mary in French white widow’s weeds, tears streaming down her face as she tells Charles of King Francis’s visit.

Mary at his side, beaming as the kindly Archbishop of Paris pronounces them man and wife.

Mary cradling their son in her arms—

“Your Grace?”

“She doesn’t deserve this, Father,” he says to Jenkins through his tears. “You know the extent of my sins; you hear of them every day. Why her and not me?”

“I cannot answer that, my son. I can tell you that the physician, Dr. Jones, is with Her Grace right now and is cautiously optimistic, although he makes no promises.”

“How can he? It isn’t his fault Mary is – is…” but his voice fails him and he has to down another goblet of wine before he can continue. “Did I ever tell you why Harry let us wed?”

He’s so used to Charles’s wandering mind that he doesn’t even blink at the change of topic, saying only, “Do Your Graces’ marks not match?”

“They do, and if Mary hadn’t been born a princess that might have been the primary concern, but in our case matters were more…complicated, I’d guess you’d say,” he replies. “When a French king dies his widow is usually kept in seclusion for two months in the company of nuns and female servants to ensure any child she bears is her husband’s; the day after Louis’s death Mary was escorted to the Hôtel Cluny by the Duchess of Angoulême. Three weeks after the doors closed behind her King Francis advised her that she was to remain in seclusion until either he was in the position to wed her himself or she ‘found her soulmate amongst the nuns’ – in other words, until she took the veil. Luckily for us Mary still had a few English ladies in her household and one managed to get word out to the ambassador in residence. Harry ranted and raged when he heard the news, even asked God to strike Francis down where he stood—”

Jenkins chuckles.

“—but he was on the point of declaring war when I showed him the ‘Tudor’ on my wrist and suggested he send me to her. Fortunately Francis likes to think of himself as a chivalrous man of his word; he professed himself so amused at my having insinuated myself into Cluny ‘amongst the nuns’ that he sent the Archbishop of Paris to celebrate our wedding.”

“A happy day for both yourself and Her Grace,” he says. “Even so, King Henry must have been surprised to discover you were his sister’s match.”

At that he smiles. “More shocked than surprised,” he says. “When I showed him my mark he doubled over like he’d been punched in the gut and kept repeating ‘why didn’t you tell me, Charles; why didn’t you say something?’ over and over again. He ordered me to France as soon as Wolsey and I were able to calm him down. And that,” he adds, his face falling as the sound of a distant church bell echoes through the open window, “is why we were married in France. You were still at Magdalene College; what did you hear about it there?”

“Only that it was thought Your Graces were fortunate not to have been sent to the Tower, but of course we were not made privy to the pertinent details.” He pauses, leaning forward in his chair. “You mentioned that an English lady got word out to His Majesty’s ambassador. It wasn’t…it wasn’t Anne Boleyn, was it? If I recall, her father was the ambassador even then.”

“It was Mary, her elder sister,” he sighs, “and therein lies another tale. Mary Boleyn – Lady Carey, as she is now – was my Mary’s chamberer at the time. She was the most loyal and kind-hearted servant any lady could have asked for; brave, too, for she spirited Mary’s letter out to Sir Thomas behind the guards’ backs and never once complained at the penalty she paid for it.” The corners of his mouth turn down. “I can never prove it but I believe Anne was the one who told Francis who had ‘betrayed’ him. Certainly Mary paid the price for her courage soon enough.”

Jenkins opens his mouth to speak but his cheeks redden in obvious understanding. “The Great Prostitute.”

“Aye, and made so because although Francis couldn’t punish us for thwarting his intentions toward my wife, he could punish the girl who’d made it possible. He took her by main force, intimidated her into laying with his lords…if there had been any way to bring her with us we would have but Francis wouldn’t let her leave.”

“And yet King Henry has also…”

That truth Charles isn’t ready to discuss yet. He might not be the best of husbands but he can’t imagine using his power as a duke to intimidate any woman into his bed illicitly, let alone a girl as scared and damaged as Mary Boleyn was upon her return to England. And yet Harry is his closest friend and his monarch as well: what right does he have to criticize a king?

A noise from the next room interrupts his thoughts, but before he can rise her chamberer sticks her head through the doorway. “It’s the Queen!” she cries, beckoning to him. “Come, Your Grace: come quickly!”

Mary is writhing in bed and sweat is pouring off her body; Charles wrinkles his nose at the mingled stinks of piss, shit, and blood and kneels by her side of as Dr. Jones does his best to dry her sopping brow from the other side of the bed. He doesn’t need to be told what’s happening, doesn’t need the exhausted doctor, the chanting priest, or Mary’s anguished ladies to confirm the evidence of his eyes; he takes her flailing hand and holds it tight, heedless of any danger he might be putting himself into. This is his wife, his soulmate; he cannot, he will not let her pass into the Lord’s arms alone.

For a brief moment she senses his presence; her fingers tremble and her head jerks to the right, her eyes searching his face as she heaves breath after shaky, convulsive breath. “Hal…the girls…”

“They’re fine,” he assures her, although he has no idea if he’s telling the truth. “I’ll keep them safe and…and so will you after you recover—”

But as he says the bitter awful lie Mary’s eyes roll up into her head and she begins to shake again, the sweat dribbling off her in rivulets. “Jesus, I – I…” and she is gone.

Mary, his soulmate, the mother of his only son, the only woman he has ever truly loved, is dead – and somewhere in his chest his heart turns to stone. She will pay for this, he thinks savagely; if I have to spend the rest of my life searching for a way, the Boleyn bitch will pay for this.

Chapter Text

Lorenzo Campeggio sends up a silent prayer of thanks as the cliffs of Dover emerge from the thick mist shrouding the English Channel. It’s been five weeks since the San Bonaventura pushed off from Ostia, five weeks of high seas, punishing storms, and winds so powerful they could have smashed a city to rubble even without the help of Emperor Charles’s German mercenaries—

—and the rage, the anguish, the terror of the Sack of Rome all come rushing back, as real and as vivid as the very first day.

He takes a deep breath and forces himself to count. Uno, due, tre: the simple, mindless repetition of number after number banishes the horrors of two years past more effectively than even the most fervent prayers. Why this is he doesn’t know, but when he thinks of what they did to his palace in the Borgo, his servants, his dogs – the poor beasts, strung up—

—uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque—

A gentle touch brings him back to the present. “Father?”

“Don’t mind me, Sandro,” he says, covering his eldest son’s hand with his own. “I’m just mired in the past again. I should be praying for wisdom instead; God knows I’ll need it.”

And that, he reflects, is nothing more than the truth.

If he has one regret in life either as a man or as a Cardinal of the Church, it is that he didn’t depart for England the moment King Henry’s petition to annul his marriage to Queen Katherine first crossed his desk two years ago. Had he boarded a ship that week he would have been long gone by the time the Emperor’s mercenaries breached the city walls, long before they tore apart his home and despoiled a lifetime of memories. Pride, that most insidious of sins, had tempted him into ordering new vestments for himself, new livery for his servants, and even a fresh coat of paint for the papal flagship. But while the seamstresses sewed and the sailors painted the Landsknechts struck: fifty servants killed, ten maids ruined, his home reduced to ashes, the very stones of his late wife’s rosary ripped from their chain – and all because he couldn’t bear to stand before the King of England in a two-year-old cassock.

Now he must do so in a threadbare four-year-old cassock and he is under no illusion that Henry will thank him for it. He and Queen Katherine have waited two long years for this, and as much as Lorenzo would like to pretend—

Sandro’s voice comes low in his ear. “None of it was your fault, sir.”

He huffs. “Son, we both know otherwise. If I’d only had the sense to leave before…” and he waves a hand.

But he isn’t about to let that go unchallenged. “Are you now a soothsayer, sir?” he asks. “A pagan come down from the Apennines to proclaim the downfall of Christ and relight the sacred flame of Vesta? No, sir; you must accept that you were powerless to predict or prevent the Sack. You know this in your heart, and what’s more King Henry knows it too; he wrote as much in his letter. He doesn’t blame you for remaining in Rome during the Occupation, and he certainly doesn’t hold you responsible for the pestilence that kept us on the continent last year. If he did, would he not have sent for the Archbishop of St. Andrews instead? Monseigneur Beaton speaks English…of a sort.”

That forces a laugh out of him. “I’m afraid his ‘English’ is little more than Scots drowned in aqua vitae. How’s Gianni?”

“Still below decks worrying his medallions and praying for death. He smells like it already.”

He sighs; if only the stink in his own nose arose entirely from his unwashed clothing.

There is something deeply unclean, he thinks, about the prospect of tearing apart a marriage of twenty years’ standing. Popes do it all the time – it is, after all, their duty in most instances – but no pope would dare risk schism by ruling on a dispute, marital or otherwise, involving the soulmark; only cardinals and metropolitan archbishops are authorized to do so, and given the situation in England the responsibility has fallen upon his shoulders as Cardinal-Protector of the realm. He has no co-judicial vicar, and there can be no retrial, no review, and (crucially) no appeal; his word for better or worse will be final, and might God bestow upon him the wisdom to reach as fair a verdict as possible.

It’s the ‘as possible’ that has him worried.

Their ship is met at the dock by Sir Edward Guildford, Warden of the Cinque Ports, who takes one look at the weary travellers straggling down the gangplank and folds away his speech; within an hour Lorenzo is perched on an wobbly chair in a draughty bedchamber on the third floor of the Castle and is working his way through the laughably named ‘evening collation’: a bowl of tepid, day-old pease porridge. “All the comforts of home,” he mutters.

“And all the warmth of Mount Soratte,” his valet Rinaldo adds as he billows a blessedly clean linen sheet over the bed in the corner of the room. “Father Greene has offered Your Eminence private use of St. Thomas Becket’s Chapel tomorrow, far from the prying eyes of the Castle residents. He seems to be under the impression that Your Eminence’s trunks have yet to be unloaded.”

“Do you blame him? The last time we passed through Dover we had over two hundred – which reminds me: we’ll have to make the acquaintance of an ecclesiastical tailor once we reach court, unless Wolsey is in attendance.”

Rinaldo’s snort tells Lorenzo exactly what he thinks of that possibility.

He arises the next morning reasonably refreshed; once he’s celebrated Mass in St. Thomas’s he and Sandro return to their rooms to find Gianni glaring at a particularly nasty triumph of Lenten gastronomy. “Greasy stockfish and some kind of polenta,” he grumbles, pouting up at them. “I’d rather be back at university; at least then I’d recognize what I was eating.”

Sandro rolls his eyes. “Just be glad you weren’t with us in Rome after the Landsknechts attacked. I’d take boiled oats and salt cod any day over beans and half-rotten colewort.”

He’s about to interrupt the impending skirmish when one of the castle servants arrives with a small collection of letters Sir Edward has been holding for him. The first, from the King’s senior secretary Dr. Knight, contains little more than the usual greetings and a copy of the court’s itinerary for the quarter ending Lady Day, while the second, from Lord Chancellor Fitzwilliam, carries their safe conducts (for what good they’ll do, he thinks sourly). The last, however, is from an Abbot Essex of St. Augustine’s Canterbury, a man utterly unknown to him; once he’s had his fill of salt fish and saltier gruel he breaks open the seal and smooths out the rough paper in front of him.

Your Eminence, brother in Christ, it begins,

I pray Your Eminence will forgive my forwardness in directing this letter to your august attention, but I write not on my own behalf but on that of His Grace William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, whom I have been informed is known to you. His Grace’s health, long precarious, has recently taken a marked turn for the worse; to that effect, he has been brought here to St. Augustine’s so that he may be cared for privately and securely.

I write because His Grace has just last week received a letter informing him that he is to be summoned as witness to the trial over which Your Eminence is to preside this spring. The sender, Sir Thomas More on behalf of the Queen, wishes the Archbishop to testify regarding ‘certain events which occurred before His Majesty’s accession’.

Your Eminence, His Grace’s immense age has resulted in a softening of the brain which in turn has rendered him utterly unfit to testify. Although he is intermittently aware of his own identity and does at times recall events of the distant past, he cannot be commanded to speak of specific incidents, nor does he appear to always understand what is said to him. Given his propensity to wander I also think it unsafe to remove him from the abbey grounds. I have advised Sir Thomas that His Grace is in no wise capable of responding to a summons, but the only reply I have received to date has been a pointed note demanding we produce him forthwith.

I most willingly extend the hospitality of our abbey to Your Eminence should you wish to break your journey at Canterbury and investigate the matter in person.

Asking Your Eminence’s blessing I am, yours respectfully in Christ,

John Essex

He refolds the letter, sighing in frustration as he kicks out his feet in front of him. Poor Warham, and poor Thomas More! Not even at the lowest level of the ecclesiastical courts is a senile man considered fit to testify, but he must be a vital witness for More to be that dogged in his attempts to secure his testimony. It isn’t the trial that concerns him at the moment, though, but the archbishop’s health; since the re-establishment of the papal messenger service last autumn not a single letter has arrived at Rome from either Warham or Wolsey, and Clement has tasked Lorenzo with discovering why. “Have you heard anything about the state of the roads to Greenwich?” he asks Sandro, who already speaks enough English to get by.

“Sir Edward said last night that the roads were hard and dry all the way from Rochester to Dover.”

“Then we’ll leave tomorrow at dawn, dine at St. Augustine’s Canterbury, and break our journey tomorrow night at Faversham Abbey and either Cobham House or Dartford Priory the next, depending on how ambitious we prove. Send Nico up the road today with letters advising of our plans.”

The ocean mist is just beginning to colour over the southeastern horizon as Lorenzo and his household assemble in the courtyard the next morning. There are twenty of them including the six yeoman warders supplied by the King, a group more than large enough to dissuade any highwaymen lurking in the shadows but nothing compared to his triumph of four years past. “The last time we were here I had a train of one hundred servants, thirty soldiers, and a bishop carrying the cross before me all the way to London,” he says to Rinaldo as they wait for the guards to mount. “Do you remember the rain?”

“Not with undiluted pleasure, Eminence, as unlike yourself I was forced to ride in it,” he replies with a shudder, lowering his voice. “Shall I keep close to the Englishmen?”

He shakes his head. “They might not know you understand the language but they know Sandro and I do, and I wouldn’t put it past King Henry to send a man who can understand Italian to guard me. Tell the boys not to say anything they wouldn’t say in front of their own mothers.”

“That doesn’t exclude much,” he mutters.

Luckily the road is as dry and smooth as was promised and they make excellent time to Canterbury, where Abbot Essex is waiting for them at the Great Gate to St. Augustine’s. “Your – Your Eminence is most welcome, most welcome indeed!” he gushes, drops of sweat breaking out on his pate as he rises from his obeisance. “And what – what a glorious morning to be on the road!”

“We couldn’t have asked for better weather, Father Abbot,” Lorenzo replies as he hands the reins to a lay brother. “I see you’ve trained apricots against the inner wall; how are they producing?”

They chat about the trees (four years old and not yet in fruit, but the brothers hold hopes for this year) and the kitchen garden (terrible winter for chervil, what with all the slugs) on their way to the abbot’s dining hall; by the time he is ready to move on to more important matters Essex is over his jitters and is as amiable as he would be with his ordinary. “I must once again apologize for my boldness in inviting Your Eminence to break your journey with us,” he says after Lorenzo has pronounced the Ante Prandium and dinner has been served. “It was most forward of me, I know.”

“No, you were very right to bring His Grace’s plight to my attention. I grieve to hear of his affliction and I am certain the Holy Father will share in that sentiment. Is he settling into his new home?”

“It’s as if he’s never known another. Brother David, our infirmarar, has handled many such cases, but it’s still difficult to see such a – commanding man, shall we say, reduced to little more than a child.” Essex pauses, his gaze pensive. “I hope I’m not asking too much by suggesting Your Eminence bear witness to his condition. The second letter we received was…unpleasant. The writer had the effrontery to imply that Sir Thomas would suppress the abbey if I failed to comply.”

His mouth drops open. “But no layman has that power, not even the King. The only man who could is Archbishop Warham himself until the Holy Father appoints a coadjutor, and as far as I know he hasn’t been advised of the need.”

“I can’t explain the threat either, Eminence. Even Cardinal Wolsey suppressed only the more decayed institutions in his province, and we are a living, vibrant community.”

“As I can well see,” he murmurs, his curiosity getting the better of him now that the man has been mentioned. “I will certainly look in on the Archbishop before we leave this afternoon – but if I could ask you about Wolsey…”

Essex leans back in his chair and lets out a sigh. “I had wondered if Your Eminence would wish to address the topic. The matter has been handled with much secrecy and very little common sense, and with the Holy Father’s time taken up with the rebuilding of Rome—”

Lorenzo bites the inside of his lip.

“—and his other sacred duties, one wonders if he has the time or energy to dedicate to the Cardinal’s plight.”

“I can assure you that he is indeed quite concerned, so much so that he’s asked me to make every enquiry necessary up to and including petitioning the King,” he replies, holding back a smile at the abbot’s hastily disguised shock. “Both His Holiness and I have sent numerous letters to His Eminence but we’ve received nothing back, not even from the Dean of York Minster. Has Wolsey committed an offence against the King’s Majesty, or is his own health failing?”

“He’s well as far as I am aware, but…” He pauses. “Your Eminence doubtless remembers receiving His Majesty’s Petition for Annulment in 1527; that it was sent to Rome in the spring of that year is widely known. What Your Eminence might not have been told, however, is that the Cardinal was instructed to convey it to you a full year earlier, in the spring of 1526.”

He stares at Essex, but before he says something utterly inane like ‘One year!’ he pulls himself together and contents himself with, “Does anyone know why? Did he forget, or did he send the original with an unreliable messenger?”

“I only wish I knew,” he replies, holding out his hands. “Unfortunately I am not well-versed with the goings-on of the Privy Council or of the Cardinal’s household; I only know the petition was delayed because the Dean of Arches mentioned it when he accompanied His Grace to St. Augustine’s.”

He returns to his meal as he digests the news. He cannot believe a man as competent as Thomas Wolsey would fail to ensure the delivery of what was likely the most important document of his political career. The Wolsey he knew would have sent the petition by land, by sea, and by carrier pigeon if that is what it would take to rid the court of the Spanish queen he so disliked. So why did the petition not arrive in Rome until the spring of 1527, and why didn’t anyone notice until last November?

He’s no closer to an answer to either question by the time the abbot summons Brother David, who conveys him to the cottage that now serves as Warham’s home. “Your Eminence will understand if His Grace’s accommodations are not as luxurious as those at Lambeth Palace,” David says in a soft Welsh lilt. “The senile often prefer smaller spaces; less to lose themselves in, I suppose.”

“Father Abbot said His Grace was prone to wandering. He hasn’t tried to do so here, has he?”

“More than once, Eminence, which is why his cottage opens onto the infirmary garden; even if he weren’t constantly watched he’d have to broach six gates, two of which are kept constantly locked, before he could escape the monastery proper.” He suddenly lowers his voice for some reason. “His Grace was grievously agitated last night but he awoke this morning in better temper. I should warn you, though: he doesn’t always recognize visitors.”

But Warham’s ancient eyes light up the moment he catches sight of them. “Lorenzo, how good it is to see you!” he says, clasping his hand as Brother David sends away the lay brother watching him. “Please, take a seat. Have you come today all the way from Salisbury?”

Salisbury?! “I’ve come from Rome with my older sons, William. How are you today?”

“Never better, never better,” he assures him, but his brow suddenly creases. “You haven’t brought that Tom Wolsey with you, have you?”

“No, he’s in York at the moment.”

Warham nods. “Ah, yes; with King Richard. We all have our trials, I suppose.”

“That we do,” he murmurs, mentally crossing him off the witness list for good. “Is there anything I can do for you? Is there someone you’d like me to send for, or might I have some venison or perhaps that French cheese you enjoy sent to St. Augustine’s after Lent?”

“Lent – it’s, er, Lent? I – that would be kind, most kind. The most important thing – I need you to remember Charles, if you would. It’s very important.”

Given Brother David’s blushes (and, regrettably, his knowledge of Warham’s proclivities) he can guess who this Charles must be. “Shall I pray for him?” he asks, at a loss for what else to say.

“Oh, dear boy; of course you may! Mind you, we all do.”

He pastes on a smile and squeezes the old man’s hand, silently pleading with God to preserve himself and his loved ones from the same fate.

The weather holds through the afternoon, and although Lorenzo is as sore as he’s ever been by the time they reach Faversham Abbey he can’t help comparing his currently robust health to the hobbling, gout-plagued wreck he’d been the last time he stood on English soil. Whether the improvement has been the work of God’s grace or (as his physician suspects) the meagre diet forced upon him in the aftermath of the Sack he doesn’t know, but he isn’t about to waste the opportunity; after he and his sons attend Vespers and share the evening meal he sends his chamberlain for his papers and takes a seat in the office Abbot Sheppey has hastily surrendered.

The first document he pulls out of the leather portfolio Antonio brings him is the King’s petition for annulment, a document as long and complex – sixteen clauses, not including the preamble and signatures – as it is singular. No King of England has ever before attempted to annul a marriage based on disparity of soulmark; even Henry II, faced with a treasonous wife whose wrist scandalously bore the name of one of their sons, balked at such an extreme measure. But his descendant and namesake has taken the ultimate step in part because he has no son, and given English history even Lorenzo has to agree that annulment and remarriage to a fertile woman would be a better outcome than yet another destructive civil war. He only wishes the responsibility for what might happen didn’t rest entirely on his shoulders, but it does – and it is his duty to come to a fair and honest verdict.

Perhaps if he tells himself that often enough he’ll believe it. For a simple cardinal to be given so much power…

A knock comes at the door. “Enter.”

Gianni slips through the doorway, a slim parcel in his hand. “A messenger’s just arrived from Dr. Knight, sir, with the procedural manual you asked for.”

At last! “Did Nico bring it from Greenwich?”

“He hasn’t returned yet; this arrived via King’s Messenger. I’m also to tell you that Sandro’s taken to his bed with one of his sick headaches, and that Brother Cellarer has asked if you’d like some cider sent up.”

“Yes, please, and have him send up two goblets,” he says, seizing the opportunity to pick the brains of his brilliant middle son. “There are a few points regarding this matter that don’t sit well with me, and I’d appreciate another pair of eyes on it, if you don’t mind.”

The boy fairly glows with pride at having been asked; soon they are both seated with cups of hot spiced cider and are peering down at the King’s petition, which (ignoring the two-page preamble) reads as follows:

1. That pursuant to the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo, the ecclesiastical courts of the Kingdom of England have customarily held that the soulmark denotes an individual’s true soulmate as chosen by God on his or her sixteenth birthday, and that every man and woman possesses the natural right to marry his or her soulmate.
2. That pursuant to the teachings of St. Augustine and the English system of primogeniture, the ecclesiastical courts of the Kingdom of England have customarily held that a woman is incapable of validly consenting to marriage unless she is marrying her soulmate or, in the alternative, her soulmate is known to be dead.
3. That in November of 1501 Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of the late high and mighty King Henry VII, entered into a sacred bond of marriage with the Respondent, the Princess Katherine, daughter of King Ferdinand of Aragon and the late Queen Isabella of Castile.
4. That the Princess Katherine was granted her soulmark by God in December of 1501, during her marriage to the Prince Arthur.
5. That upon the death of the Prince Arthur at age fifteen, the aforesaid King Henry was convinced against his better judgment to betroth the Princess Katherine to the Petitioner herein, Henry, then Prince of Wales. Dispensations regarding affinity and consanguinity were accordingly obtained, the validity of which is not herein contested, and a treaty was signed between the aforesaid King Henry and King Ferdinand of Aragón and ratified by the Prince Henry on the day of his majority, namely 28 June 1507.
6. That the aforesaid King Henry on his deathbed counselled the Prince Henry not to marry the Princess Katherine.
7. That upon the accession of the Prince Henry as King in April 1509, he was approached by diverse prelates who advised him that repudiating the Princess Katherine might lead to a state of war between the Kingdom of England and the Spanish realms.
8. That the Princess Katherine swore an oath on 9 June 1509 averring that she and Prince Arthur had been soulmates and that she was therefore free to remarry according to the laws and customs of England. Said oath was witnessed by members of the Council including, among others, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.
9. That based on the aforesaid oath, a companionate marriage was entered into in June of 1509 between King Henry and the Princess Katherine, thereby Queen, during which Queen Katherine was not required to bear her soulmark to King Henry or the officiant.
10. That King Henry first bore witness to Queen Katherine’s soulmark in November of 1518, immediately after the stillbirth of their last child.
11. That the mark of Queen Katherine as witnessed was not the name of either of her husbands.
12. That when challenged, Queen Katherine claimed her mark was the name of her patron saint.
13. That upon witnessing Queen Katherine’s soulmark King Henry immediately abjured her bed.
14. That in December of 1525 King Henry discovered he is the soulmate of Mistress Anne Boleyn, daughter of the Viscount Rochford, and hereby invokes his natural right to marry her under English law.
15. That King Henry avers and affirms that his daughter with Queen Katherine, the Princess Mary, was conceived in good faith while he believed himself validly married to Queen Katherine, and that neither her legitimacy nor her position as heiress presumptive are in question.
16. That the marriage be examined and, if Queen Katherine’s consent to the marriage be deemed invalid, a declaration of nullity be entered.

     Signed Thomas Cromwell
     Signed Thomas Card. Ebor Thomas Cranmer DDiv.

“What do you think?” he asks once Gianni reaches the end. “Does anything stand out to you?”

“Three things, sir, the most obvious being that the petition makes it seem as if the wife’s mark is more important than the husband’s. Aren’t they supposed to match? Shouldn’t her name be on his wrist as well?”

“It should, of course,” he agrees, “but this is where St. Augustine’s teachings come up against the hard realities of English inheritance law. What would an Englishman expect his wife to do were she to meet her soulmate after they were married?”

“Commit adultery at the very least, possibly even—” and his eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Exactly. If he meets his soulmate after marriage the worst outcome would be a few bastards to support, but if she meets hers she could place a cuckoo in the family nest, perhaps even alienate her husband’s estate from his blood. But you mentioned three things; what are the other two?”

His eyes drop back to the petition. “I – I don’t want to accuse a monarch of committing fraud, sir,” he ventures uneasily, “but the King claims he didn’t see the Queen’s mark until they’d been married nine years, and the Queen apparently swore an oath that she and Prince Arthur were soulmates even though he died before his mark came in. How can either of those be true?”

He smiles. “The first is easy to explain, although I give you full marks for noticing it. Tell me: what makes this case unique?”

“That the parties are king and queen?”

“And as king and queen, would Henry and Katherine normally share a bed?”

“I…they wouldn’t?”

“Not like your mother and I, God rest her soul. When a King wishes to – to sire a prince, shall we say – he goes in solemn procession to the Queen’s apartments surrounded by heralds, gentlemen, guards, and officers of the household. They trumpet him to her door, wait outside while he does his duty, and escort him back in splendour. How much intimacy would such a couple share? They might not love or even much like each other; is it not plausible that they wouldn’t share their soulmarks?”

“I hadn’t thought of that…but what about the Queen’s oath? How could she swear that Arthur was her soulmate if he died before his mark came in?”

“That’s where I’m stuck as well,“ he admits with a sigh. “Queen Katherine is renowned for her honesty and piety, and given the political situation at the time I suspect King Henry would have married her even if she‘d refused to swear. So why did she do it?” He opens his portfolio again and draws out a second document. “Here’s her response to the petition. Let’s see if there’s anything in it that might help us.”

Gianni takes it and begins to read, Lorenzo following his progress over his shoulder.

1. That pursuant to the teachings of Isidore of Seville, the ecclesiastical courts of the Spanish kingdoms have customarily held that the mark (hereafter the ‘saint’s mark’) is an infallible sign of obedience and submission to the Holy and Universal Catholic Church conferred by the Holy Ghost upon sincere receipt of the sacrament of confirmation.
2. That the Respondent Queen Katherine was conferred her saint’s mark by God upon sincere receipt of the sacrament of confirmation at age seven.
3. That the Respondent Queen Katherine’s saint’s mark was made visibly manifest by God at age sixteen, nine years after it was granted.
4. That the Respondent Queen Katherine’s saint’s mark is not a ‘soulmark’ as defined by the ecclesiastical courts of England, and therefore does not relate to and cannot affect the validity of her marriage to King Henry.
5. That the Respondent Queen Katherine admits the facts related in paragraphs 3, 8-13, and 15, and those facts contained in paragraph 5 which do not touch upon the motives and/or judgment of the late King Henry.
6. That the Respondent Queen Katherine consciously, freely, and validly consented to her marriage with King Henry.
7. That the marriage be examined and, if the Respondent Queen Katherine’s consent to the marriage be deemed conscious, free, and valid, a declaration of nullity not be entered.

     Signed Thomas More
     Signed Íñigo Card. Burgos

“Thomas More?” Gianni gasps, turning to Lorenzo with a look of utter astonishment. “The writer of Utopia? He is the Queen’s proctor?”

He recognizes the gleam in his son’s eyes and prays for patience. “I am reliably advised – by Brother Erasmus, if you dare doubt me – that Sir Thomas More is one of England’s most learned and respected barristers. Why he is acting for the Queen in this matter and not the King I can’t say, but I understand he’s appeared before Archbishop Warham and Cardinal Wolsey more than a hundred times in marital cases.”

“And we all thought he was a philosopher at one of the universities,” he murmurs. “I can’t imagine a man of such moral clarity would represent a client he didn’t think was in the right. Something in the Queen’s case must have impelled him to act on her behalf.”

Probably the money, Lorenzo thinks, but he doesn’t dare say that aloud in the presence of his awe-struck son. “Be that as it may, Gianni, I can’t have you idolizing him. We must be entirely impartial in thought, word, and deed to the King and the Queen regardless of whom they have engaged as proctor or advocate; we cannot give anyone the impression that my judgment will be based on anything but the facts of the matter as I interpret them.” He nods at the petition. “Forget who wrote the response, son; tell me what it says about the Queen’s oath.”

He reapplies himself to the document, his fingers tapping a tattoo against the side of his cup. “They admit she swore the oath in the fifth paragraph, but if it couldn’t be true…I suppose she could have sincerely sworn to what she thought was true. If Prince Arthur told her she was his soulmate, she might have believed him.”

“He was the right age for the sweet nothings of youth, wasn’t he? Fifteen years old, with all the ardent chivalry of a man but none of the good judgment. I wonder, though, if she understood English well enough at the time to know precisely—”

The Compline bell interrupts them; with a shared sigh they leave the abbot’s office as they found it, Lorenzo returning his papers to the portfolio before blowing out the candles and shutting the door behind him.

He intends to spend Tuesday going over Dr. Knight’s procedural manual as they make their way northwestward on horseback, but when he unwraps the parcel he discovers he has been sent not just one but two slim manuscripts, the second being (of all things) the court protocol manual, the Liber Regalis. He’s at a loss to explain why at first – although he finds himself fascinated by the intricate descriptions of the arras and linens required for the Queen’s confinement chamber and the exact place the Archbishop should stand during an infant king’s coronation – but near the end he discovers a short section on royal soulmarks. The King’s, he discovers, is sacrosanct; not even at his wedding can he be forced to show it, not even to the officiant, and any attempt to view his mark in life (except in the case of a king who turns sixteen while on the throne) may be prosecuted as treason. Heirs, on the other hand, must submit their wrist to examination by the Archbishop of Canterbury or his coadjutor on or shortly after their sixteenth birthday; if a male heir bears a mark ‘inimical to Christian family life’, as the writer puts it, he must be removed from the line of succession and…and burnt at the stake.

He stares at the offending paragraph. To kill a boy because of a word on his wrist…what kind of king, what kind of man would consign a son to such a gruesome death over an accident of fate?

He is rereading the section, idly wondering how Edward II got away with it, when one of the boys spots a rider galloping toward them in a cloud of dust. “Sir, it’s Nico!”

And indeed it is, although he appears somewhat worse for wear; his clothes are ripped and torn and he’s picked up a few bruises, including a spectacularly florid black eye. “Where have you been, son?” Lorenzo asks as Nico bows awkwardly in the saddle. “I expected you would rejoin us last night.”

“I was, er, detained at Cobham, Your Eminence,” he says, his gaze planted firmly on the ground. “They had a good game going at the local tavern night before last; they called it ‘hazard’. I won three matches but then a fight broke out. I think someone accused me of cheating.”

He silently curses Cardinal Farnese for having foisted upon his embassy the most feckless bastard ‘nephew’ in Roman history. “But of course you don’t know, because you don’t speak English. Did they put you in the stocks?”

“I can run faster than that, Your Eminence. Luckily I’d left the horse at Cobham House—” and he turns beet red. “It’s closed up for the winter; we can’t stop there. I – I should have said that first.”

“At least we know now,” he sighs, pointing his horse eastward and beckoning for his company to follow.

They arrive at Dartford Priory well after sunset just as a light drizzle begins to fall, but before Antonio has a chance to ring the bell he’s faced with a minor mutiny as the younger boys categorically refuse to so much as approach the gates. “What is the problem, gentlemen?” Lorenzo asks as he dismounts and faces a sea of sulky, stubborn faces. “Have you all gone mad?”

“No, Eminence, but we will if we let them sink their claws into us!” Andrea cries.

“They have devil’s marks on their wrists!” Paolo adds. “Succubi, Eminence! They’ll bewitch us all!”

Somewhere behind him one of his sons lets out a strangled cough.

He shoots a warning glance over his shoulder before turning back to the recalcitrant pages. “Succubi, Paolo? Bewitchment? In a community of cloistered Dominican nuns? Wherever did you boys pick up this nonsense?”

“It was the servants at Dover, Eminence,” Antonio cuts in apologetically. “They said English nuns all bear the devil’s mark and show their wrists to anyone who comes near. I tried to convince them otherwise, but…” and he shrugs.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, unsure whether it would be more ill-advised to whip the boys into submission or to tell them the unvarnished truth about the so-called ‘devil’s mark’. “I can’t deny it would be convenient if they continued to Greenwich tonight to secure our rooms,” he finally says to Antonio. “Would you be willing to ride on with them if I can arrange for fresh horses? I know it’s late…”

“It would be no trouble, Eminence,” he replies a little too quickly, but before Lorenzo can do more than send him a look Sister Chamberer is at the gate.

Fortunately the only thing remotely devilish about the sisters of Dartford is their dubious turnip pottage, although whether it owes its less savoury qualities to the nuns’ ostentatious frugality or to their resentment at having to house men in the visitors’ hall he refuses to guess. It’s perhaps a relief that only eight of his company – himself and his sons, his confessor, two of his guards, the feckless Nico, and Rinaldo – have chosen to break their journey here; at least the rest have a chance at a decent meal.

The rain picks up just before dawn, keeping them under the eaves (and the withering glare of Mother Elizabeth) until shortly after Sext; by the time they reach the south gate of Greenwich it’s so late that the sentry needs a good quarter-hour to scare up a lordling of sufficient rank to greet a cardinal. When said lordling arrives, however, he proves to be none other than Sir Nicholas Carew, one of the oilier gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber and, if rumours speak true, His Majesty’s primary panderer. “Your Eminence, welcome to the Palace of Placentia!” he oozes, his fur-trimmed black silk simarre rustling as he rises from a deep bow. “The King has asked me to convey to you his most sincere apologies that no one was waiting to receive you; he assumed that given last night’s weather your party would break your journey for the night on the London road.”

“Perhaps we should have,” Lorenzo replies, “but the inn at Welling was…well, we decided to push on.”

He chuckles. ”I know the place; a wise decision. Your servants arrived this morning just before dinner and are awaiting your arrival upstairs. If Your Eminence and Your Excellencies would be so kind as to follow me.”

Carew silently leads them down a long covered portico toward the looming shadow of the Church of the Observant Friars behind a pair of torch-bearing grooms, leaving Lorenzo to wonder why a man known across Europe as a strutting peacock is dressed so sombrely. “I had thought the court out of mourning for the French Queen,” he says gently. “Has there been another court death, or is there someone in your own family whose soul I might pray for?”

He turns to Lorenzo in surprise. “That is a kind offer, Eminence, but no: we mourn my Lord Lincoln, the only son of the French Queen and the Duke of Suffolk. He died in November, shortly after the King wrote to you. His Majesty has spoken of arranging a new companionate marriage for the Duke but naturally nothing can happen on that front until after Easter. His Grace does have two young daughters by the Queen but…” and he shrugs. “None of his marriages have resulted in a surviving son, and what man wishes to go to God leaving naught but daughters to inherit?”

What man indeed, Lorenzo thinks.

Their rooms are located on the first floor just to the east of the King’s Apartments and are so aggressively luxurious that he finds himself shocked by the excess. Plush Turkey carpets, silk tapestries seemingly fresh off the loom, thick velvet draperies, Florentine furniture, beeswax candles by the dozen: not even at the height of his wealth did he live in such splendour. And the luxury doesn’t stop in the reception room, either, as what Sir Nicholas calls a ‘light repast’ is being set out in an equally magnificent private dining hall. “This is the largest meal I’ve seen in two years,” Sandro says after Carew has taken his leave of them. “We’re going to have to confess this.”

“Let’s instead pray the Ante Coenam in full,” Lorenzo suggests. “Lent or not, after yesterday God won’t look askance at us for enjoying His bounty as long as we give Him proper thanks.”

And thanks are well deserved; there’s turbot swimming in almond sauce, sole dressed with Seville oranges and raisins, stewed quinces in honey, whisper-soft manchet bread hot from the oven, a sallet of tender greens in fragrant oil, even French wine to wash it all down with. It’s a far cry from the turnip pottage that burned their bellies last night, further still from the stale beans and sewage-bloated river fish he and Sandro have subsisted on for the past two years. “I’d wondered at first if these were the Princess Mary’s apartments,” Gianni says as he holds out his goblet to be refilled, “but she wouldn’t have a dining hall, would she?”

“Not in her father’s palace, no,” he replies, sending away the servants with a nod. “But look around you: the previous occupant has left his mark everywhere.”

Sandro glances up at the devices carved into the ceiling, his eyes wide as saucers. “That’s a cardinal’s coat of arms, surely – Wolsey? Cardinal Wolsey?”

“The very same,” he says. “He carries his dignity well; too well, I fear, for the tastes of the English lords. This level of extravagance on the part of a butcher’s son must have seemed like a direct challenge to their own power. I’m only surprised one of them hasn’t already slipped a dagger between His Eminence’s ribs.”

“They can’t be too eager to create a new Thomas Becket,” Sandro says. “Certainly the King wouldn’t want his soul stained by the unnatural death of a cardinal.”

He gives his son a dry look. “We can only hope.”

By unspoken agreement they retire immediately after praying the In Fine; Lorenzo, unsurprised by now to find his bedchamber larger and more sumptuous than the Holy Father’s, sighs in relief as he spies the large, soft bed – and then he sees it: an oaken tub lined with soft cambric set in front of a roaring fire, tendrils of steam escaping the surface of a vast quantity of blessedly hot water.

Before he can utter a word of protest Rinaldo fixes him with a stare. “It is medicinal, Your Eminence. Get in.”

“But – how much water did the boys have to carry up…”

“It was a desperate struggle, as I was forced to open not one but two taps,” he remarks. “I am reliably advised that there is also hot and cold running water at Hampton Court Palace.”

“But—”

“As Your Eminence’s valet, is it not my duty to ensure you present yourself with all the splendour and gravity of a Prince of the Church, notwithstanding the limitations of your current wardrobe?”

“Um—”

“And is it not my duty to ensure Your Eminence does not arrive at Mass or, God forbid, in front of the King hunched over and groaning in pain? Dr. Agostini himself laid upon me the burden of safeguarding Your Eminence’s health while he remained in Rome with the Holy Father, and he would not thank me for allowing you to suffer needlessly. Step into the bath, please.”

He huffs in frustration. “Very well.”

And the steaming, fragrant water is indeed a balm to his sore joints and muscles; his eyes drop shut of their own volition as the heat begins to work away aches and pains he scarcely knew he had. “Have you heard if Wolsey left any vestments behind?” he asks after a few minutes.

“He did, Eminence, and a large quantity of scarlet cloth.” He pauses, considering his next words. “From what I overheard in the servants’ hall tonight, the Imperial ambassador Cardinal de Mendoza is to return to Spain next week. His replacement, a Savoyard by the name of Eustache Chapuys, has just arrived from Barcelona and is to be formally received once court mourning has been lifted. He is also to replace His Eminence as the Queen’s advocate.”

He cracks open an eye; why is Don Íñigo leaving just as his client’s case is to go to trial? “Then I’ll have to take my leave of Mendoza. If you hear anything about this Chapuys…”

Rinaldo smirks. “Your Eminence will as usual be the first to know.”

He doesn’t bother to reply; he merely sends up a prayer of thanks to God for having sent him a half-English valet.

Sunday he gives to the Lord as is right and proper, but on Monday he tours his new apartments – twelve rooms in total, not including the chapel and the kitchens on the second floor – and takes possession of Wolsey’s vast private office located off the workroom. It’s a good thirty feet long, with huge windows overlooking Queen Elizabeth’s rose gardens that allow light to flood the room and an oaken desk so broad it could substitute as a dining table for ten. Wolsey’s papers and personal effects have been removed and the room is as clean and tidy as a new pin but an unexpected document awaits him on the desk. “Sandro, Gianni,” he calls through the doorway, “if I could have your attention for a moment?”

They poke their heads into the room, Sandro carrying a battered portfolio. “Sir?”

“I’ve received a motion from – no, it’s signed by this Chapuys, the new Imperial ambassador.” He looks up. “I assume we haven’t been officially notified of his appointment as the Queen’s advocate?”

”No, sir,” Sandro replies. “What’s he asking for?”

“Dismissal with prejudice, of all things.” He pauses. “If I recall, the English law courts are closed over Lent. Might Sir Thomas More be at Greenwich?”

“I could find out,” Gianni volunteers, a little too eagerly.

“If he is, extend an invitation for whatever time he might be free, and ask him to bring Chapuys. If not, have Chapuys attend on me at his earliest convenience – as in immediately. Whatever you do, though, don’t fawn over Sir Thomas; remember what I told you earlier.”

He hangs his head. “Yes, sir.”

Lorenzo gestures for Sandro to take a seat once the door swings shut. “I hope I’m not being too harsh on this Chapuys, but his motion is utterly ludicrous. He’s asked that the King’s petition be dismissed and the marriage declared ‘definitively true’, which is beyond my authority even if he had standing to ask. Has anything else come in?”

“Just this,” he replies, drawing a letter out of his portfolio and handing it to him. “From Bishop Fisher.”

He breaks the seal and unfolds the paper. “The good bishop is well,” he relates, “but has been called upon to root out a nest of heretics at Cambridge University. Most of the miscreants have fled to the Low Countries but he’s on the trail of one boy who’s gone to ground in town. He warns me against the machinations of – of Lord Rochford, if you can warrant it.”

“Thomas Boleyn? The most amiable man in England?”

“The most amiable, yes, although not one without ambition, and even the best man has his limits. Fisher also hastens to assure me that although Mistress Anne is as sincere a reformer as Brother Erasmus, she loves the Mass and the seven sacraments and gives alms above and beyond her station.”

“Which doubtless makes her a more tolerable choice for royal consort than a Lutheran princess. Will His Excellency be at Blackfriars for the trial?”

“He doesn’t anticipate being called as witness, no, but he’s offered to serve in any capacity I wish. I should go over that procedural manual again and find a job for him; in the meanwhile I’d like you to search through what’s left of Wolsey’s library for anything that might be of use. I’m primarily looking for records of past trials, although I might have to send you to Lambeth for those, but I’m also interested in anything that touches upon English and Spanish customs surrounding the mark.”

Once he’s alone again he rescues the manual from the corner of his desk and takes it to one of the window seats, sighing in relief as he sinks into the luxuriously thick cushions. Despite having spent nearly his entire life in sun-drenched Italy he’s never had a room so well-suited for reading, but then again Wolsey was (and doubtless still is) a devoted lover of both books and light. For such a dedicated sybarite to find himself immured in gloomy, rainy Yorkshire…

With a sad shake of his head he returns to his book, only looking up when Gianni returns with the unwelcome news that Sir Thomas More and Dr. Chapuys are sequestered with the Privy Council and are not expected to be free until after the evening collation. “Master Cromwell has just arrived, though, and is begging an audience.”

“Cromwell? Is he alone?”

“He is, although – sir, he addressed me in Italian.”

He rises wearily to his feet. “Don’t be surprised, son; he was Wolsey’s agent in Rome for a time, although our paths never crossed. Does he look like a scholar?”

His mouth opens, then closes again. “Not particularly.”

And that, he thinks as the man is ushered in, might be an understatement for the ages. Tall, burly, with a sharp nose and shoulders broad enough to stop a bull, Thomas Cromwell seems better suited to the smithy than the bar, and yet there is something in the carriage of his massive head and the keen glint of his green eyes that carries a promise of ruthless brilliance.

He would not wish to find himself this man’s opponent, in a court of law or otherwise.

“I pray Your Eminence forgives my request of an audience before the King is in a position to receive you,” Cromwell begins in a gravelly Italian after kissing Lorenzo’s ring, “but I have come not primarily as His Majesty’s proctor; if I had I would have brought Dr. Cranmer with me, and he remains at Cambridge with his scholars. I am here as the King’s under-secretary, and as such I am here to informally welcome Your Eminence to court.”

He ignores the shiver Cromwell’s voice sends up his spine and pastes on a polite smile. “I thank you but there is no need to apologize, for I would happily meet with you in either capacity. Has the King chosen a date for my presentation?”

“His Majesty would be pleased to receive Your Eminence and Their Excellencies this Saturday at nine, if that is acceptable. You may be aware that the court is currently in mourning—”

“For Lord Lincoln, yes,” he says as he makes a note of the time. “How old was he?”

“—and then…” He pauses, his brow furrowing. “How – how old, Eminence?”

“I merely wished to know whether His Lordship had reached the age of reason. If so, I would like to offer masses for the repose of his soul. If he was younger, he is already in Heaven and needs no help from me.”

“I believe he was only five, Eminence, but I will confirm that. I – forgive my surprise, but I was led to believe that Princes of the Church did not sing masses for the dead.”

“Nor do we grow beards,” he deadpans, gesturing to his scraggly chin. “The Sack of Rome changed everything, at least for me. I’ve chosen to grow out my beard in memory, and in addition I offer one Mass a day for the repose of the souls of the dead and, more recently, for those who perished in last year’s pestilence here in England.”

“And you don’t believe this diminishes your dignity?”

He doesn’t answer; he just holds out his frayed, thrice-turned sleeve.

Cromwell’s mouth drops open. “Are there no tailors left in – how do you—?”

“What use would a tailor be to the people of Rome?” he asks, unable to suppress a flash of irritation. “Gravediggers, stonemasons, blacksmiths: those we can use. But tailors, cobblers, even canon lawyers?” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t expected to perform manual labour myself, mind you; my age and my duties as legate and administrator of the city prevented anyone from asking even after God took away my bodily afflictions. But every morning for more than a year I went out and prayed over fresh gravesites full of bodies that had been dug out of the rubble the previous day. Fifteen thousand dead, another thirty thousand gone and never to return; I’d wager the current population of the city could fit into Hampton Court Palace with room left over for the royal households.”

“God in Heaven,” he murmurs, drawing a hand over his eyes. “We knew of the Sack, of course, and of Your Eminence’s appointment as legate; His Majesty himself has repeatedly expressed pride that a cardinal so closely associated with England courageously remained to lead Rome while so many others ran away in fear. But so little news has come out of Italy since then that we…” but he has to stop to recover his composure. “I cannot turn back the clock, Eminence,” he says finally, “but I at least can offer you the chance to acquire new vestments. Thomas Wetherby has been at court as an ecclesiastical tailor since – for many years, shall we say; he is currently in the service of Bishop Tunstall. Might I send him to you this evening?”

“You may, thank you. My valet informed me that a quantity of scarlet cloth was left in our apartments, but I hadn’t considered how it might be used.”

“I had thought to recommend his services in any event, but I would never have imagined…” But he shakes his head and draws a sheet of paper out of the folds of his simarre. “On the matter of the trial, Dr. Cranmer and I wondered if we might provide Your Eminence with our list of anticipated witnesses. I know it’s early for such matters but two of our witnesses reside in Wales, and with the state of the roads we would suggest those summonses be issued as soon as possible.”

“No, that’s entirely reasonable,” he says as he runs his eyes down the list. “It’s 22 February now and I hope to convene on 6 April…is this the man?” he asks, looking up. “Sir Gru…”

“Sir Gruffydd ap Rhys, Eminence; it’s a traditional Welsh name. His wife, Mistress Catalina de Motril, is also to be called.”

“Then I’ll have my clerks complete the summonses immediately. I assume the King can provide me with messengers?”

“Yes, Eminence, for both our witnesses and the Queen’s. I might be the King’s proctor, but I give you my word that all administrative duties undertaken by my department will be completed fairly and according to the laws and customs of England.” And he raises his brows.

Of course. “You must wonder the same of me. Fortunately for Their Majesties I value my soul more than my status; the duty which has been placed upon my shoulders is a sacred one, and I will let no mortal – English, Spanish, or otherwise – tell me how to rule in this matter.”

Cromwell’s gaze doesn’t shift an inch. “Not even the Holy Father?”

“Clement doesn’t possess the courage to ask,” he snorts. “Christendom would splinter into a hundred schisms if any Pope were to interfere in a matter concerning the soulmark, and I guarantee His Holiness has no interest in going down in history as the man who destroyed the Church. I have no superior in this but God, no guide but the customs of England and the canons of the Church, and I intend to render a verdict that is fair, just, and free from improper influence. I have not been and will not allow myself to be coerced or intimidated by anyone, and if you or Dr. Cranmer or King Henry disagree with that you may release me from my duty and allow me to return home.”

He nods, seemingly satisfied. “On my part I give you my word that Your Eminence, Their Excellencies, and your servants will not be harmed during your stay in England. You must have had some concern on that score.”

“The King has given me his word and I trust him to keep it,” he says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. “I should also advise you that the Holy Father has tasked me with investigating the state of the English church, including that of its prelates; as such I have already sent a messenger to Rome with news of Archbishop Warham’s unfortunate condition. Has the King known of his failing health for long?”

“News of His Grace’s removal to St. Augustine’s only arrived at my offices yesterday, although I don’t know if the King has yet written His Holiness,” he replies, neatly evading Lorenzo’s actual question. “Dr. Knight handles His Majesty’s ecclesiastical correspondence, and he will be at Westminster until Easter.”

Cromwell takes his leave with promises to have the messengers ready to depart the next day, also neatly evading the matter of England’s other prelate; once he’s alone Lorenzo hauls himself up out of his seat but before he reaches the window Nico enters the room with a letter. “Brought by one of the court pages, Your Eminence. He didn’t leave a name.”

“Of course not,” he mutters as he snaps open the blank seal— and it’s just as he expected.

The Bullen whore is the scandal of Christendom, it reads. She has seduced the King to abandon his lawful wife and has plans to destroy the Princess—

With a sigh of frustration he crumples up the nasty bit of filth and tosses it into the fire. Marital disputes tend to attract spiteful wretches eager to throw fuel on the flames of discord; why he expected anything better from this case just because the litigants (and the wielder of the poison pen, if his fine Italian hand is any sign) are highborn he doesn’t know.

By the time the kitchen sends up the evening collation he’s reached the end of the manual and is in the process of compiling his notes. He finds it amusing that so many additions and amendments have been made to the book over the years – some pasted in like strangers intruding upon a family chapel, others neatly bound into the spine like beloved daughters-in-law – but the changes are also reassurance that the practice is a living one, although how alive it is he doesn’t realize until he and his sons sit down at table. “I’ve looked through Wolsey’s books and I’ve discovered a few things that might be helpful,” Sandro says over their shared supper. “Master Dewes also informed me that the court records of the Archdiocese of Canterbury are kept at Lambeth Palace, and those of York are kept both at York Place in Westminster and at York Minster.”

“Then write whoever is in charge of them – the Dean of Arches, I suppose – and ask them to send a boy with the ledger for the last decade from Lambeth. I’d like to…what?”

Sandro and Gianni share a look. “Sir, if Master Dewes is right we’ll need a barge,” Gianni says. “Apparently the landed classes have adopted the Flemish practice of marrying off their children at puberty, which results in an astonishing number of annulment cases. A few of the petitioners are older, but most are young – and many are women, if you can believe it.”

“Oh, I very well can; according to Dr. Knight’s manual women have been allowed to petition for annulment since the time of Richard II, but only if the marriage is childless or if the husband’s mark renders him ‘star-crossed’, as the common saying goes.”

“Star-crossed!” Sandro snorts. “Better such men enter a monastery anyway – or is that their fate?”

“Among the landed gentry and nobility, yes, although many join the priesthood instead. Women of any rank must take the veil, although from what I understand most English nuns are widows.”

“And poor men?”

He grimaces. “Those without the sense to flee are burnt at the stake, along with men who happen to be in the royal line of succession.”

“Saints preserve us,” Gianni murmurs, crossing himself – but then he frowns. “Doesn’t that mean Edward II should have been burnt, or was the law different back then?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue, to be honest,” he admits. “That said, I’d prefer you two concentrate on the matter at hand rather than embroiling yourself in historical what-ifs. There’s a list of witnesses sitting on my desk; I need their summonses ready to go out by tomorrow afternoon.”

They both sigh and roll their eyes, reminding him all too much of his late wife Francesca. Will the day come, he wonders, when he doesn’t see her echo in their every gesture?

The promised tailor arrives at eight that evening in a cloud of chalk dust, pins, and scarlet silk, some of which is apparently a ferraiolo he’d been working on. “There would be enough fabric to make two capes, Eminence, if I didn’t care about matching the pattern of the moire,” Wetherby says as he billows the watered silk over Lorenzo’s bony shoulders. “Perhaps I could fashion a new biretta and a few zucchetti out of the excess?”

“If you don’t think Cardinal Wolsey will mind,” he replies. “How long were you in his service?”

“I, er…” and his face flushes as red as the cloth pinched between his fingers. “I was brought into His Grace of London’s service two years ago, Your Eminence.”

“Then please use the fabric in any way you think fit – as long as you’re certain Wolsey won’t want the vestments back.”

He nods but otherwise doesn’t say a word, leaving Lorenzo to wonder why everyone is so afraid to speak of the Cardinal. Cromwell tiptoed around the subject like a cat avoiding a chained-up guard dog, and Wetherby, who was clearly Wolsey’s servant, laid back his ears at the very sound of his name. Surely King Henry wouldn’t have executed Wolsey simply for forgetting to send his petition…or would he?

He isn’t certain. Henry is a devout Catholic and a sworn enemy of Luther, but he is also a man ready to point the finger of blame at the first sign of failure and exact punishment on those who have done nothing but obey his orders to the bitter end. Had Wolsey committed an act deemed worthy of execution – whatever that would mean for a Prince of the Church – Henry wouldn’t have spared a moment’s thought for mercy but all would know of his fate, either officially or through the usual gossip. But whether—

Wetherby interrupts Lorenzo’s musings with a question to Rinaldo about liturgical vestments; as he listens to them hash out the truly monumental number of albs, copes, chasubles, and other regalia he apparently requires he thinks back to the multitude of Masses he’s offered over the past year and a half dressed in a frayed woollen cassock and a threadbare shirt. Did his scruffy clothing make the fruits of the Eucharists any less infinite, the grace given by the holy Masses any less effective at driving out sin?

—

Part 2 next week!

Chapter Text

The low clouds return the next morning, bringing rain so heavy that his papers stick together from the humidity and his beard seems intent on matting into a clump. He’s about to give up and allow himself to be shaved when Paolo brings him word that Sir Thomas More and the elusive Dr. Chapuys are at the door. “Show them in,” he says as he pushes himself to his feet with a groan.

Thomas More is the same solid, honest man he was four years earlier – and in fact might be wearing the same doublet – but Ambassador Chapuys turns out to be a dark-haired dandy with cool, assessing eyes and thin lips curled into a supercilious, loathsome smirk. His obeisance is as perfunctory as it is mechanical, his lips barely grazing Lorenzo’s ring as if to hammer home the fact that he serves not a vulnerable Pope but the all-powerful Holy Roman Emperor.

He decides to ignore Chapuys for the moment. “Sir Thomas,” he says, “it’s good to see you again.”

“Your Eminence, I welcome you to Greenwich,” More replies, unexpectedly in Latin. “I hope you’ve found your apartments to your liking.”

“How could I not? After nearly two years of tents and cots it’s pleasant to have a solid roof of any kind over one’s head, and this – yes, Excellency?”

Chapuys coughs theatrically. “Your Eminence, I wonder if you have had a chance to look over the motion I placed on your desk last week.”

“Motion?” More asks. “What motion?”

“To dismiss the case with prejudice, Sir Thomas.” Lorenzo retrieves the document from his desk and passes it to him. “Signed by someone who has of yet no standing with the court.”

More reads the motion, his expression changing from astonishment to frank annoyance as he reaches the end. “And what do you expect His Eminence to do with this, Your Excellency?” he asks Chapuys.

“Grant it, of course,” the man replies nonchalantly, turning to address Lorenzo directly. “This English concept of the mark is nothing more than a romantic folly, Your Eminence, and is entirely at odds with divine and ecclesiastical law; it is utterly inconceivable that a local custom so disreputably pagan should be used to undermine the indissolubility of Christian marriage. Your Eminence knows this, knows it in the very marrow of your bones, so why drag out this ludicrous theatre for weeks? Dismiss the case as you know you should, pronounce the royal marriage definitively true and speak out against this – this infantile concept of romantic soulmates.”

He opens his mouth to respond but More cuts in, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumbling bass. “Infantile, Dr. Chapuys? A romantic folly? You speak so disrespectfully of St. Augustine?”

The priest rolls his eyes. “These children’s stories have nothing to do with Augustine of Hippo, as you are well aware. Did you yourself not write in Utopia of a society where marriages were arranged without reference to the marks of either husband or wife?”

More raises his left arm and pushes his sleeve up, holding out his wrist to show the word ‘Green’ written on his wrist. “Utopia was written by a man as fallible as any,” he bites out, “but this, Excellency: this is the holy word of God writ in blood, and as such deserves every respect. My own wife was married against her will at fourteen to a man who turned out not to be her match; had the metropolitan tribunal of York not freed her from her brutish husband Maud would still be Mistress Parr and not Lady More, as God surely intended.”

Chapuys takes a step backward, apparently as stunned as Lorenzo at having been shown a near-stranger’s mark. “I had no intention of insulting you or your lady wife, Sir Thomas. I only thought—”

“It is of course my solemn duty as proctor to prove to His Eminence’s satisfaction that the Queen validly consented to her marriage,” More continues as he tugs his sleeve back in place, “and I intend to carry out that duty to the best of my abilities, but I will not stand here and listen to you abuse a custom that has enjoyed the approval and support of the holy Catholic Church since the ninth century.”

Lorenzo cuts in before matters go any further, keeping his expression as neutral as possible despite his private glee at seeing the arrogant Chapuys cut to bits by no less a man than Thomas More. “Whatever you were intending, Your Excellency, the fact remains that the Queen has not as of yet named you her advocate,” he points out, taking the crumpled motion from More. “Until I receive a notice of appointment from Her Highness I cannot speak to you on this matter, nor can I accept anything you might wish to file with the court. I would also remind you that pursuant to English law, any motions, affidavits, or other supporting documentation must be co-signed by both Her Grace’s proctor and her advocate, and that my powers only extend to determining whether the marriage is false; truth is the business of the Holy Father. I must now ask you to leave, as under the circumstances it would be inappropriate for us to discuss the upcoming trial in your presence.”

He grimaces, but drops another perfunctory bow. “Very well; I will return once the Queen has attended to that minor technicality. I wish Your Eminence and you, Sir Thomas, a good day.”

More stares at the door in shock after it swings shut. “The King will chew him up and spit him out whole if he doesn’t shape up – but I suppose I shouldn’t gossip with Your Eminence about my future colleague,” he adds, his cheeks reddening.

Lorenzo shakes his head. “I’m sure he will approach His Majesty with all due respect, Sir Thomas; his little show of pique was intended not to offend him or antagonize you but to intimidate me. Incidentally, I’ve already met with Master Cromwell; have you had prior dealings with him?”

“We’ve appeared against each other dozens of times over the past two decades,“ he replies. “He’s a steady hand, or at least one knows what to expect from him: sound arguments, flashes of brilliance, and utter ruthlessness at the first sign of weakness. In truth I neither like nor trust him and he cheerfully returns the favour; all in all, we get along very well.”

Which tallies with Lorenzo’s own impressions. “I ask only because he’s already provided me with a list of witnesses he and his colleague Dr. Cranmer wish to call, some of whom live as far afield as Wales; as such I would ask for your preliminary list as soon as possible so that the summonses might be issued forthwith. I must however ask you about Archbishop Warham: are you aware that His Grace has been deemed non sui compos and is currently being cared for at St. Augustine’s Canterbury?”

“I – no,” he says, frowning in concern. “I wrote to advise him of the upcoming trial as a courtesy but I haven’t heard a word in return from either him or his household.”

“And yet the abbot did in fact write you back and for his efforts received a note threatening St. Augustine’s with dissolution. Until I met Dr. Chapuys I’d assumed the note was the work of an overly zealous clerk; now I’m not so certain.” He balls up the motion and casts it into the fire with a sigh. “I cannot order you to control him; the procedural manual Dr. Knight sent me is clear that the judicial vicar is not permitted to interfere in such matters. I do warn you, however, that I will not allow him to appear before me if he continues to show me such blatant disrespect.”

“As is your right, although I don’t understand why he thought he could intimidate…” and his voice trails away. “The situation in Rome.”

“The very same.” He’s about to utter a commonplace about the Sack – as if anything about that calamity could ever be considered ‘common’ – when it occurs to him that More might consider himself free to speak where the King’s under-secretary and the Bishop of London’s tailor would not. “I would have asked after His Grace in any event, Sir Thomas, as the Holy Father has ordered me to make inquiries into the state of the English church. His Holiness has written both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Cardinal of York since the papal messenger service’s restoration last autumn but he’s heard nothing back from either man.”

More suddenly turns still as the night, his eyes sending Lorenzo a warning he apparently dare not utter even in private. “That is unfortunate,” he replies in an even voice, “but not entirely unexpected.”

He backs off, at least for the moment. “I find it difficult to believe that the failing faculties of a man of eighty should be considered a state secret,” he says, “if that man is Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“I believe we can ascribe the secrecy surrounding His Grace’s unfortunate state to an old man’s pride and the loyalty of his servants, but whatever reason may exist for the other situation I can only quote the Preacher: there is to everything a season. To live, to die: to keep, to cast away.” And with that he departs, answering one question about Wolsey’s plight but prompting many more.

Sir Thomas’s visit does more to spread news of their arrival than even his appearance in the Great Hall that afternoon, although the court itself keeps its distance out of an ‘excess of caution’, as Lord Rochford relates in a well-intentioned if hastily scrawled note. The diplomatic corps however has no such qualms; by the time Friday arrives he’s played host to virtually every envoy currently in residence at the King’s court, each ready to debate the trial, the spread of English heresy, the causes and consequences of the Sack of Rome, and whatever news of the day they think vital to their master’s or their own interests. The worst is Hironimo Moriano, secretary to the Venetian delegation, who responds to a question about the last convocation of the Senate by launching into a spontaneous paean to King Henry, with mentions of his light eyes, broad shoulders, and (God help them all) delicate pink skin. Only news of letters newly arrived from the Doge ends the recital; as Moriano takes his leave with a flourish Sandro enters the room with a sealed note. “From Cardinal de Mendoza, sir.”

He takes the note and tears it open. “As the Lord has apparently decided I haven’t sat through enough nonsense today, I have now been invited to ‘attend upon’ Don Íñigo at my earliest convenience,” he relates. “How like the man to order around a fellow cardinal. Shall we depart before Signore Moriano returns with more verse?”

He rolls his eyes. “Heaven forfend Your Eminence miss a single line.”

One particularity every ambassador to King Henry’s court must face is the wandering nature of his accommodations. Envoys whose masters are currently in favour tend to be housed on the principal residential floors in splendid chambers – not as luxurious as Lorenzo’s own, perhaps, but still more stylish and well-appointed than the average courtier’s – while those less fortunate find themselves relegated to cubbyholes under the eaves or even disreputable local inns. Given that the Holy Roman Empire is still (at least in theory) at war with England Lorenzo isn’t surprised to find its ambassador housed in cramped apartments directly below the Queen’s private kitchens; as he and Sandro are shown into what serves as a reception room, something – a metal pot, from the sound of it – crashes against the floor above. “Is it ever quiet?” he asks the boy at the door.

“Only when the Queen dines with His Majesty, Your Eminence – which is to say, never,” comes the reply.

Just then a door opens to admit a stooped, hobbling greybeard on the arm of a finely dressed young priest— no, it couldn’t be. “Don Íñigo?”

“Don Lorenzo!” Cardinal de Mendoza cries as the priest gently deposits him into a chair and lifts his linen-swathed foot onto a cushioned stool. “How good to see you after so many years! Please, take—” but whatever he was about to say is lost in a flurry of coughing.

The priest’s lips thin. “Perhaps Your Eminence would be so kind as to sit? Don Íñigo often finds it difficult to look up.”

“Don’t baby me, Juan,” Mendoza grumbles once he’s caught his breath and Lorenzo has taken a seat. “Campeggio, take these words to heart: if there’s anything worse than English food it’s English hospitality, and if there’s anything worse than English hospitality it’s English guarantees. His Majesty has promised me any number of comforts but every time my master wins a battle in Italy I find myself moved to smaller, damper rooms. God willing, I’ll soon be back in Burgos and never again subjected to Tudor mercies. You look remarkably well; has the gout truly left you?”

“I haven’t had so much as a twinge in over a year,” he replies, his mind still reeling at the deplorable state of Mendoza’s health. “I was surprised to learn you were leaving just as my tribunal is about to convene. Is it the gout that has you returning to Spain, or has the Emperor recalled you?”

“Gout! If only that were all. Look at me: I can barely walk, my hearing and sight grow dimmer by the day, and there are times when the pain in my foot…” but he shakes his head. “My messengers have grown calluses carrying messages to and from my master’s encampments; now that I have finally received his permission to depart I intend to commandeer the Gracias a Dios and have her take me directly to Santander – and if Thomas More happens to be less than impressed by my replacement as advocate, that is his problem and not mine. But let us not dwell on my ailments; now that I am no longer associated with the trial, tell me who you intend to appoint as officers of the court.”

They discuss the candidates for the various positions, but before he can go over his reasons Mendoza begins to drift off. “Should we send for a physician?” he whispers to the priest, who is tucking a blanket over his legs.

“He’s already been seen by one this morning, Your Eminence,” he whispers back. “We’ll take him to bed; he likely won’t awaken for some hours.”

“Then we will leave him in your care. Is there anything I can do – any food or drink I could send him?”

He shakes his head. “The King never withholds that; for better or worse, Don Íñigo always eats very well.”

They return to their apartments, but as soon as they reach his study Sandro gives Lorenzo a puzzled look. “Sir, by any chance did you notice the portrait of the Emperor hanging in His Eminence’s apartments?”

“The portrait every Imperial ambassador has on his wall? I’ve seen it a hundred times. What of it?”

He squirms. “You can see Charles’s mark. It’s right there on his wrist: ‘Maria’, in the German style without an accent. Such an odd choice, to put such a private detail on display for the world.”

“And yet it’s not odd in the least,” he chuckles as he takes a seat by the window. “You have just discovered one of the primary tools by which kings build loyalty among their subjects: performative intimacy. A nobleman permitted to see his king’s mark will feel that the King trusts him, in the same way that a nobleman permitted to watch his king joust or dine will also feel trusted. Henry on his dais, François on his charger, Charles displaying his mark: it’s all the same thing. At any rate, the Emperor has the Virgin’s Mark, like his grandparents Ferdinand and Isabella. It’s natural he would follow their lead.”

“And yet he is still no Spaniard,” Sandro grumbles as he returns to his duties.

The next morning Lorenzo is back at his desk working on the speech he is to make to both King and Queen, albeit in separate audiences. It takes finesse to address a monarch with all necessary respect while still retaining the dignity expected of a Prince of the Church, but in this case he must also add his authority as judicial vicar to the balance and as the Holy Father’s— but no: he cannot risk provoking the King by asking after Wolsey before he renders his verdict. He strikes out the offending paragraph and re-reads the whole, satisfied (or at least hopeful) he’s struck the right tone.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and as he makes his address to King Henry he watches for any sign that the formidable Tudor temper is about to make its presence. Fortunately His Majesty seems impressed; he listens attentively, asks pertinent questions, and discusses the details of the speech with Lord Rochford and the ever-present Duke of Suffolk. Queen Katherine, on the other hand, hears him out in icy, dignified silence as unfriendly eyes stare daggers into his flesh from every corner of her Presence Chamber. He’d expected to find Anne Boleyn in attendance – she is, after all, the Queen’s maid of honour – but it soon becomes apparent that she would find herself burnt to a crisp if she so much as stepped into the room. It isn’t until dinner in the Great Hall that he first catches sight of the lady who has by all accounts turned England upon its head by stealing the heart of its King.

She is without word of a lie the plainest woman he has ever set eyes upon.

Oh, she carries herself with grace and has inherited every bit of her father’s amiable charm, that much is clear even from his viewpoint beside the lovestruck King on the dais, but grace and charm can hardly compensate for a swarthy complexion, acne, a flat chest, and a long, pointed chin. What man, he asks himself, would upend a fruitful marriage to as gracious and well-bred a wife as Queen Katherine for the likes of Anne Boleyn?

The answer is obvious: one who is convinced he has met his soulmate.

Strictly speaking he shouldn’t care whether the ‘Harry’ on Mistress Boleyn’s wrist is matched by a ‘Nan’ or ‘Annie’ on the King’s; he is here to rule on the validity of the King’s first marriage, not that of his possible second, and in any event the Church only interferes in marriages when petitioned to do so. And yet there is something he can’t quite put his finger on, something he’s unable to articulate. Is it the fear that he or some other unfortunate cardinal might be summoned in five or ten or twenty years to yet again tear apart a royal marriage, or has Chapuys’s cynicism simply wormed itself into his mind? Whatever it is, he asks his sons that evening to keep their ears open for credible gossip regarding the King and Mistress Boleyn’s relationship. “I don’t expect there to be much worth listening to,” he assures them, “but it never hurts to be careful.”

His devotions on the Lord’s Day clear his mind and prepare him for the towering pile of manuscripts, reports, and books his sons and clerks have scavenged from various libraries at Greenwich. There’s Raphael of Volterra’s treatise, a satire by Ascensius Badius, the third book of Manetti’s De dignitate, and literally hundreds of pamphlets out of the Low Countries, but the most useful by far is Baldassare Castiglione’s On the Diversity of Soulmarks, which has the dual distinction of being both entirely on topic and fresh off the press. “Did you two know that most of northern Europe believes with the English – and the Moors, incidentally – that the mark denotes one’s true romantic love?” he asks his sons over supper. “The Muscovites naturally disagree; they believe it to be the name of the person who will save one’s soul. A most Christian concept, to my mind.”

“And not that different from our own,” Sandro says. “Save a life; save a soul. Does Castiglione have anything relevant to say about the Spaniards?”

“Quite a bit, actually. Their tradition arises from the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville and in particular from his biography of the deposed Roman emperor Priscus Attalus, whose mark remained distinctly pagan after baptism but instantly transformed into the name of St. Peter upon the imposition of hands. Isidore theorized that Attalus’ mark was granted through the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation, with those confirmed in childhood, as is the usual case in Spain, granted marks which only become ‘visibly manifest’ at the age of majority.”

“‘Visibly manifest’: the same phrase as in Queen Katherine’s response,” Gianni points out.

“Just so. Still, it’s impossible to reconcile the belief that the mark is granted through the gifts of the Holy Spirit as early as age seven with the teachings of Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome – all Doctors of the Church, I remind you – that the mark is granted by God the Father at age sixteen.” He stretches, letting out a frustrated sigh. “The question, though, isn’t specifically when the mark is granted or by which member of the Holy Trinity, is it? The question is whether a woman who arrives in England from Spain at age fifteen will be granted a Spanish mark or an English one. If the Queen’s mark is Spanish she enjoys the same rights under English law as a woman who bears no mark at all; she may marry whomever she wishes and her marriage cannot be annulled even if her husband meets his match. But if her mark is English – and if it is neither ‘Arthur’ nor ‘Henry’, of course – she has neither married nor knowingly outlived her soulmate and she and the King are not validly married.”

“I suppose that’s why Master Cromwell’s summoned so many of the younger ladies who travelled to England with Her Highness from Spain,” Sandro says. “If one of them bears her husband’s name on her wrist – but no; that would only mean she married a man who shared a name with her patron saint.”

“But what if one of them bears a pagan name?” Gianni suggests. “That would cast doubt not just on the royal marriage but on Isidore of Seville’s theory.”

Lorenzo barks a laugh. “I doubt the Spanish will thank me for either, but if I were Cromwell that’s the direction I would take. Matters could be worse, I suppose; Castiglione writes that the Welsh roasted St. Aaron alive for denying that the mark denoted that year’s human sacrifice.”

Gianni shudders in fear, one hand reflexively touching the St. Mary Magdalene medal he wears around his neck. “I sent a King’s messenger to Wales last month, sir; please tell me they’ve settled down since then.”

“They’ve been Christian since the 4th century, praise God. Speaking of summonses, Sandro: Cardinal de Mendoza departed Thursday morning on the Gracias a Dios. Did you arrange for the ship’s master to carry Catalina Fortes’s summons?”

He freezes with his cup halfway to his mouth. “The master told me he was sailing to Barcelona; I sent the summons to Santander with an English merchantman instead. Could His Eminence be travelling via Aragon?”

“Don Íñigo was emphatic that he was to alight at Santander, although I suppose the master might have intended to put him off on a wherry and continue into the Mediterranean. Was Señora Fortes the King’s witness or the Queen’s?”

“The Queen’s, which means Don Íñigo could have delivered the summons personally. Perhaps the master simply didn’t want to embroil himself in a trial of his betters.”

“If so I can’t entirely blame him,” Lorenzo admits. “Incidentally, I’ve discovered I can’t make either of you officers of my court; although the judicial vicar need only be a cardinal or metropolitan archbishop, it seems the other officers must be English subjects.”

“Which leaves us free to assist you personally,” Gianni says. “Who have you chosen, if I might ask?”

“I’ve asked Bishop Fisher to act as Defender of Faith; he’s a respected canon lawyer, and from what I’ve gleaned he’s acted as Defender at dozens of trials so he knows the job inside and out. In turn he’s suggested I engage John Baldwin of the Inner Temple as Promoter of Justice, John’s son William as Notary, and his own protégé John Rogers as Recorder. The Baldwins apparently have a reputation for probity and impartiality, and as the main duties of the Promoter and Notary are to ensure my ruling agrees with the statutes and precedents of England the last thing I need is a barrister or solicitor so closely affiliated with one side that he purposely overlooks errors that cause material damage to the other.”

“But does that matter?” Gianni asks. “Your word is final in this; there can be no appeal, not even if you make an error in fact.”

“Which means it’s even more vital that I come to the correct verdict, and not just for the sake of earthly justice either. If I find for the King and am in error, the Queen will suffer a grave insult to her dignity; the opposite and my ruling will cause grievous injury to His Majesty and Mistress Boleyn. Either way, though, I will eventually be called to account by the Lord for any sloppy, easily caught mistake, and I cannot justify placing my immortal soul in peril when a simple remedy is at hand: employ trustworthy and impartial men to assist me, act with scrupulous honesty, and pray to God for guidance.”

The next day his sons travel to Lambeth Palace for the records of the ecclesiastical court, returning later that afternoon with no fewer than five heavy crates. “These are just from ’26 and ’27 and the first quarter of ’28,” Sandro says as Gianni heaves the last crate up onto the workroom table. “The court hasn’t sat since Midsummer last. I also overheard some juicy goss—” and he coughs, “relevant information, I should say, about Anne Boleyn.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever you choose to call it, just tell me.”

“The clerk who helped me pack up the reports has an aunt at court by the name of Lady Fitzwalter,” he begins, one hip perched on the edge of the table. “She sat beside Mistress Boleyn at the Shrovetide joust three years ago, the one where King Henry declared his interest in her. She said Mistress Boleyn was searching for her soulmate amongst the jousters – only she didn’t find him.”

He blinks. “She didn’t…she was looking for another Harry?”

“Among both the venans and the tenans. I asked Piers how an Englishman knew who his soulmate was supposed to be but he only said, ‘when you know, you know’.”

“And Mistress Anne did not,” he murmurs. “I suppose she might have been mistaken. Did you learn anything else?”

“The clerks both expressed horror that a mark might be anything but the name of one’s great romantic love; when I told them what we believe in Italy they demanded to see ours. My blank wrist didn’t faze them – they said that if anything it proved me a scrupulously honest man – but Gianni’s lucky his reads ‘Maddalena’ and not ‘Pietro’ or ‘Luigi’.”

“They said it was ‘tragic’ there were no pretty Italian girls waiting for me at Blackfriars,” Gianni adds with a wicked grin. “I’m not sure if they fully grasp the meaning of the word ‘friary’.”

He levels his younger son a look. “You might not be in major orders yet, son, but don’t forget the Holy Father wants you and your fine mind in the Curia one day and would not look particularly kindly upon your marriage. As soon as you reach canonical age and Rodolfo gives me a grandson with that new wife of his…”

“…then I will be launched upon the cursus honorum,” he sighs. “I only wish he’d hurry up with it.”

He laughs and shoos them away, but as the door closes behind them the smile fades and his gaze drops to the armlet covering his unmarked left wrist.

Italians – most Italians, he corrects himself, remembering the Venetians – believe the soulmark represents the name of the person who will save one’s life. Those born without one generally die in their own beds in old age but Lorenzo and Sandro lead more perilous lives than most, and there’s always a chance they’ll fall to an assassin’s blade or simply perish at sea. Rodolfo and his sisters all carry the name ‘Renée’ on their wrists and accordingly he’s sent them to shelter in Ferrara with a French princess of that name until the trial is over, but Gianni…who is this Maddalena, and is she his saviour or his soulmate?

Thomas Cranmer arrives at court on the eve of Palm Sunday, but any hopes Lorenzo has secretly harboured that the man might serve as a counterweight to Chapuys are dashed the moment he opens his mouth. “I – I apologize for not presenting myself to Your Eminence earlier,” he stammers, his gaze planted firmly on the ground before his feet, “but there was an…an issue with some of our scholars that – that…”

“Bishop Fisher wrote to me of the outbreak of heresy,” he says, interrupting him. “Do you know if the miscreants have been caught?”

His eyes widen. “Heresy? No! I – our problem at Jesus was less – one of our hostel-keepers was discovered to be…to have been operating a brothel at his place of business. The…the young gentlemen—”

As he listens to Cranmer’s rambling explanation Lorenzo reminds himself that his job at the moment is to judge the man’s qualifications for the position of advocate, not his elocution; a little careful redirection, however, reveals that he is indeed ordained, has appeared at numerous matrimonial trials despite being a theologian by profession, and is utterly convinced that the English practices surrounding the sacrament of marriage are in dire need of reform. “Brother Martin is only one of the threats facing us, Your Eminence, and far from the most dangerous,” he maintains, his stammer melting away as he enters fully into his thesis. “The despicable habit of marrying children off before their marks come in must be curtailed and companionate marriages restricted to widows and those truly unable to marry their soulmates.”

He holds up a hand. “I cannot speak to specifics, although I agree that in many ways ecclesiastical practices throughout Christendom have in general strayed entirely too far from the divine laws set down by God. Had they not become so badly corrupted we would be faced with fewer requests for dispensation and annulment, fewer disputes among theologians, fewer heresies, and even fewer tall tales about the Sack of Rome. But I must ask you to forgive me: I’ve summoned you not to debate reform but to ask if you had any concerns or questions regarding the upcoming trial.”

But Cranmer isn’t listening. “Tall tales? Lies – about the Sack?” he babbles, his stammer returning in full force. “Does Your Eminence mean to say that – that the stories of cardinals dicing and whoring while children starved…”

“Were invented by the mercenaries to justify their actions? That’s exactly what I mean,” he states in as even a tone as he can muster given the topic. “Tell me, Dr. Cranmer: do you honestly believe such rough men care about starving children or dicing cardinals? The Landsknechts hadn’t been paid in months and there they were, their pockets as empty as their hearts, with nothing between them and unlimited riches but a few rickety gates. Why wouldn’t they attack? By now I warrant the beads of my late wife’s rosary are decorating some hausfrau’s gown, or perhaps that of of a lady of lesser virtue.”

That snaps him out of his stunned stare. “Your wife’s – Your Eminence’s sons are legitimate – I…”

“And my daughters,” he sighs. “Really, Dr. Cranmer: most of the Curia do follow the Church’s teachings as closely as is possible for mortal men. I myself was ordained as a widower, and I have never gambled or whored, not even as a boy; although I do not pretend to be without sin I do my best to remain upon the straight and narrow. Now might we turn our attention to the upcoming trial? Master Cromwell mentioned last week that you had a question about the first day’s proceedings.”

They hammer out the issue – apparently it is the custom for proctors at matrimonial trials of great public interest to give short speeches called ‘opening arguments’, and Cranmer wishes to ensure Lorenzo will allow this – but later that night, as he lies nestled in the vast, soft bed provided to him by the grace of King Henry and the perfidy of Thomas Wolsey, he thinks back on their earlier conversation. That a fellow of Jesus College might have no understanding of the horrors of war does not particularly astonish him, but that such a learned man would think hardened soldiers willing to pillage and rape innocents because they witnessed cardinals dicing…had he not heard the words from Cranmer’s own lips he’d never have believed such naïveté could exist outside the cloister. Was he the only scholar in England so badly misinformed? Were the heretics Fisher is pursuing influenced by similar stories? Those and a thousand other questions swirl in his mind as he drops into a restless sleep, but any chance of rest is dashed as nightmare after nightmare rise up to torment him: he is back in Rome, his horse is bogged down in the thick churned-up mud, the Germans are dragging his daughters away, Leonora is screaming, they’re tearing her gown off, he can’t stop them from—

—and he wakes in a cold sweat, his heart pounding, while in the distance a church bell calls the brothers of the Observant Friars to Matins.

He has been asleep for less than an hour.

With a muttered oath he swings his legs over the side of the bed and pushes aside the curtains. There was a time shortly after the Sack when the numbness of communion wine seemed preferable to the hard work of communing with God, but he soon discovered that oblivion doesn’t cure as much as it drives the disease deeper into the soul. Only prayer can lance a spiritual infection and begin the slow process of recovery; only prayer, he thinks as he lights a candle and kneels at the prie-dieu with his breviary, can heal a soul.

Preparations for the trial are interrupted by the observances of Holy Week, but as soon as the sun rises on Easter Monday he is back in his office doing his best to fulfil his promises to Archbishop Warham. “I’d offered to send him cheese and game but I haven’t been able to locate any of the latter,” he tells Gianni, who is packing up what remains of their library in preparation for the move to Blackfriars. “I suppose he won’t mind if I send him York ham instead, although where I am to find a ham in London I have not a clue. It used to be that one could express a wish for a ham, a pair of virginals, or a roan palfrey and it would arrive the next day without fail.”

“Wolsey?”

“The very same,” he murmurs, frowning down at his half-finished letter. “He knew everything: who was in charge of every department, who needed an inducement to do their job and who didn’t, where any item could be found. I suppose I could ask the palace chamberlain to find me a ham, but still…” and he sighs. “I’ve never known a man as competent and industrious as Thomas Wolsey. How could he have forgotten to send the King’s petition for annulment to Rome, and for a full year?”

Gianni puts down the book in his hands, his brows drawing together. “Are you sure he forgot, sir?”

“Forgot, erred, delayed; what’s the difference? He failed to carry out his master’s orders in a timely manner; isn’t that bad enough?”

He shakes his head. “I mean, what if the delay was deliberate? You said he knew everything, so why wouldn’t he have known Warham was failing and delayed the trial hoping he’d be too senile to testify?”

That stops him. “But was he, back then?” he asks. “I was under the impression his health only began to fail this summer.”

“His physical health, perhaps, but…” He rummages through one of the crates of trial records until he pulls out a ledger, flipping through it until he finds what he’s looking for. “I hadn’t put the clues together until just this moment, but the records contain a number of cases in which His Grace had to be helped to the correct verdict. Here’s one from March of ‘26: a Thomas de Kirby of Westerham, Kent applied for a declaration of nullity in the court of Canterbury with regard to his marriage to one Margery de Bourgh. During the trial it was revealed that the marriage was ratum sed non consummatum and additionally that the husband’s father had had carnal knowledge of the wife and had arranged the marriage to legitimize his natural child and obtain Miss de Bourgh’s dowry.”

“Which should have resulted in an immediate finding of nullity,” he says. “Even the lowest priest should know that.”

“And yet His Grace did not. Despite abundant proof that the marriage was false Archbishop Warham refused to declare it so because Miss de Bourgh’s mark had not yet come in. The record states that the Archbishop’s secretary was forced to remind him in open court that disparity of soulmark was not the only possible reason a marriage might be false.” He looks up. “It’s far from the only example in the records I’ve seen; I don’t know why I didn’t notice it earlier.”

“I assume you were looking for something else?”

“Fraud, mainly,” he admits, shrugging. “If Cardinal Wolsey delayed the trial to prevent the Archbishop from testifying, wouldn’t that be fraud as well?”

“Fraud, yes, and a vile perversion of justice; that said, it’s also exactly what I would expect of Thomas Wolsey. That could also explain why Chapuys – or at least I assume it was him – was so insistent Warham be summoned. But how would Chapuys know what he had to say?”

That question doesn’t exactly follow him to bed – upon further reflection, he realizes the Queen must know, and would have told him – but he still lies awake half the night listening to a fierce spring storm send lashings of rain against his bedchamber window. If Gianni is right and Wolsey did act in the King’s best interest, he asks himself, why was he cast away? Why the damnatio memoriae?

They had intended to travel to London by barge the next morning but the storm keeps them at Greenwich; by the time they dock at Blackfriars the next afternoon Lorenzo is so on edge he can barely tolerate Prior Strowdyll’s effusive welcome. “Your Eminence and Your Excellencies will, of course, reside in the royal lodgings for the duration of the trial,” the prior says once he’s finished all his bowing and scraping. “I take it you haven’t yet heard of last night’s troubles?”

Troubles? “We’ve heard nothing from London in days. Are the townspeople rioting over corn again?”

“Not since last year, praise God. This demonstration took place in Ludgate just after sunset and called for the Queen to receive justice, with a number of wherries and petty barges in the Thames also taking up the same cry. Luckily no one was too badly injured, but it seems odd that it was so well organized – and that it took place almost at our door on the very day Your Eminence was scheduled to arrive.”

“Odd indeed,” he mutters, sharing a look with his sons.

Once he’s washed off the grime of the Thames and changed into one of his new cassocks Strowdyll conducts him to Parliament Hall, the long, cavernous chamber above the monks’ refectory in which the trial is to be held. “We’ve set up the judicial vicar’s bench in its usual location,” the prior says, scrambling to catch up with Lorenzo as he strides toward the dais. “The Recorder will sit below Your Eminence and to your right, while the other officials will be seated along the far wall.”

He examines a tall square platform that has been set up against the side wall in front and slightly to the left of his bench. “The witness stand?”

“It’s for His Majesty’s throne, actually; we hope to install the canopy of estate tomorrow. The witness stand will be placed here,” and he indicates a spot to Lorenzo’s right, directly in front of the Recorder. “We have in the past set up a chair beside the judicial bench for the Archbishop’s secretary, but with Your Eminence in such obvious robust health I wonder if you wish one to be provided.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary; everything looks as I expected—” but then he notices a wide, deep groove has been cut into the surface of his bench. “What’s this?”

“The soulmark niche, Your Eminence. A deponent who is ordered to show the vicar his mark places his forearm in the niche like so,” he says as he demonstrates with his own arm, “and then unbuckles or unlaces his armlet. Once the Vicar has taken note of the mark the deponent refastens his armlet and steps back. The bench is also used by the Archbishop to examine royal soulmarks. The vicar is the only one who can see the mark.”

“And the only one who can send a man to his doom. Has a prince ever been dragged from this room to Smithfield?”

“Not as far as I am aware, but when I was a postulant one of Queen Elizabeth’s sisters was conveyed from here to Dartford, although I believe she may have already professed a vocation. I was sub-prior by the time His Majesty submitted his wrist to Archbishop Warham’s inspection back in ’07. Has Your Eminence been apprised of His Grace’s condition, by the way?”

They fall into talking about Warham’s senility, Lorenzo’s voyage from Italy, the situation at Rome, Pope Clement’s various ailments and anxieties, and the usual topics ecclesiastics tend to fall into when thrown together, but all conversation ends when Strowdyll ushers him into the retiring chamber behind the dais (or King Richard’s Retreat, as he calls it) and they find themselves among a veritable army of servants readying the room for his use. “The Retreat hasn’t been used for some years, as Archbishop Warham preferred to retire to Lambeth,” the prior explains as a young boy tiptoes past them with a pail of filthy water. “He generally sat from nine to eleven in the morning and three to five in the afternoon. His hours were not always…entirely convenient for the parties involved.”

He hides a smile at the prior’s less than subtle hint. “The King and Queen have endured far too many delays already, Father Prior; I’d prefer to sit longer hours and render my verdict as quickly as God and the principles of law and fairness allow. Why do we not agree that the court will sit from, say, eight to eleven in the morning and one to five in the afternoon? I and my sons will dine either here or in our apartments, if that’s convenient with you. As for this room…I’d like a book press and a work table brought in, please, and four chairs – no, six, if you will, and a prie-dieu set by the rear door.”

Strowdyll beams his approval. “Consider it done, Your Eminence.”

He leaves the prior to his considerations and returns to his apartments through a corridor connecting the Retreat to his reception room, where he finds his chamberlain fidgeting nervously. “Spit it out, Antonio; what is it?”

He flushes a deep red. “Your Eminence, I do not know how he has done it, but the Viscount Rochford has just arrived and begs an audience,” he says, half-apologetically. “I thought your private sitting room the safest place to put him at the moment, as I was unsure if you would wish to offer His Excellency supper. If you would like me to ready the dining chamber…”

At that he laughs out loud. “I very much doubt that Tom Boleyn of all men has insinuated himself into a priory just to sample the food. I’ll sup after he departs; if he isn’t here to ask me to rule in favour of the King, you may serve my new biretta tonight as a second course.”

Five minutes later he’s left wondering if the silk will go down easier than his old friend’s words.

“It’s not that I wish to interfere in the case before Your Eminence’s court,” Rochford says in his usual excellent French once they’re settled in comfortable chairs with cups of Rhenish wine. “If the King believes his current marriage false he has every right to take the case to trial; likewise, the Queen has every right to defend herself. Whoever wins, I only pray God’s will be done. But when I think of my daughter Mary, of what was done to her – what I have recently learned was done to her…”

“You refer to Lady Carey’s experiences at the French court?” he asks gently.

“And the English, Eminence; and the English. I hadn’t known until just this week that her dishonour was involuntary, that she had been – that the King had—” and he stops, pain etched on his fine high brow. “Anne utterly refuses to believe that the man who has laid the world at her feet could have – coerced her sister, and I can’t tell if she simply doesn’t see what kind of man he is or if the soupçon of power he’s already permitted her has gone to her head. If Anne does marry the King and present him with a son I could find myself a duke, perhaps even – well, perhaps I shouldn’t allow myself to be carried too far, even between ourselves. But even those possibilities, dazzling as they are, could never be worth the risk of losing everything should she fail.”

And he’d thought himself immune to surprise. “Surely Your Lordship cannot believe that likely?”

“Why shouldn’t I? All the Queen has to show of her marriage after twenty long years is a single living daughter and two stillborn girls. There have been no other children and, according to my lady wife, no other pregnancies. Most simply assume Her Highness incapable of bearing sons; a few whisper that God has rendered her barren for having deceived the King. But they never seem to mention that none of His Majesty’s many mistresses has ever presented him with a healthy child, either boy or girl. I have heard rumours of a daughter sired while he was Prince of Wales but if my informant is correct the child was born too early and lived less than a week. Given his record, what chance does my Anne have?” He looks down into his wine. “I am reminded of Louis the Young of France, who annulled his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine because she too failed to give him a son. She remarried to Henry FitzEmpress and within a few years had five strong boys to her credit, four of whom lived to adulthood, while Louis’s only surviving son was borne of his third wife. What if Anne fails for the same reason as Eleanor, or Constance of Castile? King Henry is, as Your Eminence well knows, not blessed with a particularly even temper, and despite the pride he takes in his knightly honour he’s rarely kind when thwarted. Must I stand by and watch Anne cast the die that could destroy not just her but my entire family? Is there nothing I can do?”

“I understand your concern, my lord,” he begins after taking a moment to marshal his thoughts; if Thomas Boleyn is desperate enough to approach him of all men he deserves the most accurate and complete answer Lorenzo can supply. ”As a father myself, I admit I would not wish to see a daughter in Mistress Anne’s shoes. Unfortunately the Holy Father has already dispensed from the impediment created by the King’s carnal knowledge of Lady Carey, and I am unaware of any other bond of affinity or consanguinity that might impede the union should it become possible. I take it Mistress Anne has never betrothed herself to another man? If she has ever promised herself, even de futuro…”

But Boleyn is already shaking his head. “She told me she’d at one point thought Henry Percy her soulmate—”

Neatly answering one of Lorenzo’s many questions.

“—but she later discovered he’d misled her about his mark in hopes she would prove as light as her sister. But Anne tells me she has taken no vows with respect to him or anyone else, and she also assures me she remains a maid.” He shrugs. “For what it’s worth I believe her.”

“Then – and I apologize in advance for this question, for I know it will pain you: could your wife by any chance have had carnal knowledge either of His Majesty or his father?”

He slumps in his chair. “I should have known you’d ask that; the rumour’s been going around for years. For what it’s worth I give you my word that to the best of my knowledge Elizabeth came to me a maid and has been a faithful wife to me ever since – and I assure you, I am not foolhardy enough to have had carnal knowledge of any relation of the King either. There is, however, one other potential complication: the King wishes his sister’s widower the Duke of Suffolk to wed my Mary. He’s the one who told me of the details of her dishonour and assured me that despite her public reputation he has no issue taking her as wife. Would his prior marriage to the King’s sister create an impediment?”

“To the King and Mistress Anne?” He shakes his head. “Even if such a bond were close enough to serve as an impediment, His Majesty could merely order the Duke and Lady Carey to wait until he and Mistress Anne married and allow them the honour of requesting dispensation.” He gives Boleyn a searching look. “The King is not forcing Lady Carey to marry because he’s interfered with her again? She is not with child?”

“No, praise God, although the King isn’t forcing the marriage; he can’t. Our laws specifically prevent the King from compelling a widow to remarry, which is why he has merely ‘suggested’ the match to the Duke. I suspect he just wishes to be brothers with Charles Brandon again. So there is nothing I can do?”

He holds out his hands. “If I find in His Majesty’s favour the King will be free to marry. If Mistress Anne is not betrothed and has not taken any sort of vow to the contrary she is also free to marry. There is nothing you or anyone can do about either of those facts, or the fact that nothing but the King’s marriage to Queen Katherine stands between them.”

“Then if they do marry – if they can marry – I’ll do what I can to protect my family, and hope Suffolk can do the same for Mary. He loathes Anne, you know; blames her for the famine, for the pestilence, for his wife’s death and his son’s. He even blames her for Mary’s dishonour, although I suspect the truth is less dramatic than he imagines. He’s a good man for a battle, if only because he lacks the subtlety to avoid one.” He rises to his feet, Lorenzo joining him. “One last thing, Your Eminence, before I beg your blessing; I suggest you not take the Dominicans or their servants into confidence or leave any papers unsecured. The Council frequently meets in Parliament Hall, and on occasion the subjects of our discussion reach the gambling houses before they do the palace. The English will bet on anything.”

He thanks Boleyn and gives him his blessing, reflecting that although he’d expected spies, never would he have thought the English would dare wager on the outcome of the King’s Great Matter.

Later that evening Sandro and Gianni return to Blackfriars with the unsurprising news that the protests staged in the Thames and outside the priory doors were indeed bought and paid for, “almost certainly by the Imperial Ambassador,” Sandro says. “They say at the Nag’s Head there were to have been more wherries, but the Lambeth fleet was hired earlier that day by the Duke of Suffolk to carry away his mistress and her goods. She lamented her fate all the way up the river, one man said.”

“I’m sure she did,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Did this mysterious ‘they’ at the Nag’s Head know why he put her out?”

Gianni snorts a laugh. “His future wife, Lady Carey, objects to her presence. As if she of all women has any right to protest a whore!”

“The news is flying as fast as feet can carry it,” Sandro adds. “We also heard my Lord Rochford was in attendance at Lambeth this afternoon.”

At that he smiles. “He came here to see me as well and advised me of the proposed marriage, although how he made it into the priory without being stopped I can’t explain. Does anyone at the Nag’s Head know why the King wants them to wed?”

Sandro’s brows fly up. “The King? That part we didn’t hear. Rumours are that Suffolk wants a son, and since Lady Carey has three with her first husband he saw her as a sure thing.”

Just then the door opens to admit Paolo. “From Master Cromwell, Your Eminence,” he says, holding out a note.

Lorenzo waits until the boy is gone to break the seal. “It appears that two of our witnesses have been summoned to a higher court,” he relates. “Catalina Fortes died last year in Spain, and Sir Gruffydd ap Rhys departed this vale of tears seven years ago. His widow has been served and is apparently on her way, although Cromwell doesn’t expect Señora de Motril – or Sister Matthew, as she is now known – to arrive until the 8th at the earliest.”

“That won’t delay the verdict, will it?” Sandro asks. “You still have a dozen witnesses to depose, plus the King and Queen.”

“And that will take longer than three days, I assure you.” He pauses. “I don’t recall seeing the records of the matrimonial court of York in our collection. Did you not fetch them from York Place?”

They share an uncomfortable look. “Gianni thought there might be some kind of embargo on news of Cardinal Wolsey, what with everyone speaking around him,” Sandro explains. “We weren’t sure what to do, and then with the research you’ve had us on and the move – well, I suppose we simply forgot.”

He sits back in his chair. “In a way I’m glad you did. Whether Wolsey has been placed under embargo, under damnatio memoriae, or under the altar of York Minster I dare not ask, but you can. Not directly, of course, but if they keep copies of matrimonial court records at York Place—”

“—they might keep copies of other records as well, and likely in the same place,” Gianni finishes for him. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play; perhaps the Cardinal’s servants will prove as disorganized and slothful as those in your diocese, Sandro.”

His brother glares at him. “Not that I could do anything about it; I was helping save Rome, not chasing girls through the streets of Bologna—”

“Boys, please,” he says, shushing them with a wave of his hands. “Be that as it may, I don’t want to alert Wolsey’s men or the King’s to our purpose. Perhaps you could take a few of the boys with you tomorrow morning. Paolo, Andrea, and…and Carlo, let’s say.”

“The troublemakers,” Gianni says, nodding. “Have them create a distraction – no; let them create a distraction on their own – and while the clerks chase after them we can search for records of – of what? Indulgences? Mass intentions?”

He shakes his head. “Any priest may accept those, and I strongly doubt Wolsey’s ever sung Mass for anyone but himself. Look instead for records only an archbishop or cardinal would be mentioned in: purchases of scarlet cloth, letters to and from the Chancellor of the diocese, and the like. Oh, and don’t say anything in the presence of the priory servants or the monks. Apparently the English will wager on anything, including the Great Matter, and the men of Blackfriars have been known to sell secrets.”

They roll their eyes. “And they complain about the Romans,” Sandro mutters.

He awakens the next morning to the sound of a razor being stropped. “Have I slept through Prime?” he asks Rinaldo, blinking as he steps into a beam of dazzling sunshine streaming through the east windows.

“Prime and nearly Terce, Your Eminence,” he says, nodding at the basin. “The kitchen was unable to provide a bath but there is more than enough to wash.”

Which is all he can expect in a priory, he reminds himself as he splashes his face with warm water. “Odd, isn’t it, how easy it is to accustom oneself to luxury? Three months ago I would have given almost anything for a basin of clean hot water, and yet here I am rueing the lack of a tub. I suppose you’re intending to tidy up my tonsure, or must I be clean-shaven for the trial?”

“The manual says nothing about facial hair, Eminence, only vestments,” he replies as Lorenzo eases himself into the chair in front of the mirror and he gets to work. “I merely thought a touch-up appropriate in light of the court officials’ arrival this afternoon – oh, and Your Eminence’s appointment with Ambassador Chapuys at half-ten.”

He glares at Rinaldo’s reflection. “And which appointment might this be?”

“The one His Excellency granted himself. Shall we send him away?”

He waves a hand. “Far be it from me to refuse to speak to an advocate; I’ll see him when he gets here.”

“As Your Eminence wishes.” He pauses. “I would suggest the cassock without the pellegrina for the audience. Either way is acceptable, but…”

“But you don’t like him any more than I do?”

“Nor do I like his valet. Meneer understands eight languages but cannot be made to speak sense in any of them.” He steps back and examines Lorenzo’s pate, nodding in satisfaction. “Still, I’m not so foolish as be careless around him.”

“And he undoubtedly takes the same care around you.” He rises, running a hand over his now smooth pate. “His master, on the other hand…let’s show him the respect due his office and hopes he lives up to it.”

He had intended to offer Mass that morning for the victims of the pestilence as usual, but as he enters the friars’ preaching chapel vested (for once) in all the proper liturgical garments something deep inside him – his own heart, perhaps, or the Holy Spirit – prompts him to instead offer for Mary Boleyn. What has befallen Lady Carey is at heart intrinsically unfair, and although he can’t change men’s minds about her innocence (not even his own sons’ minds, he fears) he can at least provide her with the infinite graces of the Sacrifice.

Ambassador Chapuys, on the other hand, proves to be without grace entirely.

“I must implore Your Eminence permit Archbishop Warham to be summoned!” he cries, glaring down at Lorenzo as Thomas More stands uncomfortably behind him. “I assure you, he is the only man alive who remembers certain events vital to Her Highness’s defence!”

He doesn’t answer; he just looks around Chapuys. “Have you enlightened him, Sir Thomas?”

“Repeatedly, Your Eminence.”

But Chapuys isn’t impressed. “I have been advised by my colleague that His Grace is ‘senile’, but I must ask: who exactly brought that news to court, and for what purpose? For all we know His Grace could be perfectly sui compos, able to answer every question and simply unwilling or afraid—”

He silences the man with a look. “Your Excellency, it just so happens that I am the one who visited His Grace at St. Augustine’s Canterbury, and I am the one who deemed him non sui compos. If you have any questions about his condition I would be delighted to answer them.”

“Your Eminence visited Canterbury on your way from – from Plymouth, was it?” he asks, one corner of his mouth quirked up.

“The same storm that blew your ship into the Estuary blew mine into Dover; if it hadn’t been for an eagle-eyed seaman we might have ended up in Calais. I visited St. Augustine’s at the express invitation of its abbot, who was concerned by a note he’d received threatening the dissolution of his abbey.”

“Perhaps he should be concerned,” he retorts. “Your Eminence cannot honestly believe the Archbishop truly unfit to testify! The Queen has been denied justice, denied it for years; I am certain His Grace’s enforced retreat from the world is part of the relentless campaign waged by those who would destroy her and in doing so take this realm to Hell. The honour of the Queen of England and the future of this realm depend on his testimony; if he only knew he would beg to have the shackles of his confinement lifted—”

“He wouldn’t recognize the Queen of England if his life depended on it,” Lorenzo snaps, his temper flaring. “I spoke to him myself, Excellency; he thinks Richard Crookback is still king.”

That stops him in his tracks. “Crookback – the Usurper?” he asks, the blood draining from his face. “He – he does not remember King Henry?”

“Neither father nor son. His Grace asked me if Wolsey was in York with ‘King Richard’ – and before you suggest the Archbishop was merely reliving a fond memory, I remind you that the Cardinal couldn’t have been much more than a child when Richard died.” He rises to his feet. “Excellency, I do sympathize with your client’s plight. I was once an canon lawyer in the ecclesiastical courts of Bologna and was not infrequently called upon to coax testimony out of recalcitrant, reluctant witnesses, one of whom went so far as to profess vows in a futile attempt to avoid testifying against her father. If His Grace were in sound mind I would not hesitate to summon him no matter which party his testimony might benefit. But I cannot allow a senile man to stand as witness, nor can I allow a frail man to be removed from a safe haven and brought to London where he could easily perish from lack of care.”

“But why didn’t you—” he begins in harsh tones, but then he stops, clearly aware he’s in danger of pushing Lorenzo one step too far; when he speaks again his voice is as smooth as Thomas Boleyn’s. “Then – then I will of course pray for him…but if he is so far gone so as not to know who is King, why was Cardinal de Mendoza not informed, or the Queen?”

He decides to let Chapuys’s flare of temper pass. “The same reason I was not informed, I’d warrant; nobody thought of it. I don’t believe his caregivers sent news to court either.”

Thomas More speaks up. “I’m sure Your Excellency understands that a faithful servant of many years’ standing might act to protect his master’s reputation from public disparagement without considering the repercussions of such a decision. It is unfortunate, certainly, but not fatal to the Queen’s case.”

“I am not entirely certain about that, Sir Thomas; I only wish…” and he shakes his head. “If that is the position we find ourselves in I must find another way to prove my point. I wish Your Eminence a pleasant morning.”

More lingers behind once the ambassador has made his bows, his gaze on one of the books on Lorenzo’s desk. “Your Eminence is reading Castiglione, I see. Did you hear that he died in February?”

“I’d heard he was unwell but no, I hadn’t received news of his death,” he replies, crossing himself. “He was a good and forthright man unafraid to speak the truth, even to the Holy Father. I had considered writing him last year to ask about the English soulmark – but perhaps you yourself as an Englishman can enlighten me, now that I’ve read his book; is it truly the case that even the form of soulmates’ marks match? I mean, first name to first name?”

“First name to first, last to last, nickname to nickname, and often in the same script,” he confirms, and then he grins. “Although I do still expect to render that irrelevant.”

He returns the smile. “And I will tell you the same thing I would say to Master Cromwell were he standing in front of me at this moment: if you intend to win, prove your case.”

The court officials arrive just as Lorenzo is finishing a late dinner. John Fisher, his Defender of Faith and a man he has known for more than twenty years, is the first to arrive and introduces Lorenzo to John and William Baldwin, his Promoter of Justice and Notary, and Father John Rogers, who is to serve as Recorder. He’s pleased to find them all intelligent, well-spoken men – although he already knows he’s going to find it difficult to tell the Baldwins apart – and is relieved to discover that they’ve all been given rooms at Bridewell Palace for the duration of the trial. “Our home is in Cornhill, “ the elder Baldwin says, “so we thought it best to accept the King’s hospitality. Father Prior mentioned that you propose to sit longer hours?”

“Unless you have some insight on why it might be unwise, yes.”

He explains his plans, and although Fisher and Rogers lament having to miss three of the canonical hours even they can’t deny the wisdom of his idea. “Many courts in England sit twelve hours a day or longer,” Fisher says as the elder Baldwin nods in agreement, “and as Your Eminence has kindly dispensed young Rogers and myself from the duty to pray the hours I see no issue with doing so here.”

The chamberlain of Bridewell arrives just then to convey the Baldwins and Rogers to the palace; Lorenzo motions to Fisher to remain behind, offering him a goblet of wine once they’re alone. “I must admit I find myself surprised that Your Grace wasn’t called as a witness for either side,” he says as he pours for them. “You were one of the old king’s most trusted spiritual advisors; did you not add your voice to those counselling the new king?”

Fisher lets out a sigh. “King Henry is a good Christian and rules England well, but he and I have never seen entirely eye to eye on matters of morality. He did not request my opinion and I did not give it, and to be honest I was not so learned in the matrimonial canons at the time as to feel confident intruding with unwanted advice.”

“So you would have cautioned him against the marriage?”

“I would have told him to look at the Queen’s wrist,” he counters. “This is not a union between tavern keeper and housemaid, or even between duke and earl’s daughter; a King who marries invalidly risks civil war. My work in the ecclesiastical courts has impressed upon me the vital importance of the Church’s teaching that marriage – true marriage – is indissoluble; I would sacrifice my very life in defence of that principle. But I would with equal vigour defend the principle that if the parties to a marriage have not given valid consent they cannot have conferred the holy sacrament upon each other. Cardinal de Mendoza himself went so far as to admit to me that it would be better for the royal marriage to be declared false than for England to adopt Luther’s foul heresy that marriage is a civil matter. I only wonder why the Queen replaced him as advocate; in his last letter he mentioned looking forward to taking the matter to trial.”

Lorenzo frowns. “He told me he had been begging to be recalled for months. Has his gout worsened recently?”

“I was unaware he suffered from it,” Fisher replies, his brow creasing. “He’s aged somewhat in England but I’ve never seen him limp and his last letter to me contained no news of his health, for good or bad. He was primarily concerned that Brother Martin’s latest pamphlet on the Great Matter might prove prejudicial to the Queen’s case. Has Your Eminence seen it?”

He groans; the last thing he needs is Luther sticking his fat German nose into the trial. “Neither seen nor heard of it. I trust it’s up to his usual standards?”

Fisher barks a laugh. “One could say so; he denounced the ecclesiastical courts, denied the sacramental nature of marriage, and commanded the King to return to his wife, saying he cannot ‘divorce’ the Queen because the civil laws of England do not allow for it. I will spare you his comments on the soulmark except that they were so inflammatory at least one German duke has returned to the faith of his fathers; in that he at least seems to have done some good.” He pauses. “His pen, I regret to say, did not spare Your Eminence.”

Of course it didn’t. “He seems to take a certain joy in lambasting me. I don’t suppose a copy of this pamphlet has escaped the Lord Chancellor’s flames?”

He grins. “With Your Eminence’s permission I will send you mine.”

And indeed ‘Junker Heinz and his Goodwife’ is on his desk even before his sons return from Westminster. Like most of Luther’s screeds it’s a mixture of wilful misunderstanding and strident, wrongheaded criticism punctuated by what is likely the most childish invective ever committed to paper. Lorenzo himself is likened to ‘a swineherd who climbs a mountain of pig shit and proclaims himself king’ – which, all things considered, is milder than he’d expected – but Wolsey is called ‘the steward of Sodom, born from the Devil’s ass’ and King Henry is deemed ‘a damnable and rotten worm, the king of all liars’. Queen Katherine he treats with scrupulous respect, but he still advises her to close her eyes lest the ‘Devil’s despicable filth’ smeared on her wrist lead her astray.

He winces; no wonder the German duke was upset.

A noise from the next room brings him to his feet, but before he can move out from behind his desk his sons burst through the door, Sandro rather the worse for drink and Gianni inexplicably dressed as a low servant. “Close the door and tell me what you learned – or otherwise,” he says as his elder son slumps into a chair with the elegance of a sack of grain.

Gianni grins. “Only that Cardinal Wolsey’s dismissal from court had nothing to do with the King’s Great Matter – or at least not directly.”

Sandro tries to add something but the only words Lorenzo can make out out are ‘cardinal’ and ‘beer’ before his head drops onto the desk.

He swallows a laugh and returns to his seat, gesturing for Gianni to join him. “I take it this,” and he gestures at Sandro, “is the unfortunate result of your investigation?”

“Unfortunate and necessary, sir. We’d intended to use the boys as a distraction per your instructions but the Dominicans had them carrying messages this morning, so we took Nico instead.”

“Nico Farnese?” he cries. “That worthless…why would you—” and he blinks. “You remembered what I said about the English love of gambling.”

Gianni’s smile widens. “Wolsey’s clerks had the matrimonial court records ready for us, but…Sandro didn’t lie about who we were, not exactly, but if you have one young man in silks and one dressed like this,” and he plucks at his rough wool doublet, “it’s natural to assume who is Signore Gianbattista and who is the lackey. Sandro ordered me to pack up the books, but while he and Nico were waiting for their ‘lazy servant boy’ to comply Nico challenged one of the clerks to a game of hazard and they all filed out into the courtyard.”

“And naturally nobody noticed the ‘servant’ left behind. What did you find?”

“Not much, just proof that Cardinal Wolsey is currently perched atop his archiepiscopal throne and active in the administration of his diocese. And there’s this.” He draws out a folded note from his doublet and hands it to Lorenzo with a flourish. “Don’t worry; I left the original where I found it, as I found it.”

He unfolds it to find a copy of a letter dated January of last year from Wolsey to one Geo. Cavendish, asking that certain personal items – vestments, a gold crucifix, books – be sent to York Minster, as a ‘certain serpentine enemy’, female by pronoun, had poured poison in the King’s ear and caused him to be stripped of his secular offices and banished without warning to the North. “So Mistress Boleyn had him exiled,” he murmurs, remembering Lord Rochford’s warning that she’d let a ‘soupçon of power’ go to her head. “What evidence did you find that he’s still alive?”

“Two things, although I didn’t have time to copy them: a bill for scarlet cloth that was sent north two weeks ago, and a list of Mass intentions from March the clerks were copying into a ledger.”

“Mass intentions— Wolsey’s?” he breathes, his jaw dropping. “Wolsey sung masses?”

“And not for my lord and my lady, either,” Gianni says. “Martin the baker, Paul the whitesmith’s apprentice, the widow Brown: a coin from each according to their means, a coin disbursed to the poor according to their needs. He didn’t keep a penny for himself.”

“That I find hardest of all to believe.” He smiles affectionately at Sandro, who appears to be sound asleep. “You still haven’t explained why your brother is snoring on my desk.”

Gianni suddenly averts his gaze, although whether he’s embarrassed or trying not to laugh is anyone’s guess. “It’s apparently the custom for the winner in hazard to treat the loser to a jug of ale, or at least that’s what the clerks claimed,” he finally gets out. “Nico told me they caught a glance of Sandro’s wrist at the tavern and wanted to see if there was any truth to the ‘old story’,” and with that he raises an eyebrow, “that unmarked men can’t be made drunk.”

He rolls his eyes. “I could have disabused them of that notion myself. Go find Antonio and have him help your brother to bed, and…and send Rinaldo to me.”

His valet arrives as Gianni and Antonio are leading Sandro away. “Did Your Eminence require some assistance with your vestments?” he asks, one eye on the retreating procession.

“I think I should be fine. How would you like to visit Billingsgate for me today?”

“The Pool of London?” He smiles broadly. “What does Your Eminence need to know?”

“Where the Gracias a Dios – that’s Cardinal de Mendoza’s ship – was supposed to dock. Speak to the harbourmaster first, but don’t ignore what the dockmen, the carters, and the local tavern keepers have to say. Can you leave within the hour?”

He hesitates. “I can, but my visit would be more productive if I visited tomorrow at around ten, if that is acceptable to Your Eminence. The dockmen usually break for dinner – or what passes for it – at that time, and in addition the members of an, um, older profession will be awake but not yet plying their trade.”

“I suppose you’d know more about that than I do,” Lorenzo snorts. “Very well; if you need coin – for bribes and ale, not anything more interesting – ask Antonio.”

He dismisses Rinaldo with thanks, wishing he could dismiss as easily the worry plucking at his nerves. Before he arrived in England he wouldn’t have believed Íñigo de Mendoza such a practiced liar, but the evidence is inescapable; he’d certainly lied about his health (for if anyone in this sinful world could be trusted to tell the truth, it is John Fisher) and he might have lied about his destination – but why? Santander was only a week’s journey from England but Barcelona was over a month away at the best of times, far too distant for the Gracias a Dios to travel there and return to England by the time he reached his verdict. If the Emperor was planning to disrupt the trial for whatever reason – an unlikely possibility, but one he feels he must entertain – he would have instructed Don Íñigo to say he was travelling to Barcelona and instead dock at Santander, not the other way around.

‘Gout! If only that were all,’ Don Íñigo had said to him. What else was there?

The answer Rinaldo brings him the next morning causes his jaw to drop to the floor. “Lisbon?!”

“And back to Portsmouth by the next tide,” he confirms, the corners of his mouth turning up. “Every man and woman I spoke with said the same thing – all except the harbourmaster, who told me he neither knew nor cared where the ship was headed.”

He leans back in his chair: Lisbon… “Did any of your informants know why they were travelling to Portugal, or why they were intending to return?”

“No, but one of the girls said the ship’s carpenter complained about having to refit the Cardinal’s cabin to make it suitable for a ‘more exalted personage’. Of course I did not ask who could be more exalted than a Prince of the Church.”

“Nor should you,” he deadpans, sending Rinaldo away with even more thanks and a promise of a bonus. More exalted than a cardinal…

He returns to the workroom to find Gianni putting the final touches on the notebooks Lorenzo is to use during the trial while Sandro is nursing what appears to be a remarkably sore head. “I wonder if I can trouble the two of you for a moment – if you can tolerate the sound of my voice, son,” he says to Sandro.

He gives his father a bleary look. “I have to, sir. This isn’t a sick headache; I brought it upon myself.”

“But in my service; don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

Quickly but without leaving out anything of importance he relates to them Fisher’s comments about Cardinal de Mendoza’s health and Rinaldo’s discoveries. “The only man I can think of who would fit the carpenter’s description is King João, but why would he travel to England?”

His sons share a look. “Sir, Signore Moriano told me that King João set sail for Barcelona in early March,” Gianni says. “He and the Emperor are to sign a treaty dividing the Moluccas.”

“I heard the same thing from Signore Scarpinello and the Comte de Morette,” Sandro adds. “The Comte was worried the treaty might bring Portugal into the wars in Italy, but I told him the Emperor wouldn’t bother with only the Florentines left to subdue.” He pauses in thought. “Could the Gracias a Dios be bringing one of João’s brothers to court? If King Henry’s decided to marry the Princess Mary into Portugal—”

“He’d never marry her off before she turns sixteen,” Gianni interrupts. “He’d be putting her in the same position Ferdinand and Isabella put Queen Katherine.”

Lorenzo snorts a laugh. “Don’t expect consistency from a King, son, although I doubt he would wish his heiress presumptive wed in secret. Perhaps the ship’s carpenter was merely making a joke at Don Íñigo’s expense, and the captain is to bring an embassy from Portugal. One of João’s brothers is a cardinal, after all.”

“And all of twenty years old,” he points out. “Joke or not I still don’t like it.”

Neither does Lorenzo, if he is to be honest with himself. There is something brewing under the surface of his trial, something he can’t identify and doesn’t know how to handle, something he fears will render his verdict either unnecessary or false. His father, a judge of many years’ standing in Bologna, had always counselled him to undertake his own research before sitting in judgment on any case and especially one that involved the public good, but he now wonders if that advice was—

But he shakes his head; he’d rather be aware of the pitfalls ahead of time than step blindly into Parliament Hall.

Chapter Text

Monday dawns grey and overcast, a fitting backdrop for the trial of the marriage of a King and Queen of England. As Lorenzo is arrayed in cassock and pellegrina, pectoral cross and bishop’s ring, zucchetto and biretta, he prays for God to guide him; prays, too, that Rinaldo has chosen the right vestments. “Should I not wear my new ferraiolo?”

“Not unless Your Eminence intends to stand for the duration of the trial. You will of course wear it to render your verdict.”

Gianni sticks his head through the doorway. “Bishop Fisher and the other court officials are waiting in the retiring chamber, sir.”

“King Richard’s Retreat, you mean – although I’m not sure which King Richard it was or what he was retreating from,” he adds, checking himself in the mirror. Not a hair is out of place, not a thread hangs from the hem of his cassock: even his olive wood pectoral cross gleams in the candlelight. “I suppose there’s no time like the present. Shall we?”

They travel through the dim corridor to the retiring room, where Bishop Fisher, the Baldwins, and Father Rogers await him. “In light of the significance of this trial and the nature of the evidence, I intend to allow each proctor a short opening speech, as the custom permits,” he says once they’ve all made their bows. “I trust that won’t lead anyone to misinterpret my powers as civil and not ecclesiastical?”

“Not in the least, Your Eminence,” the elder Baldwin assures him. “Many in the audience will still remember Crum’s – Master Cromwell’s, I mean – speech at the beginning of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk’s trial back in ’25. I don’t think the Duke will ever forgive him for convincing the Archbishop to award the Duchess legal separation in lieu of annulment.”

“Then I see no reason to delay further. Bishop Fisher— no: would you, Father Rogers, lead us in prayer?”

The young priest flushes but lowers his head and leads them in the Pater Noster, his voice growing stronger and more confident with every word; Lorenzo joins in but silently adds his own prayer for patience, understanding, and God’s help in keeping his hand securely on the tiller.

Parliament Hall has been transformed over the weekend, with two long tables set out in front of the dais for the proctors and advocates and a low platform placed to Lorenzo’s right for the witnesses. Gianni, who has taken on the burden of logistics, has arranged for chairs to be set out in the Hall beyond the bar for the lords spiritual and temporal and their servants; one enterprising young scribe is already in place, tablet and stylus in hand as he stands ready to capture the day’s events. The gallery above the Hall has been set aside for the common people of London and is already full to bursting with men and women who will one day tell their grandchildren – what? That an old greybeard cardinal once looked up at them?

He supposes there are worse ways to be remembered.

At his nod the herald standing by the door pounds the butt of his staff on the stone floor, calling the court to order in a deep, penetrating baritone, while Bishop Longland steps forward to administer the necessary oaths to the proctors, advocates, officials, and interpreters, including the fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge who is to translate the proceedings into French for Ambassador Chapuys’s benefit. Lorenzo swears to conduct the trial of the King’s marriage fairly and render judgment in accordance with the canons of the Church and the laws and customs of England, while Fisher and the others must swear fealty to the King ‘excepting always the particulars of the matter currently before this court’ and to conduct themselves impartially and honestly. “Master Cromwell, if you would open the proceedings for us?” he asks once they have all taken their seats.

“I thank Your Eminence,” he says as he rises. “The case I present today concerns the sacrament of marriage, one of the two holy sacraments of service and the bedrock of Christian family life. The sacrament of marriage is unique in that it is conferred by the husband and the wife upon each other, and as such enjoys the favour of the law; that is, every marriage in Christendom is considered true unless it is adjudged null by an ecclesiastical court in response to a petition made by one of the parties to the union.

“As Your Eminence is doubtless aware, the sacrament is only conferred if both parties give conscious, free, and valid consent to the marriage. Conscious consent requires that both parties be in sound mind and are capable of understanding the nature of the vows; free consent requires that both parties willingly come to the marriage without coercion, fraud, or deceit; and valid consent requires the parties be both free to marry in general and free to marry each other under canon and civil law. It is upon the last that the Petitioner in the herein matter, Henry, King of England, prays for relief. The Petitioner avers and affirms that the consent of the Respondent, Katherine, Queen of England, to the marriage of the Petitioner and Respondent was not validly given due to the impediment of disparity of soulmark, and therefore that the holy sacrament of marriage was not conferred upon the parties by each other.”

He pauses for a sip of water. “The canons of the Church particular to the Kingdom of England have for nearly five hundred years held that a woman may only validly consent to marriage under one of three circumstances: if she is marrying her soulmate, if she knows or has valid reason to believe her soulmate is dead, or if she does not bear a valid English soulmark. The primary question before this court is whether the Respondent, who was brought to England at age fifteen and whose mark appeared on her wrist whilst she was domiciled within the Kingdom of England and married to a Prince of England, bears an English or Spanish mark. It is the intention of the Petitioner through his representatives to prove to Your Eminence’s satisfaction that the Respondent’s mark is English, that the Respondent did not undertake a search for her true soulmate as the canons require, and that the Respondent could not therefore have validly consented to her marriage to the Petitioner.

“I pray Your Eminence find for the Petitioner in this matter.”

Cromwell’s speech has contained nothing Lorenzo didn’t know already, but of course the high-flying words were intended more for the spectators than for him. “Thank you. Sir Thomas?”

More rises and bows. “Your Eminence, for nearly fifteen hundred years the holy Catholic Church has followed the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who preached at Galilee that the Samaritan’s mark was of Samaria and the Judean’s of Judea. The Church recognizes that God alone determines the meaning of the mark in every land and for every people, and honours and respects those traditions which have sought to discern the meaning of God’s handiwork within the framework of divine law. In particular, the Church recognizes that a Spaniard naturally bears the name of his patron saint on his wrist, just as it recognizes that an Englishman naturally bears the name of his soulmate and an Italian the name of the person who will save his life.

“Never in English history has a foreign princess who has married into this realm been accused of bearing an English soulmark; never in English history has an anointed queen been brought to the matrimonial courts. My learned friend has already stated that marriage enjoys the favour of the law, but he has not stated what must surely follow from that statement: that an exceptional claim made in this court against the validity of a marriage requires exceptional evidence if it is to be sustained. The Respondent is a Spaniard, born and bred in the shadow of the Alhambra; it would be an exceptional claim indeed that she should bear anything other than a Spanish soulmark. I am confident the Petitioner cannot prove his claim to Your Eminence’s satisfaction, and that a declaration of nullity cannot therefore be supported.

“I pray Your Eminence find for the Respondent in this matter.”

Lorenzo thanks More, taking the opportunity while the first witness is called and sworn in to jot a note asking Sandro to fetch whatever chronicles or histories the friary library might possess. Sir Thomas might claim in all honesty that no princess has ever been ‘accused’ of bearing an English soulmark, but that hardly means no princess has ever borne such a mark. He also senses that More is not entirely certain how the trial will play out, but then again no man in his position could be; the burden of proof in matrimonial court is, after all, entirely on the Petitioner.

The first three witnesses are experts summoned by the court itself to provide testimony on the nature of English and Spanish soulmarks and certain matters of record. The first, Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall of London, is an engaging and knowledgeable speaker who has not just read Castiglione but was the primary source of the writer’s chapter on English soulmarks. He seconds what Lorenzo has already learned from reading the Monseigneur’s book, but when he is asked about foreign soulmarks he pauses. “Do you mean Spanish soulmarks, Your Eminence, or English soulmarks rendered in foreign scripts?”

“Both, if you feel comfortable testifying.”

His lips purse. “I cannot provide expert testimony on any tradition but our own, but one of my duties as Bishop of London is to determine the provenance of barbarous marks. About one mark in a hundred is in a script the average parish priest is unable to decipher; in such cases he is to reproduce the mark as best he can and send a copy to his ordinary. Most bishops can read or at least recognize Greek and Hebrew, of course, but there does arise from time to time a mark in Arabic or a less familiar script; those are forwarded to us in London for further investigation. We cannot always discover the language in which the mark has been set down, but we can usually narrow it down to the Indies, Persia, Cathay, the Slavic lands, or Abyssinia.”

“Are you also empowered to determine whether the mark refers to a man or woman?”

“That we cannot often tell, Your Eminence,” he replies, apologetically. “Some languages make no distinction between given and family names and in others the same name may be used by either sex, and we are loath to sacrifice a man’s life or a woman’s freedom for what might be a perfectly acceptable name in Kartvelia or Malabar. In such cases we advise the bearer’s priest of the language or location from which we believe the name derives and, unless the bearer is willing and able to travel to that land, issue a certificate permitting him or her the same rights as a man or woman without a mark.”

Lorenzo asks the proctors if they have any questions; after a quick whispered consultation with Dr. Cranmer Cromwell rises. “If I may ask His Lordship: it is my understanding that the English concept of the mark derives from the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo. Is there general agreement among the other Doctors of the Church that the mark is granted by God the Father at age sixteen?”

“Jerome and Ambrose certainly agreed,” he replies, “as Augustine’s theories are seen by most scholars as a extension of theirs. Gregorius Magnus does not refer to the mark in his writings, but of course by the time he was born the matter had largely been settled.”

Cromwell lifts a brow. “Largely but not entirely.”

Tunstall flushes. “Er, no…but as I have said, I cannot testify on the mark as defined outside England.”

“Our next witness has made a study of the marks of Spain, Master,” Lorenzo says. “Perhaps you could direct any questions regarding that matter to Canon Pole. Sir Thomas, have you any questions for the Bishop?”

He rises only to say, “No, Your Eminence.”

“Then I thank Your Lordship for your testimony. Master Herald, pray call His Excellency, Canon Reginald Pole.”

It has been four years since Lorenzo has been in the presence of this scion of the Plantagenets, a man whose smooth, assured demeanour reminds him all too much of the nobler (and, for the most part, lazier) ‘nephews’ of the Curia. As such he doesn’t expect much more from him than a dry recital of Castiglione peppered with awkward asides that pass for wit among whatever lickspittles a King’s cousin might attract, but to his surprise Pole proves him entirely wrong: he clearly and succinctly sets out the Spanish position as taught at Salamanca (where he has apparently spent much of the past two years) and in addition points out a number of flaws in Castiglione’s work. “I exchanged letters with the Monseigneur last summer while he was in attendance upon the Emperor but I was unable to convince him to go further with respect to St. Isidore of Seville,” he says. “There is copious evidence, albeit shrouded in the language of the past, that Isidore either saw with his own eyes the transformation of a soulmark upon confirmation or corresponded with someone who had.”

“And yet this appears to be entirely unknown outside Spain,” Lorenzo murmurs. “How do they explain the connection of the saint’s mark to the sacrament of confirmation?”

“They view it as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit granted by the Lord Jesus to sincere believers upon receipt of the sacrament, and hold that although an apostate may deceive true believers God can never be deceived; He will deny the apostate a true saint’s mark and instead grant him evidence of his perfidy.”

He makes a note of the answer. “These apostates, they are burned?”

“If the Inquisition finds against them, yes. Their wives and children are usually sold into slavery.”

“God in Heaven,” he murmurs, crossing himself. “Master Cromwell, I believe you had a few questions for His Excellency?”

“A great many, in fact, but before I begin I would like to clarify a minor matter, if Your Eminence will permit me,” he says, turning to Pole. “I understand Your Excellency is currently enrolled at the University of Padua as a King’s Scholar, and that you travelled to Spain in ‘26 at His Majesty’s command and with his generous financial support. Is that correct?”

“That is correct, Master.”

“And has this support led you to choose a side in the matter currently before His Eminence’s court?”

“It has: I have chosen God’s side – and that of the Holy Catholic Church, of course,” he says, nodding politely in Lorenzo’s direction. “I am fortunate to have been granted the patronage of both King Henry and Queen Katherine over the span of my lifetime, and even if I were not minded to be scrupulously fair I would not for an instant place my soul in peril of the fires of Hell for an earthly King or Queen.”

More rises. “The Respondent does not contest His Excellency’s bona fides, Your Eminence.”

”Then you may proceed, Master Cromwell,” Lorenzo says.

“Thank you. I have been advised, Your Excellency, that as part of your study of the Spanish mark you have made inquiries of men and women from throughout the joint kingdoms. In your experience, do Spaniards’ marks always appear in the Castilian language?”

“They always appear in the bearer’s mother tongue, Master,” he says in mild correction. “The Gascons have their own language, likewise the Aragonese and Galicians, and before the Reconquista the Andalusian Christians spoke Latina, a language similar to Spanish but rendered in the Arabic script. I was advised that many older Andalusians still bear marks in that script, although I was not able to confirm that myself; they are a proud and suspicious people, and not easily persuaded to show their marks to strangers.”

Cromwell flips through his notes before asking the next question. “If a Spaniard were to bear the name of a non-Spanish saint – St. Stanislaus, shall we say – would that name be inscribed in Latin, the saint’s native tongue, or the bearer’s?”

“The bearer’s, without a doubt.”

“And it would be rendered in a Spanish hand?”

“Some are in the old Roman hand, but most are in either cortesana or redonda, the Spanish secretary hands.”

“And is the mark always the name of a saint canonized by the Apostolic See?”

“Not necessarily canonized per se. Some saints, including St. Isidore himself, were proclaimed either by the early Iberian bishops or at one of the Councils of Toledo, which was empowered to name saints before that right was reserved to Rome; many of those names appear on Spanish wrists to this day.”

“And what about saints proclaimed at foreign synods, or servants of God currently on the path to sainthood?”

“I was told by Doctor Navarrus himself that the only names to ever appear on a Spaniard’s wrist are those of saints canonized either within Spain or by the Apostolic See. Never has a mark come in that is not already a saint’s name, not even that of a beatified servant of God.”

He nods, seemingly satisfied. “One last question: the Respondent in her answer to the King’s petition has stated that she was confirmed at age seven. In England we normally confirm children much later; I myself was confirmed at thirteen, and am given to understand that in Northumberland confirmation is often delayed until after the soulmark is granted. Why do the Spanish confirm so early?”

At that Pole smiles. “At one point, Master, all Christian children were confirmed in infancy. The Spanish have continued the practice due to the dangers posed by Moorish slavers. They wished their children to possess every gift God could provide should the worst befall them at an early age.”

“I thank you for answering my questions. Your Eminence?”

Lorenzo turns to the Queen’s proctor. “Sir Thomas?”

More rises. “Your Excellency, is it common for Spanish ladies to marry into foreign realms before their sixteenth birthday?”

“It’s uncommon for Spanish ladies to marry outside their hometown, Sir Thomas,” Pole answers. “As far as I know, only princesses and their attendants have ever regularly married into foreign realms.”

“And how many ladies would have left Spain over the last, say, one hundred years – but forgive me: that would be asking you to testify on matters beyond your expertise. I withdraw the question; thank you.”

One of the yeoman warders at the door catches Lorenzo’s eye and nods discreetly; he accordingly dismisses Pole with thanks and adjourns the court for the morning, returning to his retiring chamber to find the friary servants setting out a remarkably unappetizing dinner. “Sir Thomas More has just tried one of the least subtle but most effective rhetorical tricks in the lawyer’s arsenal,” he says to Gianni once the boys have been dismissed and they’ve taken their seats. “Ask a question the witness has no hope of answering, then immediately withdraw it with apologies. There’s no better way to fix a question in a magistrate’s mind.”

“And yet you saw right through him,” Gianni says as he butters a chunk of stale maslin bread.

“I did, but at the same time I can’t deny he has a point. To find for King Henry I must have clear evidence that Queen Katherine’s mark is English, but so few Spanish ladies have married outside the peninsula, let alone into northern Europe under the age of sixteen, that the evidence I require might not exist. Which reminds me: I sent Sandro to ask the friary librarian for a history of England. Did they not have one?”

“Brother Mark doesn’t think one worthy of the name has been printed yet. He believed there might be a manuscript of Virgili’s Anglica Historia at Westminster Palace, so Sandro’s gone there by barge to see if he can borrow it.” He sends Lorenzo an anxious look. “We won’t have to summon Signore Virgili, will we?”

He snorts a laugh. “Between you and me I’d rather summon a nest of angry wasps, but if we must, we must. Once you’ve finished your dinner I’d like you to send a note to Sandro at Westminster with one of the boys asking him to beg a book of saints while he’s there; if they don’t have one that includes the Welsh saints tell him to take the barge to Lambeth and ask the Dean of Arches. Have this afternoon’s witnesses arrived?”

“They’re dining at Bridewell as we speak, although I understand the Marquess of Dorset is meeting with—”

But just then they’re interrupted by a boy bearing pots of ale, forcing them to change the topic to Leonora’s recent letter from Ferrara.

The first deponent that afternoon is the third informational witness, Richard Sherborne, who has held the episcopal seat of Chichester since nearly the time of Christ and is in addition the sole survivor (excepting Wolsey and Warham) of those present at both King Henry’s wedding and the Council session at which Queen Katherine swore that Prince Arthur was her soulmate. He has been called to confirm the details of both wedding and oath and is pleased to do so at astonishing length, answering the proctors’ questions in a dusty, creaking monotone that sends half the gallery to sleep by the time he’s helped down from the witness stand an hour and a half later. Lorenzo contents himself with the fact that at least someone who witnessed the events of twenty years past is still capable of speaking of them; he only wishes the bishop had possessed the good sense to speak a little less.

Following Bishop Sherborne on the stand is Sir Anthony Willoughby, one of the few surviving members of Prince Arthur’s household and the first of the witnesses summoned by the Petitioner. He confirms that he was a member of Arthur’s household before his marriage to Katherine, that he travelled with the Prince and Princess to Ludlow, and that he was in attendance upon Arthur nearly every day until immediately before his death. “I was struck by the same pestilence as His Grace, and was myself so ill as nearly to die,” he explains when Cromwell asks if he was at the Prince’s deathbed and might have seen his wrist. “By the time I recovered, His Grace’s remains had already been processed to Worcester.”

“And did you ever see the Prince’s wrist in life – say, while he was being dressed or bathed?”

His cheeks flush faintly pink. “I did, Master, and as I remember it was not yet marked.”

“My final question concerns Queen Katherine, or Princess Katherine as she would have been at the time. Cast your mind back, if you will: do you remember whether she ever addressed the Prince by any name or term of endearment other than his usual name or title?”

He takes some time to answer. “She called him Turi, I believe, and – and Tesara? Tesora? Doña Maria de Salinas – Lady Willoughby, as she is now – said it meant ‘treasure’.”

“Tesoro, then,” Cromwell says, “if the court will accept my translation?”

“Duly accepted, Master,” Lorenzo replies dryly. “Sir Thomas?”

“Two questions, Sir Anthony, if you will,” he says as he rises. “First of all, could you describe your relationship, if any, to the Lady Willoughby you just mentioned?”

“Our only connection is our shared service at Ludlow, sir; I don’t believe we’ve so much as met otherwise. Her late husband’s family is unrelated to mine.”

“Thank you. Turning back to your time at Ludlow Castle again, did Prince Arthur have any private names for the then Princess Katherine?”

“He called her ‘Kate’ a few times early in their marriage, but after her soulmark came in he usually called her ‘my soulmate’ instead.”

He flashes a small, satisfied smile. “Thank you.”

The next four witnesses can add nothing to Willoughby’s testimony; only the final deponent, Lord Dorset, is able to add that he personally stood vigil at the Prince’s deathbed and oversaw his coffining – for the chandler would not enter the room for fear of pestilence – and during the vigil examined Arthur’s wrists in vain for any sign of a mark. “Your Lordship was a brave man to have remained with His Grace to the end,” Lorenzo says to him. “Did the Prince die of the sweat?”

“The physicians did say so at the time, Your Eminence, but recent experience has forced me to doubt their judgment. Prince Arthur lingered for five long days, whilst most who fell ill with the sweat in the last visitation died within hours and none suffered as grievously as he.” He looks up, his eyes suspiciously bright. “He was a gracious and sovereign lord to us all at Ludlow; I know we must not question God’s will but I cannot but think he deserved a kinder death.”

Perhaps he did, Lorenzo thinks as he thanks Dorset and adjourns court for the day; perhaps we all do.

News arrives over supper that Sister Matthew has arrived at St. Helen’s Bishopsgate two full days ahead of schedule and is prepared to take the stand whenever Lorenzo wishes. “We deposed seven Englishmen this afternoon, one of whom talked my ear off,” he says to Fisher, who is sharing the meal with him. “Do you think we can depose seven Spanish ladies tomorrow morning?”

He pauses, sighing as he puts down his knife. “To be honest, I would not be surprised if the Queen’s ladies were to give Your Eminence some trouble. Her household is fiercely loyal, as you no doubt have witnessed, but none more so than the ladies who accompanied her from Spain. You may have to hold a charge of contumacy over their heads to get them to speak.”

“If I must, I will,” he says, ignoring the chill running up his spine. “I’ve had to take that step before, and under far less weighty circumstances. But who would stand in judgment with Warham non sui compos?”

“I am myself empowered by English law to levy fines for contumacy, but to pass a sentence of excommunication in the absence of an active archbishop Your Eminence would have to convene a committee of suffragan bishops. I only wish I could promise you it won’t be necessary.” He hesitates before speaking again. “There is one other matter I would discuss with you before we pray the In Fine. As Your Eminence’s Defender of Faith I am also responsible for ensuring the parties, and particularly the Respondent, receive fair and proper representation; as such I find myself concerned by Ambassador Chapuys’s attitude toward Sir Thomas More and the trial as a whole. Are you aware of any issues between them?”

He takes a moment to marshal his thoughts and separate Chapuys’s hostility toward himself from his treatment of his colleague. “Not between them, no,” he finally says. “I suspect the Ambassador is merely determined to steer his own ship through troubled waters, but at our first meeting he inadvertently provoked Sir Thomas into pushing up his sleeve and showing us his soulmark.”

That elicits a genuine smile. ”He does that to everyone, Your Eminence; one might even call it his signature. I’ll keep an eye on the situation and advise you if I believe there to be a problem requiring intervention.”

He returns to the workroom later that evening to find Gianni working on the next day’s schedule and Sandro removing a number of very large, very dusty codexes from a rough wooden crate stamped with a royal seal. “The Anglica Historia?”

“In four volumes, sir, and pity the poor scribe who copied it all out only to see his life’s work moulder away in a dusty storage room. What did you need to know?”

“Which foreign princesses arrived in England before their sixteenth birthday from realms that don’t follow Augustine’s teachings regarding the soulmark: that would be the Iberian kingdoms, Italy, Gascony, and the Slavic realms. Were you able to locate a list of saints, by the way?”

He nods at two pamphlets perched on the corner of the table at Gianni’s elbow. “The thinner one’s for England and the thicker’s for Wales. The Archbishop’s secretary warned me that Welsh spelling can be difficult to decipher.”

“Unlike English, that masterpiece of Aristotelian logic,” Gianni snorts.

“Speaking of logic or the lack thereof,” Lorenzo says, turning to his younger son, “Bishop Fisher worries that the ladies might prove difficult tomorrow. To be honest I’d rather face an outbreak of contumacy than one of hysteria, but in either case I’d feel more comfortable knowing the matrons Father Prior promised us will be on duty tomorrow. At the very least I’d like to be sure the great ladies of the court aren’t manhandled by the King’s yeoman warders. Have you heard back from him on the matter yet?”

“He’s promised me they will be there and ready to intervene should any of the deponents affect a fit of the vapours,” he replies, suddenly smiling. “They’re his nieces, after all, and the King is paying them very well.”

He laughs and leaves them to their work, praying he’s faced with nothing more disruptive tomorrow than a fainting countess.

Of course, prayers are not always answered in the affirmative.

The morning session starts off with a shot across the bow in the form of a motion from Cromwell and Cranmer requesting that all the Spanish ladies who have been summoned, young and old, be directed to show Lorenzo their marks. “Our intent, Your Eminence, is to determine whether there is a difference in hand or style between marks granted in Spain and those granted in England. I had originally intended to depose Canon Pole on the matter but his eyesight is apparently not acute enough to discern the difference between, say, cortesana and italica.”

“Then you are in luck, as I am familiar with both,” he says. “Sir Thomas, Your Excellency, do you have any objections?”

More glances at Chapuys but the man refuses to so much as open his eyes; with a faint shrug he turns back to Lorenzo. “None, Your Eminence.”

“Then I bid Master Herald call the first witness.”

Lady Mountjoy, née Ines de Venegas, enters the Hall in a cascade of black velvet and imperious hauteur, her eyes as hard and flinty as the jet beads adorning her gable hood. She declines the services of a Spanish interpreter and takes the oath in flawless English, peering down her nose at Bishop Longland as if he were a particularly noxious variety of rodent, but her disdain transforms into naked fury when she is asked to bare her wrist. “My mark was manifest in Spain,” she snaps, glaring at Lorenzo. “I do not think it fit that I reveal it, even to Your Eminence.”

“Your Ladyship, I only ask—”

But she sweeps away from him, seating herself on the oaken chair that has been placed on the witness dais and crossing her arms defiantly. “I have been told I must ‘take the stand’, as they put it,” she says, “and that I must not give lying answers, but there is nothing that says I must give truthful ones either. So I shall sit here and the lawyers will ask me questions and I shall say nothing, Your Eminence: nothing! And you and your bastard sons can go home to your Roman whores with no evidence from me, and leave Queen Katherine as she is: Queen of England, as God intends, for the rest of her natural life!”

He keeps his eyes locked onto hers until the warders have quieted the gallery, which seems split between cheering her and calling down flaming death upon her head. “Your Ladyship should first be made aware that I am a widower and my children are legitimate,” he says in an even voice. “I do not thank you for the insults you hurled at them and at my late lady wife, who is for the record the only woman I have ever lain with. More to the point, you should be aware of the significant penalties associated with refusing to cooperate with this court.”

She smirks. “You mean the penalties you will suffer if you continue with this farce of a trial. Do you think you will still be elected Pope after our Holy Father goes to his great reward?”

Somewhere in the back of his head he can hear Cardinal Farnese laughing.

“My lady, by taking this duty upon myself I have already permanently disqualified myself from holding the position of supreme pontiff, at least in the eyes of the Roman Curia,” he explains. “Not that I would have wished for it in any event; only a—” and he catches himself at the last second, “only a man of singular talents would wish to sit on the throne of St. Peter, and I am not that man.”

“And yet His Holiness will still take action against you if you deny God’s will and find for the King,” she counters. “He will step in and put this realm to rights, he will confirm Her Grace as King Henry’s true wife unto death, he will nullify your verdict, and he will punish you.”

Fisher’s voice suddenly rings out, silencing the jeers raining down from the gallery. “And what makes you think His Holiness is prepared to do that, my lady?”

“Because he is head of the Church, Your Grace,” she answers, speaking as if to a child. “He is God’s representative on Earth and knows in his heart this trial is a foul obscenity. If he were here he would throw Master Cromwell’s petition in his face and send a cry up to the rafters of this hall that the marriage of the King and Queen of England is definitively true and nothing – nothing – can change that.”

‘Definitively true’: Lorenzo has heard that phrase before. He glances over at the Queen’s table and catches Thomas More glaring at Chapuys, who is smiling like a cat who has just swallowed a fine fat mouse.

But enough of that; he motions to Fisher to desist and tries another tack. “My lady, has it not occurred to you that if the Holy Father were indeed minded to meddle in this trial, he would have presided over it himself? After all, we are testing the validity of the marriage of a king and queen. My verdict could affect the line of succession; echoes of my decision might resound throughout this realm and all of Europe for generations. If there were any way he could rule on it he would, and yet he has not. What does this tell you?”

For the first time she seems unsure of herself. “I… I suppose it means Her Grace must appeal to His Holiness directly. If he knew what she has gone through—”

“He would not read a word she sent him,” he interrupts. “No pope would interfere in a case even remotely connected to the interpretation of the human soulmark.”

“But – but I thought…” and she shoots Chapuys a terrified look. “Your Eminence, I…”

He affects a fatherly demeanour: all the better to slip in the knife. “When I spoke of penalties, I was not referring to the penalties the Holy Father could impose upon me but of those that could be imposed upon Your Ladyship should you refuse to show me your mark and answer the proctors’ questions. A stubborn refusal to testify is deemed contumacy under ecclesiastical law, and a contumacious witness may be fined, disciplined, or even excommunicated. I trust Your Ladyship would prefer not to suffer such an extreme medicinal penalty?”

And the gamble pays off; she might love her mistress, she might even be prepared to die for her, but she will not risk her immortal soul by defying an ecclesiastical court.

Once she has shown Lorenzo her mark (albeit so reluctantly that one of Strowdyll’s matrons assumes she’s having an issue with her armlet and comes over to help) and returns to the witness stand Master Cromwell rises, but his first question takes them both by surprise: he asks her where she first met her husband. “Is that truly relevant?” she asks.

“My lady, I would not waste your time or His Eminence’s were it not.”

Slowly, gently, but inexorably Cromwell draws her out, confirming her place of domicile on the day her mark came in, when and if she has ever been naturalized, her husband’s full name, and – and this reveals his intent – whether her marriage was a happy one. His genius is that he couches these questions in such a way that despite her abundant suspicions she doesn’t seem to catch on that his goal is to determine whether she has inadvertently married her soulmate. By the time he is done she hardly knows what to say next; she answers Thomas More’s only question, an inquiry as to when Princess Katherine’s mark was granted, in such low tones the Recorder has to ask her to repeat herself twice. Only at the end does she regain a semblance of dignity, but even then she cannot hold her head high; she came into the Hall determined not to capitulate but she has failed, and abjectly so.

The next deponent is María de Salinas, the Lady Willoughby mentioned during the previous day’s testimony, who immediately shows herself to be made of sterner stuff than Lady Mountjoy. She is so steadfast in her mistress’s cause, so determined to do what she thinks is right, that she holds up even under threat of excommunication; only Bishop Fisher’s solemn warning that Lorenzo could obtain the information he requires from her servants – “and I remind Your Ladyship that although you are safe from more persuasive forms of interrogation, they are not,” – digs her out of her burrow and allows Cromwell to work his magic on her. And so it goes with Lady Cumberland, and with Lady Clifford, and with Mistress Radcliffe, and with Mistress Vaux, and by the time the last-named lady rushes out of the Hall in floods of tears after being forced to confess to an unhappy marriage in open court it is well after noon and most of the candles are burnt down to the wick. “We have one more witness to depose before we hear from the Petitioner and Respondent,” he says to both tables once the galleries have been cleared. “The friary servants will need at least an hour to replace the candles and tidy up the gallery. Shall we send for Sister Matthew at, say, three, or would you prefer to wait until morning?”

He expects the King’s representatives to confer but is mildly surprised when the Queen’s do the same; perhaps the failure of Chapuys’s plan to disrupt the trial – for that is clearly what today’s stunt was intended to accomplish – has humbled him into cooperating with his colleague.

Cromwell is the first to rise. “Your Eminence, although we are amenable to working within any schedule you might impose upon us, our preference is to depose Sister Matthew this afternoon so that we may spend tomorrow morning preparing for His Majesty’s and Her Grace’s appearance. That said, I wonder if we might instead depose Sister Matthew at four o’clock; this would give us time to take our dinner, and in addition amend our questions to her in light of this morning’s testimony.”

“We have no issue with that, Your Eminence,” Sir Thomas adds.

He accordingly adjourns the court until four and returns to the retiring chamber only to drop exhausted into a chair the moment the door has closed behind him. He is spent, utterly and completely, and he has to return to the Hall in… “What time is it?” he asks the air, hoping he’s not alone.

Sandro’s voice answers him. “Just gone two, sir. We sent your dinner back hours ago.”

So he has two hours. “Then you’d better ask them to bring it back – no; just have them send up any well-cooked vegetables they have ready to serve. I’m too tired to chew.”

The door leading to their rooms clicks shut; he would look to see if Gianni is still there but at the moment he doesn’t have the strength to so much as crack open an eyelid. “Son?”

“Are you all right, sir?” a familiar voice asks.

“I nearly called Pope Clement a fool in open court. Other than that I’m fine, just exhausted.”

A pause. “Were you under oath?”

And that does it; he bursts out laughing, and laughs so hard and for so long he ends up giving himself a stitch in his side. “I needed that more than food and drink, son,” he says as he rubs the offending muscle. “Thank you. How’s the research going?”

“I’ll let Sandro tell you since he did all the work. What happened out there?”

“A great deal more than I would have liked,” he admits, but before he can explain one of the friary servants arrives with a tray, Sandro following close behind.

Once they’re alone he uncovers his meal – cold congealed pottage, again – and pats the chair next to him. “Gianni says you have an answer for me,” he says to Sandro. “Sit down and fill me in while I eat.”

He collects his notebook and drops into the chair. “The Historia lists a number of princesses from southern realms who have married into the English royal family,” he says, reading from his notes, “but of those only three meet your criteria. Virgili doesn’t address Isabella of Angoulême’s mark except to say that it might not have been recorded during her lifetime, but her husband King John’s was; after his death the Bishop of Ely examined his body and found ‘Clementina’ inscribed on his wrist. The second is Eleanor of Provence, who was brought to England to marry John and Isabella’s son Henry III when she was fourteen, but note this: the wedding didn’t occur until the day after her sixteenth birthday. Virgili’s source claims that Henry’s lords sought betrothals for him with numerous ladies before he reached his majority, but once he reached sixteen they were only interested in princesses named Eleanor.”

Fascinating. “And the third?”

He grins. “That would be Eleanor of Castile, the first wife of Henry and Eleanor’s son Edward I. The royal chronicler wrote that she came into her soulmark at Oxford ‘to the great joy of the Lord Edward, who cried that the marriage had now been perfected’; one might assume he meant it had finally been consummated, but by that point Edward and Eleanor had been married three years and she’d already given birth at least twice. Edward referred to her in his letters as his ‘second soul’, and upon her death he ordered crosses erected along the funeral procession at every point her body rested for the night. They’re known now as the Eleanor Crosses, but in his letters King Edward called them his ‘Soulmate Crosses’.”

He puts down his spoon. “And she was a princess of Castile. I suppose it’s too much to ask if her Spanish ladies’ marks were recorded?”

“We don’t even know their names, sir,” Gianni replies from across the room, one volume of the codex sprawled across his lap. “Even the best noblewomen rarely make it into the history books.”

Which is very true, he thinks as he dismisses them with thanks; generally only the worst are immortalized.

Once he’s alone he pushes away the remnants of his dinner and rises to relieve himself before washing his hands and returning to the table. There was something in that morning’s testimony he must set down before it slips his mind, something he suspects might be more important than it seemed at the moment; to that effect he draws out paper, ink, and pen and tries to piece together what he has learned today.

Testimony of Queen Katherine’s Ladies

1. Dowager Baroness Mountjoy, née Ines de Venegas
    Arrived in England at age 23
    Husband William Blount, Lord Mountjoy
    Soulmark ‘José y María’ in cortesana
    Mark appeared at Valladolid
    Naturalized 1514

2. Dowager Baroness Willoughby, née Maria de Salinas
    Arrived in England at age 11
    Husband William Willoughby, Lord Willoughby de Eresby
    Soulmark ‘William’ in blackletter
    Mark appeared at London
    Naturalized 1517

3. Countess of Cumberland, née Isabel de Vargas
    Arrived in England at age 15
    Husband Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland
    Soulmark ‘Henry’ in blackletter
    Mark appeared at Richmond Palace
    Naturalized 1515

4. Lady Clifford, née Blanca de Vargas
    Arrived in England at age 17
    Husband Sir John de Clifford
    Soulmark ‘Ysidro’ in cortesana
    Mark appeared at the Alhambra
    Naturalized 1517

5. Mistress Radcliffe, née Maria de Rojas
    Arrived in England at age 15
    Husband John Radcliffe
    Soulmark ‘John’ in blackletter
    Mark appeared at London
    Never naturalized

6. Mistress Vaux, née Catalina de Gavara
    Arrived in England at age 9 (!)
    Husband John Vaux (unhappily)
    Soulmark ‘Henry’ in blackletter
    Mark appeared at Windsor Palace
    Naturalized 1517

Thomas More said in his opening remarks that exceptional evidence would be necessary to support a declaration of nullity, and this is indeed exceptional: the ladies who came of age in Spain have Spanish marks rendered in a Spanish hand, while the ladies who came of age in England have English marks rendered in an English hand.

It would be more exceptional were it a coincidence, but is it enough to nullify a marriage?

Not entirely, he decides. John, William, and Henry may be men’s names but they are also saint’s names, and he is not so rigid in his thinking as to refuse to entertain the possibility that God might have given these ladies hybrid saint’s marks unconnected to any soulmate they might possess. The Lord has plans and processes men cannot yet understand; only if Sister Matthew or Queen Katherine bear an English mark that is not a saint’s name will he be able to rule in the King’s favour. He only hopes—

—and he heaves a sigh. What does he really hope for? Wisdom? Serenity? A good night’s sleep? An edible meal, in this land of plenty?

He sets his list aside to let the ink dry and leans back, his eyes dropping shut…and the next thing he knows someone is shaking his shoulder. “Wha— what is it?”

Rinaldo’s voice is low in his ear. “It’s nearly four, Your Eminence.”

His eyes spring open and he hauls himself up to his feet with a muttered oath, every muscle and joint screaming against the move. “I had intended to commune with the Lord Jesus this afternoon, not the Lord Morpheus. How’s the gallery this afternoon?”

“A few bored goodwives, an apprentice or two – nothing like this morning.”

Thank God. “Then if you will be so kind as to retrieve my biretta and – thank you.”

The gallery is indeed nearly empty that afternoon as is the area behind the bar, where the King’s friend Sir Henry Norris and the young man with tablet and stylus are the only ones in attendance; that fact more than anything tells him how carefully Cromwell is playing his hand. “We are now in session,” he says as he takes his seat. “Master Herald, pray call the next witness.”

The herald thumps the butt of his staff on the floor. “Sister Matthew, come into the court!”

A slight lady cloaked in Benedictine black steps through the door on the arm of Prior Strowdyll, but as she makes her way to the front of the room something curious happens: every man and woman she passes, from the boy with the tablet to Henry Norris, from Cromwell and Cranmer to Thomas More and Bishop Longland, from the matrons standing against the wall to the housewives in the gallery to Bishop Fisher himself, rise and bow or curtsy to her as deeply as if she were the senior duchess of England. He rises and accords her a bow of his own, but it is only when she turns to face him that he sees what her wimple, veil, and demurely lowered gaze have hitherto concealed.

Sister Matthew is African.

Her race is of little matter to him but he can already hear vicious whispers arising from the gallery; as Longland administers the oath Lorenzo locks eyes with the most likely suspects, a pair of young apprentices who seem ready for almost anything but an honest day’s work. “Before we begin, Sister Matthew, I would like to express my appreciation and thanks on behalf of the court for the journey you have undertaken to be here today,” he says, turning back to her. “I know you did not embark upon it voluntarily.”

She smiles. “It is true that I could not have travelled to London without good reason, but I would also never wish to stand in the way of justice – God’s justice, I mean,” she explains in a light Spanish accent tinged with a Welsh lilt. “Shall I show Your Eminence my mark?”

“If you do not mind that I write it down, Sister.”

“I have lived seven years with my wrist on display for all to see; I can hardly object to a portrait in ink.”

He charges his pen as she pushes up the sleeve of her habit and places her arm in the niche; once he’s transcribed the name – ‘Gruffydd’, in blackletter – into his notebook he thanks her and allows Longland to escort her to the witness stand. “Master Cromwell?”

He rises and bows. “Sister Matthew, I also would like to thank you on behalf of His Majesty for consenting to make the long and, I have been told, difficult trek from the Marches to London. I understand you travelled in the company of your domina?”

“Yes, Master. Our convent is facing a minor legal issue that would normally be handled by the chapter, but as the bishop is resident in Spain and the dean has duties in London Mother Elizabeth thought it wise to consult with the archdiocese rather than let the matter fester.”

“And yet this is not the most arduous voyage you have ever made, is it? I have been advised that you travelled from Spain to England in October of 1501 with the household of the then Princess Katherine as one of her servants. Is that correct?”

“Not entirely, Master Cromwell,” she replies, head held high. “I was not her servant; I was her slave.”

At that Thomas More looks up sharply, peering owlishly at her as if he were truly seeing her for the first time.

“Slave, madam?” Cromwell asks after a short pause. “Your father was a morisco?”

“He was a good Christian, sir – but I am not certain if you wish me to go into detail…” and her voice trails off as she glances at Lorenzo.

“I have no objection to hearing the story, madam, if you are willing to tell it,” he assures her.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much to tell, Your Eminence. My parents were both Christians but my mother was from Anfa in north Africa, and many of our neighbours believed her a Moor; in truth she had been captured by slavers and brought to Granada because she would not give up her Christian faith. A few years after the Catholic Monarchs drove out Boabdil the Inquisition came to Motril, and a neighbour who had long coveted our family’s lands denounced my father as an apostate, saying that no true Christian would marry a Moorish woman. They made him bare his wrist in the plaza, saw that his mark was in Latina—”

“In the Arabic script,” Cromwell clarifies.

She nods. “His mark read ‘Jesus Christ’, but that was not enough to save him. I was eight years old the day he was led away in chains; that was the last day I saw him, or any other member of my family.”

The Hall falls silent as the last echoes of her matter-of-fact recital fade; the first man to find his voice is a visibly aghast Bishop Fisher. “Madam, on behalf of the Church I feel I must apologize—”

But she brushes off his words with a shake of her head and a serene smile that fails to reach her eyes. “There is no need, Your Grace, for it was not the Church that destroyed my family but fallible men guilty of the sin of avarice; even if that were not the case I have long been at peace with the events of 1496. It is perhaps ironic that if my father had truly been a Moor they would not have dared arrest him or enslave me. We would have been expelled eventually, of course, but no one would have thought to separate us. As for myself, I am no longer María del Pilar Andújar y San Salvador as I was baptized, nor am I ‘Catalina de Motril’, the name my slavers gave me after re-baptizing me by force: I am Sister Matthew.”

Cromwell speaks again, his voice markedly gentler than before. “I assume, madam, that you were confirmed as a child?”

“At seven, yes. By that time no one feared Moorish slavers and we did not yet know to fear Spanish ones. The Infanta demanded I be confirmed again before we embarked for England.”

“And how old were you when you arrived in England?”

“I was thirteen. I arrived with the Infanta and her household in the autumn of 1501, and remained with her until I married my husband, Sir Gruffydd, in 1506.”

“Sir Gruffydd ap Rhys, yes. When did you meet him?”

“He was Prince Arthur’s friend and a member of his household; I met him for the first time the day after King Henry – His Majesty’s father – came to see the Infanta. I thought him so very handsome,” she admits, blushing, “but he was also so much older than me and so much higher in status that I thought it best to put him out of my mind. Three years later when I was in service to the Infanta in London – by then King Henry had freed me – my mark came in, and it was his name.” And she holds out her wrist for the lawyers’ inspection.

Were Lorenzo not looking for it he would have missed the flash of jubilation and relief in Cromwell’s eyes. He thinks he has won his case, and he very well may have; the man likely knows Queen Katherine’s mark, and if he is as sharp a lawyer as he has shown himself to be he will already know whether ‘Gruffydd’ is a saint’s name or not.

Thomas More shows no sign of dismay, but Chapuys…Chapuys is glaring at Sister Matthew as if she were the Antichrist made whole flesh.

Cromwell’s next question is no surprise. “Was it a happy marriage, madam?”

“As happy as a marriage between two soulmates can be, Master,” Sister Matthew replies, “for he bore my name as well: my real name, María del Pilar. I will not say that his family was eager for our marriage – no great lord would wish to see his son marry a freed slave – but at the same time they could not argue against the will of God, could they?”

Cromwell winds up his interrogation with a few questions regarding the date of her marriage, her nationality (as a slave she would have been effectively stateless, but old King Henry signed her naturalization shortly before her wedding), and her duties at the convent of St. Mary’s Usk before thanking her and retaking his seat. “Do you have any questions for Sister Matthew, Sir Thomas?” Lorenzo asks.

He rises. “I do, Your Eminence, but first I must also offer an apology. As a young man I witnessed the entrance into London of the then Infanta Catalina, and in a poem I caused to be published at the time I described Her Grace’s African slaves in a manner I now deeply regret. Will you forgive me for my harsh words, madam?”

“Most willingly, Sir Thomas,” she says, smiling again. “After all, I have been called many worse things over the course of my life than a ‘barefoot pygmy Ethiopian’.”

Someone in the gallery hoots derisively, but before Lorenzo can direct the warders to do something about it one of them has the miscreant – one of the apprentices, of course – by the scruff of the neck and is bodily hauling him out. “My apologies, Sister,” Lorenzo says. “Please continue, Sir Thomas.”

More nods. “I understand you were present when King Henry and Prince Arthur visited the Infanta’s encampment at Dogmersfield, was it?”

“I do not know the name of the town, but I was present when the King paid his visit, yes.”

“And what can you tell us about it?”

She begins to describe the scene – for she had been sleeping at the foot of the Infanta’s bed and was awoken to fetch the veil King Henry so abruptly lifted from Katherine’s face – but Sir Thomas is interested more in what was said about the soulmark than in any maidenly modesty of twenty years past. “You said that King Henry was advised of the Spanish tradition by the then Infanta’s confessor, Fray Diego,” he clarifies. “Was an English priest summoned to explain the English tradition to Her Grace?

“Not at the time, and – you will forgive me, as I was not in the Infanta’s presence constantly, but I do not remember anyone ever explaining the English system to her. Shortly before I married and left her service I remember her telling Doña Maria that Prince Henry’s mark would doubtless be her name, as they had just confirmed their betrothal.”

More nods his thanks. “That is all, Your Eminence.”

He thanks Sister Matthew and adjourns the court for the day, returning to his chamber with his notebook to find Gianni deeply engrossed in one of the volumes of the Historia. “What has you so captivated, son?” he asks as he takes a seat at the worktable.

“The life of King Richard II, sir. Virgili writes that he caused this room and the royal apartments to be built after Parliament refused to raise the poll tax, professing himself ‘wondrously inflamed by the stomach of the Commons’ and stating his intention to attend their next meeting in person. He also writes that Richard and his first wife were so devoted to each other that when she died he closed up the apartments at Blackfriars, ordered Sheen Palace demolished, and nearly killed a lord who arrived late to her funeral.” He looks up. “Maybe this English soulmate theory isn’t as benign as it seems.”

“Very few things are, as you will one day discover,” he says, sliding his notebook toward him. “The page I dogeared contains a faithful copy of Sister Matthew’s mark. Search the book of English saints for the name, if you would; I’ll take the Welsh book, and when we’re done we’ll switch.”

He opens his mouth but instead gets up and retrieves the booklets, handing the Welsh one to Lorenzo before retaking his seat. “I suppose I shouldn’t ask whether you think you’ll find the name or not?”

“I have my suspicions, but I’d prefer that you keep an open mind.”

Luckily the list is in strict alphabetical order, if one can consider such wonders of orthography as ‘Dd’ and ‘Ll’ true letters of the alphabet, and it takes him less than ten minutes to confirm that neither ‘Gruffydd’ nor its English phonetic, ‘Griffith’, are in the book. It is of course possible that a Welshman crossed the border one day and was martyred for his efforts, but a search through the much shorter list of English saints confirms that if he did, the Church didn’t notice.

“Sir?”

“The Welsh must have been extremely holy at one point, don’t you think?” he says. “Hundreds of saints, thousands perhaps, but not a single one named Gruffydd.”

He cocks a brow. “Does that mean you’ve proven the Spanish theory wrong?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I suppose it depends on Queen Katherine’s mark.”

He explains what he’s learned that day, including the salient fact that Sister Matthew attested to having gone through confirmation twice in Spain. “If anyone should have a saint’s mark it’s her, although of course only the first confirmation was a true sacrament. I wonder if the bishop knew she had been confirmed before; to knowingly celebrate a false sacrament is a serious crime.”

Gianni snorts. “He probably thought it didn’t stick the first time. Still, you have to ask yourself how many men have been burnt because some covetous wastrel denounced his neighbour for a reward. How much do they get anyway?”

“Half the condemned man’s estate in most cases. No wonder the Andalusians don’t show strangers their marks.”

The supper bell interrupts them, and not a moment too soon; he locks up their papers for the night and returns to his apartments, but one look at the greasy, glutinous mess that’s come up from the kitchens and he turns his head away in disgust. “Is the food in the refectory as bad?” he asks Rinaldo as he changes into his nightclothes later that night.

“Even worse,” he admits. “Antonio has been sending the boys out to the local tavern for their afternoon meal, an expense I assure you he would not dream of incurring were the King not remitting Your Eminence’s petty accounts.”

“I’d happily pay out of my own pocket to see them properly fed. In fact, don’t hesitate to take your own meals there.”

“And Your Eminence’s?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t afford to insult Father Prior by declining his hospitality – and yes, I am aware he takes most meals at his sister’s. That’s why the food’s so bad.”

Rinaldo just laughs.

Chapter Text

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let you know what you all already know: this won't be finished. I’ve recently been handed a diagnosis more final and more absolute than I’d like it to be. I might be around to comment for a while, but not to write. Doesn't that stink?

If you ever had any doubt, Mary's soulmark would have been Philip and Elizabeth I's soulmark would have been England.

So long, and thanks for all the kudos.