Tyndale's Bible says, with God shall nothing be unpossible. ‘If not out of the Tower, then when you are taken to be questioned, that will be your chance. Be ready to take it.’

‘But to what purpose?’ Frith speaks kindly, as if speaking to a young pupil. ‘You think you can keep me at your house and wait for the king to change his mind? I should have to break out of there, and walk to Paul's Cross, and say before the Londoners what I have already said.’

‘Your witness cannot wait?’

‘Not on Henry. I might wait till I was old.’

‘They will burn you.’

‘And you think I cannot bear the pain. You are right, I cannot. But they will give me no choice. As More says, it hardly makes a man a hero, to agree to stand and burn once he is chained to a stake. I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what I believe. I cannot unlive my life.’

He leaves him. Four o'clock: the river traffic sparse, a fine and penetrative vapour creeping between air and water.

Next day, a day of crisp blue cold, the king comes down in the royal barge to see the progress of the work, with the new French envoy; they are confidential, the king walking with a hand on de Dinteville's shoulder, or rather on his padding; the Frenchman is wearing so many layers that he seems broader than the doorways, but he is still shivering. ‘Our friend here must get some sport to warm his blood,’ the king says, ‘and he is a bungler with the bow – when we went into the butts last, he shook so much I thought he would shoot himself in the foot. He complains we are not serious falconers, so I have said he should go out with you, Cromwell.’

Is this a promise of time off? The king strolls away and leaves them. ‘Not if it's cold like this,’ the envoy says. ‘I'm not standing in a field with the wind whistling, it will be the death of me. When shall we see the sun again?’

‘Oh, about June. But the falcons will be moulting by then. I aim to have mine flying again in August, so nil desperandum, monsieur, we shall have some sport.’

‘You wouldn't postpone this coronation, would you?’ It's always so; after a little chaff and chat, out of his mouth pops an ambassador's purpose. ‘Because when my master made the treaty, he didn't expect Henry to be flaunting his supposed wife and her big belly. If he were to keep her quietly, it would be a different matter.’

He shakes his head. There will be no postponement. Henry claims he has the support of the bishops, the nobles, judges, Parliament and the people; Anne's coronation is his chance to prove it. ‘Never mind,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow we entertain the papal nuncio. You will see how my master will manage him.’

Henry calls down to them, from the walls, ‘Come up here, sir, see the prospect of my river.’

‘Do you wonder I shake?’ the Frenchman says with passion. ‘Do you wonder I tremble before him? My river. My city. My salvation, cut out and embroidered just for me. My personally tailored English god.’ He swears under his breath, and begins to climb.

When the papal nuncio comes to Greenwich, Henry takes him by the hand and tells him frankly how his ungodly councillors torment him, and how he longs for a return of perfect amity with Pope Clement.

You could watch Henry every day for a decade and not see the same thing. Choose your prince: he admires Henry more and more. Sometimes he seems hapless, sometimes feckless, sometimes a child, sometimes master of his trade. Sometimes he seems an artist, in the way his eye ranges over his work; sometimes his hand moves and he doesn't seem to see it move. If he had been called to a lower station in life, he could have been a travelling player, and leader of his troupe.

At Anne's command, he brings his nephew to court, Gregory too; Rafe the king already knows, for he is always at his elbow. The king stands gazing for a long time at Richard. ‘I see it. Indeed I do.’

There is nothing in Richard's face, as far as he can see, to show that he has Tudor blood, but the king is looking at him with the eye of a man who wants relatives. ‘Your grandfather ap Evan the archer was a great servant to the king my father. You have a fine build. I should like to see you in the tilt yard. I should like to see you carry your colours in the joust.’

Richard bows. And then the king, because he is the essence of courtesy, turns to Gregory, and says, ‘And you, Master Gregory, you are a very fine young man too.’

As the king walks away, Gregory's face opens in simple pleasure. He puts his hand on his arm, the place the king has touched, as if transferring regal grace to his fingertips. ‘He is very splendid. He is so splendid. Beyond anything I ever thought. And to speak to me!’ He turns to his father. ‘How do you manage to speak to him every day?’

Richard gives him a sideways look. Gregory thumps him on the arm. ‘Never mind your grandfather the archer, what would he say if he knew your father was that big?’ He shows between finger and thumb the stature of Morgan Williams. ‘I have been riding at the ring these many years. I have been riding at the Saracen's image and putting my lance just so, thud, right over his black Saracen's heart.’

‘Yes,’ Richard says patiently, ‘but, squib, you will find a living knight a tougher proposition than a wooden infidel. You never think of the cost – armour of show quality, a stable of trained horses –’

‘We can afford it,’ he says. ‘It seems our days as foot soldiers are behind us.’

That night at Austin Friars he asks Richard to come to speak with him alone after supper. Possibly he is at fault, in putting it as a business proposition, spelling out to him what Anne has suggested about his marriage. ‘Build nothing on it. We have yet to get the king's approval.’

Richard says, ‘But she doesn't know me.’

He waits, for objections; not knowing someone, is that an objection? ‘I won't force you.’

Richard looks up. ‘Are you sure?’

When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, ‘No, you don't, I agree, it's just that you are practised at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on.’

‘I know Lady Carey is older than you, but she is very beautiful, I think the most beautiful woman at court, and she is not as witless as everyone thinks, and she has not got any of her sister's malice in her.’ In a strange way, he thinks, she has been a good friend to me. ‘And instead of being the king's unrecognised cousin, you would be his brother-in-law. We would all profit.’

‘A title, perhaps. For me, and for you. Brilliant matches for Alice and Jo. What about Gregory? A countess at least for him.’ Richard's voice is flat. Is he talking himself into it? It's hard to tell. With many people, most people perhaps, the book of their heart lies open to him, but there are times when it's easier to read outsiders than your own family. ‘And Thomas Boleyn would be my father-in-law. And Uncle Norfolk would really be our uncle.’

‘Imagine his face.’

‘Oh, his face. Yes, one would go barefoot over hot coals to see his expression.’

‘Think about it. Don't tell anybody.’

Richard goes out with a bob of the head but without another word. It seems he interprets ‘don't tell anybody’ as ‘don't tell anybody but Rafe’, because ten minutes later Rafe comes in, and stands looking at him, with his eyebrows raised. Red-headed people can look quite strained when they are raising eyebrows that aren't really there. He says, ‘You need not tell Richard that Mary Boleyn once proposed herself to me. There's nothing between us. It won't be like Wolf Hall, if that's what you're thinking.’

‘And what if the bride thinks different? I wonder you don't marry her to Gregory.’

‘Gregory is too young. Richard is twenty-three, it is a good age to marry if you can afford it. And you have passed it – it's time you married too.’

‘I'm going, before you find a Boleyn for me.’ Rafe turns back and says softly, ‘Only this, sir, and I think it is what gives Richard pause … all our lives and fortunes depend now on that lady, and as well as being mutable she is mortal, and the whole history of the king's marriage tells us a child in the womb is not an heir in the cradle.’

In March, news comes from Calais that Lord Berners has died. The afternoon in his library, the storm blowing outside: it seems when he looks back a haven of peace, the last hour he had to himself. He wants to make an offer for his books – a generous one, to help Lady Berners – but the folios seem to have jumped off their desks and walked, some in the direction of Francis Bryan, the old man's nephew, and some to another connection of his, Nicholas Carew. ‘Would you forgive his debts,’ he asks Henry, ‘at least for his wife's lifetime? You know he leaves –’