It’s little and late. The king has not given the commanders money enough to pay the men, and they are so badly shod and there are so few on horses that they can’t get north fast enough. Anyway, they all know that when the king’s army sees the pilgrim badge they’ll desert, taking their weapons with them. And Thomas Howard is complaining that he is supposed to hold down Yorkshire with nothing, while all the money and troops go to George Talbot and the credit will go to Charles Brandon. The king does not know who his friends are, or how to keep them; how should he face his enemies?

Best of all, Norfolk has authority to treat with the rebels and he is bound to grant them the saving of the abbeys. If we can make the princess safe too in this moment, then this will be a great victory.

I’ll send you news as soon as I have it. The royal army and the pilgrims are bound to meet in battle and the pilgrims outnumber them by many thousands. And all the hosts of heaven are on our side too.

Burn this.

I am in the flesh kitchen at Bisham watching the hunt bring in the deer. They had two great buck and a hind and they dressed the meat in the field to stop it spoiling and now hang it in the cool stone-floored room to drip blood in the gutters.

“They hung our friend Legh just like that,” the Master of the Hounds remarks quietly to me.

Carefully, I don’t turn my head. It looks as if the two of us are inspecting the flayed carcass.

“Did they?” I ask. “Thomas Legh who came here, to close the priory?”

“Yes,” he said with quiet satisfaction. “On the gates of Lincoln. And the Bishop of Lincoln’s chancellor. He that gave evidence against the sainted queen. It’s like it’s all coming to rights, isn’t it, your ladyship?”

I smile, but I take care to say nothing.

“And is your son Reginald coming soon with a holy army?” he says in the lowest whisper. “It would make the commons glad to know it.”

“Soon,” I say, and he bows and leaves.

We have eaten the venison, and made pasties, and made soup from the bones, and given the bones to the hounds before we get news from Doncaster where the lords, gentry, and commons of the North drew up in battle order against the king’s army, my two sons on the wrong side, biding their time, ready to cross over. Montague sends a messenger to me.

The pilgrims brought their demands to Thomas Howard. He was lucky that they agreed to parlay; if they had fought he would have been destroyed. There must have been more than thirty thousand of them, and led by every gentleman and lord in Yorkshire. The king’s army is hungry and cold, the countryside around here being very poor and no man wishing us well. I have been given no money to pay my men, and the others are marching for even less than I have promised. The weather is bad too, and they say there is pestilence in the town.

The pilgrims have won this war and now present their demands. They want the faith of our fathers to be restored, that the law should be restored, that the noble advisors to the king should be restored, and that Cromwell, Richard Riche, and the heretic bishops be banished. There is not a man in the king’s army, including Thomas Howard, who does not agree. Charles Brandon encourages them also. It’s what we’ve all been thinking since the king first turned against the queen and took Cromwell as his advisor. So Thomas Howard is to ride to the king with the pilgrims’ request for general pardon, and an agreement to restore the old ways.

Lady Mother, I am so hopeful.

Burn this.

L’ERBER, LONDON, NOVEMBER 1536

I do not promise them the treat of attending a full coronation, but they know that the king has promised to crown his wife, and the ceremony should take place on All Hallows’ Day. My own belief is that he will not be able to afford a great coronation while he is sending men and arms north, and he will be furious and frightened all at once. He will not be able to stride out in confidence before a crowd, and let everyone admire him and his beautiful new wife. This rebellion has shaken him, and while he is like this, thrown back into his childhood fears that he is not good enough, he simply will not be able to plan a great ceremony.

As soon as I have arrived and prayed in my chapel I go to my presence chamber, to meet with all the tenants and petitioners who want to see me, bid me a merry Christmas, make their requests, and pay their seasonal fines and rents. Among them is a man I recognize, a priest and friend of my exiled chaplain, John Helyar.

“You can leave me,” I say to my grandson Harry.

He looks up at me, his face bright and willing. “I can stay with you, Lady Grandmother, I can be your page. I’m not tired of standing.”

“No,” I say. “But I could be here all day. You can go down to the stables and you can go out into the streets; you can have a look around.”

He gives a little bow and shoots from the room like a loosed arrow, and only then do I nod to Helyar’s friend in greeting and indicate to my steward that he can step forward and speak with me.

“Father Richard Langgrische of Havant,” he reminds me.

“Of course,” I smile.

“I have greetings from your son, Geoffrey. I have been with him in the king’s army in the North,” he says.

“I am glad to hear of it,” I say clearly. “I am glad that my son is prospering in the king’s service. Is my son well?”

“Both your sons are well,” he says. “And confident that these troubles will soon be over.”

I nod. “You can dine in hall tonight, if you wish.”

He bows. “I thank you.”

Someone else steps forward with some complaint about the cost of ale in one of my tenant alehouses and the steward steps to my side and takes a note of the problem.

“Get that man to my chamber before dinner,” I say quietly. “Make sure no one sees him.”

He does not blink. He merely writes down the claim that the ale has been watered and that the jugs are not full measure and waves the next petitioner forward.

Langgrische is waiting for me by the little fire in my bedroom, concealed like a secret lover. I can’t restrain a smile. It’s been a long time since there was a man waiting for me in my bedroom; I have been a widow now for thirty-two years.