“This is a great alliance I have made,” Henry declares to the queen, and all his friends and courtiers nod. “And your father, madam, will regret the day that he tried to play me for a fool. He will learn who is the greater man. He will learn who will be the maker and breaker of the kingdoms of Europe.”

Katherine lowers her eyes so that he cannot see the flash of her temper. I see her grip her hands together so tightly that the rings are biting into her swollen fingers.

“I do think, my lord . . .” she begins.

“There is no need for you to think,” he overrules her. “All you can do for England is give us a son. I have the command of my country, I do the thinking; you shall have the making of my heir.”

She sweeps him a curtsey, she manages a smile. She manages to avoid the avid gaze of the court who have just heard a princess of Spain reprimanded by a Tudor, and she turns to walk back towards Dover Castle. I go half a step behind her. When we are in the lee of the wall that overlooks the sea, she turns and takes my arm as if she needs the support.

“I am sorry,” I say inadequately, flushing for his rudeness.

She gives a little shrug. “When I have a son . . .” she says.

GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1514

“Did he give you a great kick?” I ask, smiling.

She doubles up, folding like a paper queen, and blindly reaches out a hand for me. “I have a pain. I have a pain.”

“No!” I say, and take her hand as her legs give way and she goes down. I drop to my knees beside her as her ladies come running. She looks up at me, her eyes black with fear and her face as white as one of the sails of the ships on the river, and she says: “Say nothing! This will pass.”

At once I turn to Bessie, and to Elizabeth Bryan. “You heard Her Grace. You two say nothing, and let’s get her inside.”

We are about to lift her when she suddenly screams loudly, as if someone has run her through with a spear. At once, half a dozen yeomen of the guard dash to her, but skid to a halt when they see her on the ground. They dare not touch her, her body is sacred. They are at a loss as to what they should do.

“Fetch a chair!” I snap at them, and one runs back. They come from the palace with a wooden chair with arms and a back, and we ladies help her into it. They carry the chair carefully to the palace, the beautiful palace on the river where Henry was born, the lucky palace for the Tudors, and we take her into the darkened room.

It is only half prepared, since she is more than a month before her time, but she goes into labor despite the rules in the great book of the court. The midwives look grim; the housemaids rush in with clean linen, hot water, tapestries for the walls, carpets for the tables, all the things that were being made ready but are suddenly needed now. Her pains come long and slow, as they prepare the room around her. A day and a night later the room is perfect, but still the baby has not been born.

She leans back on the richly embroidered pillows and scans the bowed heads of her ladies as they kneel in prayer. I know that she is looking for me and I stand up and go towards her. “Pray for me,” she whispers. “Please, Margaret, go to the chapel and pray for me.”

I find myself kneeling beside Bessie, our hands gripped on the chancel rail. I glance sideways, and see her blue eyes are filled with tears. “Pray God that it is a boy and comes soon,” she whispers to me, trying to smile.

“Amen,” I say. “And healthy.”

“There is no reason, is there, Lady Salisbury, why the queen should not have a boy?”

Stoutly, I shake my head. “No reason at all. And if anyone ever asks you, if anyone at all ever asks you, Bessie, you owe it to Her Grace to say that you know of no reason why she should not have a healthy son.”

She sits back on her heels. “He asks,” she confides. “He does ask.”

I am appalled. “What does he ask?”

“He asks if the queen talks privately to her friends, to you and to her ladies. He asks if she is anxious about bearing a child. He asks if there is some secret difficulty.”

“And what do you tell him?” I ask. I am careful to keep the burn of anger out of my voice.

“I tell him I don’t know.”

“You tell him this,” I say firmly. “Tell him that the queen is a great lady—that’s true, isn’t it?”

Pale with concentration, she nods.

“Tell him that she is a true wife to him—that’s true, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes.”

“And that she serves the country as queen and serves him as a loving partner and helpmeet. He could have no better woman at his side, a princess by birth and a queen by marriage.”

“I know she is. I do know.”

“Then, if you know so much, tell him that there is no doubt that their marriage is good in the sight of God as it is before us all, and that a son will come to bless them. But he has to be patient.”

She gives a pretty little moue with her mouth and a shrug of her shoulders. “You know, I can’t tell him all that. He doesn’t listen to me.”

“But he asks you? You just said that he asks you!”

“I think he asks everyone. But he doesn’t listen to anyone, except perhaps the Bishop Wolsey. It’s natural that he should, my lord being so wise and knowing the will of God and everything.”

“At any rate, don’t tell him that his marriage is invalid,” I say bluntly. “I would never forgive you, Bessie, if you said something like that. It would be wicked. It would be a lie. God would never forgive you for such a lie. And the queen would be hurt.”

Fervently, she shakes her head and the pearls on her new headdress bob and shine in the candlelight. “I never would! I love the queen. But I can only tell the king what he wants to hear. You know that as well as I.”

I go back into the confinement chamber and stay with Katherine through her labor until the pains come faster and faster and she hauls on a knotted cord and the midwives throw handfuls of pepper in her face to make her sneeze. She is gasping for breath, the tears pouring down her face, her eyes and nostrils burning with the harsh spice, as she screams in pain and with a rush of blood the baby is born. The midwife pounces on him, hauls him out like a wriggling fish, and cuts the cord. The rocker enfolds him in a pure linen cloth and then a blanket of wool, and holds him up for the queen to see. She is blinded with tears and choking with the pepper and with the pain. “Is it a boy?” she demands.