The Queen's Lady. Barbara Kyle

like trapped felons in the glare of the cresset lamps on the stairwell.

      Sir Thomas More stepped through the doorway.

      Seeing Anne—the wild hair, the naked breast—More froze. He was aware of a rustling sound and realized that he had stopped so abruptly the top papers on his armload of documents were spilling over his rigid grasp. A couple of scrolls fell at his feet, and papers kept fluttering down.

      Henry began to chuckle. Anne, tugging up her bodice, giggled. They looked at one another, then fell back on the cushions together, laughing like children.

      More lowered his head and sharply turned to leave.

      “Thomas, wait,” Henry sputtered. He was scuffling to his feet.

      “I beg pardon, Your Grace,” More said, his head still bowed to avert his eyes. He tried to purge his voice of emotion. “I believed Your Grace to be listening to the entertainment in the hall. Had I known…”

      “No matter, Thomas, no matter,” Henry said, still chuckling. He was helping Anne up as they both caught their breath. “The wretched fellows do not guard my door. It’s Wentworth’s blunder, not yours. Come in, come in. And close the door on that infernal light.”

      “Sadly, it is true, Your Grace,” More said, bending for the fallen papers. “Sir James’s people are in disarray at the sudden honor of your visit.”

      Henry swooped to help gather up the documents. “What’s all this?” he laughed. “Have you brought this confounded paperwork all the way from Westminster?” He turned back to Anne, smiling.

      “Just the backlog from Wolsey’s desk,” More said. He straightened and tried to regain his composure by shuffling the papers back into order in his arms. But, compounded with his shock, he was uncomfortably conscious of his own unkempt appearance. He had ridden from London that morning and knew the hours of travel showed in his bloodshot eyes, while the dark stubble that glinted with silver on his chin betrayed how many more hours he had been alone at work after joining the royal party; he had not expected to see the King before tomorrow morning. “The Hanse merchants are pressing for an answer about their lawsuit,” he said as if to justify his earnestness, then added lamely, “but that can wait.”

      Henry was ignoring him. He was kissing Anne’s fingers, lingering in her gaze. More watched. The lovers’ eyes were locked in a silent, private communion. Henry led her around him in a stately sweep as if they danced to some music only they could hear. His lips brushed her fingertips in farewell. She sailed past More with a mocking smile. He forced his gaze to the ground until she was gone.

      Henry moved to More’s side, chuckling as he loaded the papers into his own arms in one unwieldy bundle. He dumped the lot onto the table. “No paperwork now, Thomas. Look at the night. The stars!” He gestured to the window as if the night sky were his private treasure hoard.

      More smiled indulgently. “Your Grace is in a mood for stargazing?”

      Henry was unlatching a door in the far wall. “I am, my friend, I am.” He grinned over his shoulder. “And for your council, Thomas.”

      More sighed, then followed.

      The door opened onto a stone staircase that wound up the octagonal tower of the gatehouse. After several turns it brought them to a door that opened onto the tower’s flat roof. They stepped out into the night.

      The waning moon was a paring of silver among the silver stars. The roof was rimmed with a shoulder-high wall, notched with crenellations that had been added for defense during the civil strife of sixty years before. From these battlements, archers had once rained down death on any foe who dared breach the moat to attempt entry at the main gates. The house sprawled around a central courtyard where a troop of men had spilled out from rooms crammed with Henry’s entourage. They lounged at a campfire, tossing dice, and their laughter drifted up to the roof.

      Henry sucked in a deep breath of the cool air, a relief after the hot day. Above his head a flag gorgeous with the Tudor arms rippled from a pole in the center of the roof. He looked up at it and frowned. “Can’t get a clear view here.”

      He moved to the far wall where a bridge of wooden slats connected this gatehouse tower to a twin tower. Normal access to the other tower was along a guard walk topping the wall above the gate. But much of the masonry on the guard walk had crumbled dangerously away—its disrepair was a result of the long peace—and so the makeshift bridge had been strung out to span the thirty feet between the towers.

      Henry stepped onto the rickety bridge and beckoned More to follow him. More tensed. “Your Grace, the bridge does not look strong…”

      But Henry was already halfway across. The slats creaked underfoot. On the wall-walk fifteen feet directly below him, shards of jagged rubble glinted like fangs above the faint ground-floor torchlight. Henry stomped on. Safe on the other side, he turned and laughed. “It’s fine. Come on!”

      More followed, stepping gingerly. He slid his hands in jerks along the rough rope barriers on either side. Once across he breathed more freely.

      Henry flopped down in the center of the tower. He stretched out on his back and bent one arm to cushion his head. “What a night.” He pointed up. “Look, Thomas, the Pleiades dancing. There.”

      More sat beside him and drew up his knees and faced the stars. A feeling of contentment crept over him. A shared love of astronomy had been a bond between him and the King for years. He could recall many a balmy evening they had spent together on the lead roofs of Greenwich palace, pointing out constellations and discussing the movements of the sun and the planets through their crystal compartments that encapsulated the earth. “The seven daughters of Atlas,” he mused. “But Electra, the ‘lost Pleiad,’ never among them.”

      “No need for Electra,” Henry said. “Her sisters do a fine job, twinkling down at a man like ripe virgins.”

      More laughed softly. “Your Grace is merry tonight.”

      “I am, Thomas, I am. The air here is clean. Hunting’s been superb. I’ll say that for Wentworth. Best hunting all summer. And I’ve been on the move since Whitsuntide, you know, outrunning the cursed Sweat.”

      More sighed. He knew. He had followed the King through most of his panicked moves after the sweating sickness had broken out in Greenwich in June. Henry had fled the palace and ordered the poor of the town herded out in an attempt to halt the disease. While the Queen had stoically remained at Bridewell, Henry had shunted around the country from one friend’s house to another, his host’s purse invariably emptied by the honor of victualing the huge retinue of gentlemen, servants, clerks and musicians that crowded in after the King. He had kept his doctor at his elbow, hurried several times a day to Mass, and every evening confessed his sins. He feared sleeping alone, and had his friend, Francis Bryant, sleep on a straw pallet at the foot of his bed. More shook his head. What lengths we go to, he thought, to try to outfox death.

      “At Hampton last night,” Henry murmured, “Robert Wodehouse died.”

      “I heard,” More said, lowering his voice in sympathy. He thought he read fear on the King’s face: the dread of his own mortality.

      Henry sat up. “We were boys together—Robert, Will Parr, and I. Trained together. Entered the jousting lists together.” He managed a weak smile. “Robert even unseated me. Once.” The smile crumbled. “He was two years younger than I.” Absently, he fingered the walnut-sized emerald on a golden chain around his neck. The laughter from the men at the campfire sifted over the battlements.

      “All quiet now, eh, Thomas?” Henry said, jerking his chin in the direction of the laughter. “But it was not always so. During the Troubles, Wentworth’s grandfather was murdered below this very tower. Did you know? He’d betrayed York, you see. Fed information to the Lancastrians so they could ambush a Yorkist brigade on the road to St. Albans. A week later Edward of York marched into London and took the crown. But not before his knights had settled the score with old Wentworth. Hacked him to pieces on his own drawbridge.” He shook his head. “My God, the