Hilary Mantel Collection. Hilary Mantel

rolls his eyes. ‘Because she talks to the saints on high. They'd know.’

      He looks at Riche and it is as if he can read his thoughts: Niccolò's book says, the wise prince exterminates the envious, and if I, Riche, were king, those claimants and their families would be dead. The girl is braced for the next question: how is it she has seen two queens in her vision? ‘I suppose it will sort itself out,’ he says, ‘in the fighting? It's good to have a few kings and queens in reserve, if you're going to start a war in a country.’

      ‘It is not necessary to have a war,’ the nun says. Oh? Sir Purse sits up: this is new. ‘God is sending a plague on England instead. Henry will be dead in six months. So will she, Thomas Boleyn's daughter.’

      ‘And me?’

      ‘You too.’

      ‘And all in this room? Except you, of course? All including Alice Wellyfed, who never did you harm?’

      ‘All the women of your house are heretics, and the plague will rot them body and soul.’

      ‘And what about the princess Elizabeth?’

      She turns in her seat, to aim her words at Cranmer. ‘They say when you christened her you warmed the water to spare her a shock. You should have poured it boiling.’

      Oh, Christ in Heaven, Riche says. He throws his pen down. He is a tender young father, with a daughter in the cradle.

      He drops a consoling hand on his, the Solicitor General's. You would think Alice would need consoling; but when the Maid condemned her to death, he had looked down the room at his niece to note that her face was the perfect picture of derision. He says to Riche, ‘She didn't think it up herself, the boiling water. It is a thing they are saying on the streets.’

      Cranmer huddles into himself; the Maid has bruised him, she has scored a point. He, Cromwell, says, ‘I saw the princess yesterday. She is thriving, in spite of her ill-wishers.’ His voice suggests calm: we must get the archbishop back in the saddle. He turns to the Maid: ‘Tell me: did you locate the cardinal?’

      ‘What?’ Audley says.

      ‘Dame Elizabeth said she would look out for my old master, on one of her excursions to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, and I offered to pay her travelling expenses on the occasion. I gave her people a down-payment – I hope we see some progress?’

      ‘Wolsey would have had another fifteen years of life,’ the girl says. He nods: he has said the same himself. ‘But then God cut him off, as an example. I have seen devils disputing for his soul.’

      ‘You know the result?’ he asks.

      ‘There is no result. I searched for him all over. I thought God had extinguished him. Then one night I saw him.’ A long, tactical hesitation. ‘I saw his soul seated among the unborn.’

      There is a silence. Cranmer shrinks in his seat. Riche gently nibbles the end of his pen. Audley twists a button on his sleeve, round and round till the thread tightens.

      ‘If you like I can pray for him,’ the Maid says. ‘God usually answers my requests.’

      ‘Formerly, when you had your advisers about you, Father Bocking and Father Gold and Father Risby and the rest, you would start bargaining at this point. I would propose a further sum for your goodwill, and your spiritual directors would drive it up.’

      ‘Wait.’ Cranmer lays a hand over his ribcage. ‘Can we go back? Lord Chancellor?’

      ‘We can go in any direction you choose, my lord archbishop. Three times round the mulberry bush …’

      ‘You see devils?’

      She nods.

      ‘They appear how?’

      ‘Birds.’

      ‘A relief,’ Audley says drily.

      ‘No, sir. Lucifer stinks. His claws are deformed. He comes as a cockerel smeared in blood and shit.’

      He looks up at Alice. He is ready to send her out. He thinks, what has been done to this woman?

      Cranmer says, ‘That must be disagreeable for you. But it is a characteristic of devils, I understand, to show themselves in more than one way.’

      ‘Yes. They do it to deceive you. He comes as a young man.’

      ‘Indeed?’

      ‘Once he brought a woman. To my cell at night.’ She pauses. ‘Pawing her.’

      Riche: ‘He is known to have no shame.’

      ‘No more than you.’

      ‘And what then, Dame Elizabeth? After the pawing?’

      ‘Pulled up her skirts.’

      ‘And she didn't resist?’ Riche says. ‘You surprise me.’

      Audley says, ‘Prince Lucifer, I don't doubt he has a way with him.’

      ‘Before my eyes, he had to do with her, on my bed.’

      Riche makes a note. ‘This woman, did you know her?’ No answer. ‘And the devil did not try the same with you? You can speak freely. It will not be held against you.’

      ‘He came to sweet-talk me. Swaggering in his blue silk coat, it's the best he has. And new hose with diamonds down his legs.’

      ‘Diamonds down his legs,’ he says. ‘Now that must have been a temptation?’

      She shakes her head.

      ‘But you are a fine young woman – good enough for any man, I'd say.’

      She looks up; a flicker of a smile. ‘I am not for Master Lucifer.’

      ‘What did he say when you refused him?’

      ‘He asked me to marry him.’ Audley puts his head in his hands. ‘I said I was vowed to chastity.’

      ‘Was he not angry when you would not consent?’

      ‘Oh yes. He spat in my face.’

      ‘I would expect no better of him,’ Riche says.

      ‘I wiped his spit off with a napkin. It's black. It has the stench of Hell.’

      ‘What is that like?’

      ‘Like something rotting.’

      ‘Where is it now, the napkin? I suppose you didn't send it to the laundry?’

      ‘Dom Edward has it.’

      ‘Does he show it to people? For money?’

      ‘For offerings.’

      ‘For money.’

      Cranmer takes his face from his hands. ‘Shall we pause?’

      ‘A quarter hour?’ Riche says.

      Audley: ‘I told you he was young and hearty.’

      ‘Perhaps we will meet tomorrow,’ Cranmer says. ‘I need to pray. And a quarter of an hour will not do it.’

      ‘But tomorrow is Sunday,’ the nun says. ‘There was a man who went out hunting on a Sunday and he fell down a bottomless pit into Hell. Imagine that.’

      ‘How was it bottomless,’ Riche asks, ‘if Hell was there to receive him?’

      ‘I wish I were going hunting,’ Audley says. ‘Christ knows, I'd take a chance on it.’

      Alice rises from her stool and signals for her escort. The Maid gets to her feet. She is smiling broadly. She has made the archbishop flinch, and himself grow cold, and the Solicitor General all but weep with her talk of scalded babies. She thinks she is winning; but she is losing, losing, losing all the time. Alice puts a gentle hand on her arm, but the Maid shakes it off.

      Outside,