Pity squeezed Honor's heart. How the Queen must have suffered through these past months. "The King's great matter," that's what everyone called it. Such a pompous phrase, Honor thought with scorn. What was so grand, she wanted to know, about a man in middle years infatuated to the point of irrationality? But the besotted King had actually asked the Pope to annul his marriage. Now, the Queen-everyone-was waiting for the decision from Rome.

Honor knew that if the Pope were to grant the King his wish the consequences for the Queen could be terrible: imprisonment in a convent, the bastardization of their twelve-year-old daughter, the Princess Mary-even, perhaps, the Queen's murder finessed by some overzealous minion of Wolsey.

And it had all begun, Honor realized with some wonder, while she was living at Chelsea, playing at archery and musing over Plato, blithely ignorant of the dark currents swirling at court and in Rome. After eighteen years with Catherine of Aragon as his wife, King Henry had privately commanded Cardinal Wolsey to dissolve the marriage. Wolsey had special authority, being a papal legate, and the King had apparently assumed that the Pope's agreement would be automatic; annulments of royal marriages were not uncommon.

The King had grounds, strange and shaky though they seemed to Honor. The marriage was the King's first, but it was the Queen's second, and that was the crux of his argument. When the King had married her Catherine had been the widow of his brother, Arthur. Scripture technically forbade matrimony with a brother's wife, so it had been necessary, all those years ago, to secure from the former Pope a dispensation to allow the union. Therefore, when the King decided he wanted his freedom, Cardinal Wolsey had called a secret tribunal and pronounced judgment that the Queen's second marriage-outlawed, after all, by scripture-had never been legal; that the King was, in the eyes of God, a bachelor. But then, before anyone-even the Queen-had been told the tribunal's extraordinary verdict, the unthinkable had happened in Rome. The Emperor Charles's mutinous troops had sacked the city, inflicting a massacre that had shaken Europe to its core. And Charles-Holy Roman Emperor of the vast German lands, ruler of Flanders, King of Spain, lord of the limitless New World-was Queen Catherine's nephew.

Overnight, King Henry's dream of a quick divorce had evaporated, for as soon as the Queen was told of his decision to cast her aside she dispatched an appeal to the Pope, a man now wholly under the domination of her invincible nephew. The English King's private matrimonial case had suddenly exploded into an international crisis. The dithering Pope, badgered by the King's envoys one day and threatened by the Emperor's the next, wrung his hands, it was said, and wept like a woman before all of them-and stalled. For nine months the King and Queen had remained at this impasse.

And Cardinal Wolsey's impatience with the Queen had grown thin. Everyone knew he chafed at what he saw as her intransigence against the King's wishes. Worse, he feared military intervention by the Emperor's forces. So he kept the Queen a virtual prisoner in her own palace. He maintained informants in her household, read every letter he could lay hands on that went from her desk, and refused to let her see the Emperor's ambassador in private. Nevertheless, Honor knew that the Queen had managed to eke out a fragile line of communication using her secretary, Walter, her confessor, Dr. de Athequa, and Ambassador Mendoza to get her letters across to Charles in Spain. But now, Wolsey had discovered at least one link of that lifeline, and had broken it.

"Please, allow me, my lady," Honor urged. "I can do everything Walter did. I can write your letters. You know my Latin is as good as his. And I could deliver them, too."

Catherine's wary expression had not changed. "Would you? Why?"

Honor hesitated, but only to search for the most concise words. She said simply, "You have been wronged."

Catherine's breath flew out of her as if she had been physically struck by the justice of the statement. "God knows!" she cried. Impulsively, she reached for Honor's hand in a gesture as filled with passion as her previous motions had been with caution. "I knew you were one to be trusted!" Quickly, she controlled herself. "But, my dear, there are grave risks. I am not at all sure it is right to ask such dangerous things of you."

"You are asking nothing, Your Grace. I am offering. And as for risk," she shrugged, "I have tasted of that before now."

Catherine's grasp on Honor's hand tightened. "Oh, I will thank Our Lord for sending you to me."

Honor's smile contained a glint of playfulness. "Do not forget to thank Sir Thomas, too, my lady, for my Latin. Had he not transformed the barbarian in me, I would be no good to you at all."

She was glad to see the warm smile that the Queen returned. "Indeed," Catherine replied with feeling. "A prayer will go, as well, for More, my dear friend." Her manner quickly sobered. "Can you begin at once, my dear?"

"Of course."

"Good. It is imperative that I tell Charles to send me lawyers. Ones experienced in dealing with the Roman court. The Cardinal has cowed the English advocates. I must have men from Charles's Flemish provinces, immune to Wolsey's threats. And I must have them now."

Honor quickly sat and took up pen and paper. She wrote at length, following the Queen's Latin dictation. With the plea to the Emperor completed, Honor folded the letter. "And now, my lady," she said, "where shall I find Dr. de Athequa?"

Catherine frowned. With a sudden movement she came to the table, took up the letter, and held it to her bosom. "No. I have changed my mind. You shall not endanger yourself for me. I'll find another way."

Honor bit her lip. She was not afraid; was ready to take the risk. But she knew, too, that she had no business contradicting a Queen. "How, my lady?" she asked gently. "There is no other way."

"One must be found. The Cardinal may have already squeezed poor Walter for de Athequa's name. I will not cast you, too, into such perilous seas."

Honor sat silent a moment. Suddenly, she brightened. "The masque," she said.

"Masque?"

"Tonight. At my lord Cardinal's. He is hosting a masque for the King and the Lady, and . . ." She saw the Queen flinch, and stopped. "The Lady" was the title that everyone at court, whatever their allegiance, applied to Anne Boleyn.

"Pardon, Your Grace," Honor went on, hating to give the Queen pain. "But you see, as Sir Thomas is invited to the masque, I am too. And Ambassador Mendoza is sure to be among the guests. I can take the letter directly to him. It will be so easy. No need to go through Dr. de Athequa at all."

Catherine appeared hopeful, but unconvinced.

"I promise," Honor smiled, "I shall take every care."

Catherine looked for a long moment into Honor's eyes. Then, with a small, grave nod, she gave her consent. She touched Honor's cheek with a gesture of motherly affection. "Every care," she said earnestly. "I'll have no ill befall you." Her warm smile broke through. "Else, how shall I answer to Sir Thomas?"

A hundred candles blazed in Cardinal Wolsey's great hall at Hampton Court. Wall-sized Flemish tapestries-miracles of artistry in gold, ruby, and sky blue threads-shimmered with larger-than-life-size scenes of the Virtues and the Vices. Many of the latter were being enacted with relish among the gaudily dressed crowd of ladies and gentlemen. Their laughing voices and the scuffle of their dancing feet all but drowned out the lusty efforts of thirty musicians in the minstrels' gallery. The pungency of spiced wine and roasted meats on side tables mingled in the air with sweet herbs crushed underfoot, and with perfumed sweat. The King had disappeared soon after the dancing had begun. So had the Lady. But the revelers carried on.

Honor skirted the perimeter of dancers and moved toward the doors. She tried to keep her walk unhurried, tried not to show her excitement. She passed several groups, and could hardly believe that no one noticed her heightened color. Matrons gossiped and munched beside the food-laden tables. Gentlemen gambled noisily over dice in an alcove. Girls cooed around one of their number who had partnered a duke's son. In the distance, gray-haired statesmen conferring under the gallery surrounded the corpulent figure of Wolsey swathed in his red cardinal's robes. Honor's hands felt clammy as she thought of Wolsey, but she walked on. No one stopped her as she left the hall.

She was responding to the signal Ambassador Mendoza had given her. Upon her arrival an hour ago she had gone to him, and they had arranged the signal in a swift, whispered exchange. When he gave it, he told her, she was to wait a quarter hour, then meet him outside in the garden. So she had waited-had watched the dancers complete a galliard; had rejected two offers to dance; had been jostled by an angry gambler loudly searching for a man who owed him money. The wait had seemed endless.

The hardest trial had been keeping her secret from Sir Thomas. Seeing her, he had detached himself from the circle of statesmen around Wolsey, and, smiling, had come to speak to her. She knew that, councilor and friend to the King though he was, Sir Thomas sympathized with the Queen, and she could barely contain herself as he commented on the gathering and quipped about the young coxcombs. Her mission for the Queen had almost bubbled out of her.

Now, past all of these distractions, she made her way outside to the knot garden that overlooked the river.

Under moonlight, a dusting of undisturbed snow glinted over the frozen garden. The chill air bit Honor's throat as she hurried with quick breaths along a gravel walk. She hugged herself against the cold-she had left her cloak inside, for donning it might have aroused suspicion. She made for a latticed structure at the end of the walk. It was a kind of bower, three-sided, and covered over with cut holly boughs. A month before, Wolsey had ordered it erected for his comfort during a day of Christmas festivities when a choir of children sang for him and his household.

Honor saw a movement beside the bower-the swirl of a long robe-and recognized the shadowed silhouette of the Imperial ambassador. She reached the spot, and saw that he was shivering: he, too, had foreseen the imprudence of wearing his cloak. Don Inigo de Mendoza was a wiry, middle-aged Spaniard of high family and haughty disposition, and Honor could not suppress a smile at the sight of the proud gentleman clutching his robe's collar to his chin, shoulders hunched, teeth chattering.

"Ah! Mistress Larke," he whispered, taking her elbow, plainly anxious to get on with their business. Together, they stepped into the bower. Honor passed him the Queen's letter. She said, "Her Grace needs this in the Emperor's hands immediately." Mendoza nodded, then quickly left the bower. His footsteps crunched on the icy path, then faded to nothing. The mission had been accomplished in a moment.

Honor felt cheated: what an anticlimactic end to her hours of trepidation! She smiled at her own disappointment. What, after all, had she expected? That Cardinal Wolsey himself would spring up out of a garden urn? Shake snow off his great bulk and command her arrest? No. All was quiet. From windows in the hall, music reached her in faint pulses. She looked down at the River Thames. Lanterns bobbed among the clutter of ferries and barges tethered to the pier where bundled-up boatmen waited to carry guests back to the city. From the pier, blazing torches lined the way up to the palace terrace. No band of guards was marching toward her to take her off to prison. She shrugged with a smile.

She was freezing. She took a step to leave the bower. A man's voice startled her.

"A dangerous business, mistress."

Honor halted. The voice had come from inside the bower. She turned. A man was sitting on a bench tucked into the corner. He sat sideways, his feet on the bench, his knees drawn up under a heavy cloak. His face was completely in shadow under the holly boughs.

Honor took a wary step back. She and Mendoza had said little in their meeting, but it was enough.

"Yes," the man said quietly. "I heard." Three words only, but their sum was an unmistakable threat.

Honor swallowed. In the confined space she smelled brandy from his breath. She noticed a leather bottle lying on the bench beside him. Perhaps, she thought, he was nothing more than a drunkard, come out here to drink alone. Could she turn his intimidation around, use it against him? "What are you doing in the Cardinal's garden?" she asked sternly.

He gave a sharp nod toward the palace and snorted. "Avoiding a jackass inside. Claims I owe him dice money. And he's been known to rely on his sword to settle accounts." He chuckled. "No gentleman, I fear."

He had not moved. Lounging against the bower wall, he seemed to Honor harmless enough. "Good night, sir," she said firmly. She moved to go.

His sword scraped from its scabbard. The blade shot across the bower opening, blocking Honor's escape. She gasped.

"Oh, don't go yet, Mistress Larke," he said calmly.

"How do you know my name?" she asked, unnerved.

"Your tryst partner greeted you by it. As I said, I do have ears." In a sudden, clean movement, he swung his legs to the ground without lowering the sword. He looked up at her, his face now lit by a shaft of moonlight. Honor recognized him. This was the man who had almost lost his hand to the butcher's cleaver. The one Anne Boleyn had rescued. Thornleigh. And if he was Anne's confederate, Honor realized, his interest lay in discrediting the Queen. To Wolsey.

"You should also know," she said, pretending bravado, "that I am the ward of Sir Thomas More. He's just inside, sir, and he will not appreciate me being harassed in this fashion."

Thornleigh let out a short, mocking whistle. "You frighten me, mistress. Two adversaries inside. I may have to stay out here all night. So do take pity. Your company would be such a comfort while I'm marooned here. We could keep one another warm. You're shivering."

She saw that he was toying with her. Well, if that was all he intended, perhaps a little more bravado could get her out of this. She hugged herself and answered with disdain. "Thank you, no. Now, let me pass."

"Oh, come, come," he said pleasantly. "I'm agreeing to take on the heavy responsibility of your secret. Don't you think you owe me something for that service?" He lowered his sword, leaving her way clear to go. "You don't look stupid," he added meaningfully, laying the sword on the bench. "And my price is very reasonable."

So, she thought, he was threatening to inform on her after all. She accepted defeat. "How much do you want?"

Thornleigh scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, let's see. Moncton in there claims twenty pounds . . ."

"Twenty pounds!" she blurted. How could she ask Sir Thomas for even half that amount without arousing his suspicions? It was insufferable. She recalled Margery's earlier comment, and snapped, "I understood that your wife pays your gambling debts."

His face hardened. But he went on as if she had not spoken. ". . . but Moncton's a cheat, and I have no intention of satisfying him. So, all I'll ask of you, dear lady, is one kiss."

She was astonished. It was an idiotic request. He held her position at court-her very life, perhaps-in his hands. He could ask for anything. "You're brain-sick," she said scornfully.

"Only when I see a pretty face."

His amusement at her discomfort infuriated her. "And if I refuse?"

He chuckled. "You are not in a strong bargaining position here, mistress."

It was true. She imagined the consequences if he reported her to Wolsey. Walter, she knew, was already locked away in a prison cell. Being tortured? She shivered, and from more than just the cold.

He shrugged. "Only a kiss," he repeated reasonably.

She answered, as if uttering a curse, "Very well." She drew herself up and clenched her jaw. Her folded arms tightened into rigid armor. The iced air pinched her nostrils. "Let's get it over with."

He stood, and Honor's lips parted in surprise; she had forgotten how tall he was. He stepped close to her. He took her face between his hands and lifted it to his. His lips touched hers. She tasted the sweet residue of brandy. She felt his hand slide to her throat, felt her own pulse beat against his warm palm. His other arm went lower and drew her to him, his cloak almost engulfing her. He held her gently, yet she felt immobilized by his strength. As her every muscle softened, her mouth opened under his. Her arms dropped to her sides. She felt the heat of his body, his hands on her as if he owned her. And she knew that, for this moment, he did.

He drew his face away. She heard him laugh softly. "Open your eyes, mistress," he said. "The bargain was for just one kiss, no more. Sorry."

Her eyes flew open.

He chuckled. "You've never been kissed before, have you? But of course not. Not Sir Thomas More's ward. Oh, yes, I've heard the tales. Sir Thomas the Pious. I understand the man keeps such a chaste household, he actually segregates his servants so that male and female do not fraternize. Is it true?"

Honor wrenched herself from his arms. How dare this lecherous drunkard ridicule Sir Thomas! "This transaction is concluded, sir," she spat. "I trust I have now bought your silence?"

"Cheap, wasn't it?" He laughed. "But, I must be content," he said with mock resignation, "for the court, you know, is a buyer's market."

"And your skill in bartering, small," she retorted. "No wonder you need a rich wife."

His look at her darkened into one of scorn. "Well," he said, looking at her mouth, "all of us around here must sell whatever we can."

The insult was too plain. She raised her hand to strike him. He caught her wrist, held it a moment, then dropped it. He flopped down nonchalantly onto the bench and took up the bottle. "Go back inside, mistress," he said. "You're cold."

Honor turned on her heel and left him.

5.

Smithfield The small hunting party plodded over the drought-cracked road leading into London, and a parched breeze spiraled grit up into the eyes of Honor and Margery riding in the center. The two mounted gentlemen ahead of them were bickering over techniques of the day's kill, comparing it with other hunts, while three servant boys lazily brought up the rear, leading a pony laden with strings of bloody grouse and a fallow deer buck.

Honor peeled off a sweaty glove and picked the grit from her eye. Lord, she thought, how I hate hunting. The chase. The blood. The frenzy of the dogs-and the men-when they run down a wounded buck. Still, the wretched day has been worth it. I charmed all the information out of the Archbishop's nephew I'm likely to get for the Queen.

Margery glared ahead at the male conversation that excluded them, her eyes puffy in the heat. Honor offered her a look of sympathy. "Bridewell in twenty minutes," she said and smiled, "and the Venetian Ambassador's claret to cool us." But Margery remained grumpily silent.

The gentlemen's chatter had degenerated into a quarrel over who would be invited to hunt with the King's party the following week. Certainly not the Queen, Honor thought bitterly. The King only rode out now with Anne Boleyn; the Queen was not welcome. Worse, if the loose talk Honor had coaxed from Archbishop Warham's nephew was correct, the Queen's prospects appeared grim; in the divorce battle, the Church, it seemed, was going to abandon her. Honor could almost hear the cautious old politician, Warham, murmuring to bishops in his archiepiscopal palace: "Indignatio principis mors est." The wrath of the King is death.

But still no answer had come from Rome. Winter had melted into spring, spring had dragged into summer, summer was almost at an end, and all nerves at court were in a jangle. The King fumed. The Queen endured. But the Pope would not act.

Honor stuffed her gloves into her pocket as the Jesus Bells of St. Paul's Cathedral clanged. Today was the Feast of Saint Michael. A short distance ahead the walls of London rose, and the city skyline-a square-mile thicket of steeples-wavered in the heat. As usual, several church bells were clamoring at once. Strange, Honor thought, how their discord is so familiar it sounds like harmony.

The party came up behind a cart piled with sides of beef, slowing their progress. Honor groaned with impatience. How she longed to be back in her room in a cool bath! The stacked carcasses shuddered over every pothole as if in some protracted death throe, and the carrion stink bled into the stench of the slaughterhouses and tanneries that were crowded, by law, outside the city walls. Their waste of entrails was daily slopped into the Fleet Ditch.

The smell was nauseating. Honor had had enough. "Margery," she said suddenly, "I'm off."

The other girl's eyes widened. "What, alone?"

But Honor was already trotting her mare towards an open lane. Laughing, she called over her shoulder, "See you back at Bridewell," and cantered away, happy at last to be free of dead things and dull companions.

The lane fed into the broad expanse of Smithfield fairground, and she reined the mare to a walk and threaded through the moving crowd. She was surprised at the number of people. She knew that horse markets were regularly held here-all ranks of people frequented its bawling grounds where packhorses and priests' mules were traded alongside finely bred destriers and hunters-but the usual market day was Saturday, two days away.

She squeezed around to the Augustinian priory church of St. Bartholomew the Great that fronted the square, and passed by as its bell peeled nones, the monks' three o'clock service. Beside the church was an empty flight of stands for dignitaries. Several idlers were lounging in the shade beneath its plank seating. Honor envied them the cool spot they had found. Definitely, she thought, a bath, first thing.

A gray-robed friar staggered out of the crowd straight toward her, his head bowed. Honor thought he must be drunk. As she jerked the reins to twist out of his way he collided with her horse's shoulder. The horse shied and Honor murmured soothing words to gentle it. The friar stared up at her. His red eyes were blurred with tears. His hands flew to his face in a gesture of misery, and then he dashed away.

There was a shout. Honor looked to her right. A procession was winding toward her. Probably a funeral, she thought. Maybe the dead man is someone the sad friar was close to. She coaxed her horse to one side, hoping to skirt the square and leave, but the crowd was swelling rapidly and the press of bodies forced her to stop.

A trio of mounted men-at-arms was followed by a workhorse dragging something, then by a half-dozen more men-at-arms on foot. The crowd had kicked up a lot of dust, and through this screen Honor could not make out what the horse had in tow. But as it neared her, the heads of two men became visible behind the horse's rump. Although she could not yet see their bodies it was clear they were strapped to a hurdle, the tilted wooden grill that was scraping over the ground.

This crowd hadn't come for a horse fair. They'd come to watch a burning.

"There he is!" someone said with a laugh. "Heywood the heretic."

People pushed to get closer, forcing Honor's horse forward too. The hurdle was now passing directly in front of her, and she saw the face of the prisoner nearest her. He was young and slight, his hair shaved in a priest's tonsure. He smiled winningly, like a child or a simpleton, at the people craning to see him. His arms were free above the ropes that bound him to the hurdle, and he offered the sign of the cross over and over.

An old man fell to his knees in front of the procession, halting it. "Brother Heywood, God take you to His rest," he croaked.

Honor was eager to leave this place of execution. She was about to kick her mare's flanks when her eyes were drawn to the other prisoner slumped on the far side of the hurdle. He was almost twice the size of the smiling friar. His face was turned away, and she could see only a mass of hair: a dirty blond tangle above and a full beard straggling below. Like the friar, he was barefoot and dressed only in shirt and hose. But unlike the friar he was smeared with the dried filth of long imprisonment, and the ropes around knees, waist and chest that strapped him to the wooden grill pinned his arms tightly to his sides.

"Look what you'll be missing, love," a young woman said, laughing. She sprang from the crowd to kiss him. Her companions whistled at her prank. As her mouth covered the prisoner's slack lips, her hand tousled his hair, revealing his cheek and ear. Or what was left of his ear. It had been mutilated, leaving a scarlet ruffle of cartilage.

Horror chilled Honor's scalp. Around the reins, her nails dug white crescents into her palms. "Ralph," she breathed.