A/N: Sorry about the looooonnnggg hiatus. I wasn't sure if there was any interest left in the story, but after several kind reviewers messaged me, I decided to finish what I started.

When the Tower gates slammed behind her, Anne Boleyn prophesized that it would not rain until she was released. Or, was it that the rain would not cease until she was free? Elizabeth could not remember; there had been no sky in those dark days, only Cromwell stretching to the edge of Elizabeth's horizon. Now, as June slogged into July, and the banks of the Thames turned dry and cracked, Elizabeth almost wished Cromwell had said as much when they rowed him under Traitor's Gate: no rain until the king frees his most loyal minister. The present weather would not have made a liar out of Cromwell.

Elizabeth stared up at a sliver of moon through the window in the garret. In the heat of July, perspiration soaked her shift until cloth and flesh became one. Harr threw a sticky arm across her belly, leaving one hand free to jam into his mouth. He murmured in his sleep and suckled his paw. Elizabeth settled back against her pillow and splayed her palms open against the moonlight. She studied the pale band of flesh where her wedding ring used to sit.

"Thomas," she whispered. "Thomas, you have to come back to me."

Harr tossed away from her. He muttered: "Grey-ry."

When the stagnant heat became too much, Elizabeth edged from Harr's embrace and padded down the stairs lured by a brief respite of cooler air. In the simple parlor, Mary and Lucy perched on stools, fanning themselves and pressing cold pewter mugs to their foreheads.

"I have some light cider for a miserable night such as this," Mary offered. Lucy gave up her stool to Elizabeth. She poured a mug and watched as Elizabeth rolled the pewter across her brow.

"It was kind of you to allow my Lotte to brush and braid your hair. She likes to watch its colors change in the sunlight. I hope she did not tax you with her questions. I tell her that you are no princess but that she is not to bother you just the same." Lucy allowed a smile. "She likes you; most people swat her away."

"Of course Lotte likes the lady," Mary snorted. "Lady Cromwell's gold has bought Lotte a doll and put more meat on her table in a few weeks than the child has seen in her life."

Elizabeth was about to ask: are all you City matrons so damn attached to your accounts? Then Elizabeth checked herself. These women were risking their lives to help a traitor's wife run the blockade. Still, Mary and Lucy were generously compensated for their share of the danger. Elizabeth's dwindling purse of coin could testify to that. Instead, Elizabeth turned the subject back to little Lotte.

"She has a talent for dressing hair. When she's older, you ought to call in a favor or two, find her a place in some noblewoman's household," Elizabeth told Lucy. "Perhaps when things settle down, you should send her to stay with me for a bit."

The women shared a strange look. Elizabeth shot one eyebrow up—a habit of Cromwell's that grew on her without her ever having realized it.

"My lady, you did not touch your dinner, nor your supper. This cannot go on," Mary whispered. "It's over. Accept it is over. Thomas Cromwell is finished. But, you must think of your own life ahead and cherish better times to come."

"It is so hot, I cannot breathe, let alone eat," Elizabeth sipped her cider. "How am I to rejoice in a joint of rabbit when my husband is…"

Even in the dark, Elizabeth assumed that Mary rolled her eyes. "Spoken like a woman who has never known a day of hunger in her life," she sighed. "My lady, Lucy and I fear—"

"What? That my gold will run out?" As soon as the words spilled out, Elizabeth wanted to apologize for being so terse and blame the pregnancy and heat.

"Look: you don't have the sense of this at all." Mary put her mug down on the small table. She pointed at Elizabeth. "My lady, you are a widow. If not technically, then in practice. You pat your belly and go around my kitchen each day, musing when Thomas Cromwell will rescue himself with some ingenious scheme. But he is condemned. He will die."

"He is not dead," Elizabeth muttered into her mug. "The days pass. The weeks. And he is not dead. His prosecutors lose their nerve."

"How much longer will you deny the facts?" Mary hissed. Lucy gently touched her elbow, but Mary waived her off. "He is condemned on a Bill of Attainder. What remains is the sentence, which you do not seem to grasp."

Elizabeth drained her cup. "Oh, I see. What, am I not sorry enough for you?"

A bitter chuckle escaped Lucy. "Christ, that's how it goes for widows. If you continue to keep house, tend your children, go to market, then other City wives whisper behind their hands: is she not distraught? Not painting her face with ash or pulling her hair in grief."

"And if you sneak a private moment and weep for all those you loved and lost, then people ask, well does she not know a woman is like as not to bury a husband, a child?" Mary grumbled. "I think a widow can never be sorry enough for some people. So, my lady, you have your boy and the child within you. No one in this house will fault you for dreaming of better days."

Elizabeth realized she understood something about Cromwell only too late. That corpses don't care how they came to be so dead. It is the duty of the living to go on living, who must make sure those left have enough to eat.

"I know I've lost him," Elizabeth whispered. "Yet, I do not believe it." After a silence that almost strangled her, Elizabeth felt compelled to add: "God only knows what is in my heart. As for when I cry for my husband, that is my own affair."

Mary and Lucy nodded and sipped their cider thoughtfully.

Elizabeth chose not to say that if I let loose one tear, then all the others will flow past the dam, and what good am I to Harr if I cannot pick myself up off the floor? When I get to Antwerp, I will scream into a pillow then.

Mary just as good read her thoughts.

"My lady, your husband is dead, and you are very much alive. Make your peace with that, bring forth the child in your belly, and then accept the next available passage across the channel. Because I found a captain eager to reach favorable terms. He wants to sail in a week."

II.

Edward was about ready to pick up an axe and swing blindly into Cromwell's desk. The only compartment to remain locked was a shallow drawer just beneath the writing surface. Please, Edward prayed. Please let that diamond be there. But Edward suspected the gem was not there, that his sister kept it on her person. And where was little Lissie? Edward did not believe Suffolk for a moment that his sister was in confinement, which he supposed was the best excuse the duke could offer to servants who had not seen Elizabeth Seymour in quite some time.

Edward and Anne took up residence in Cromwell's apartments not long after the Lord Privy Seal's spectacular fall from grace. Each night, Edward ordered the servants to throw open all the windows—not on account of the heat. At every corner he caught a hint of cinnamon and sandalwood. And around every corner he feared Cromwell waited for him. Each day, each week that Cromwell breathed, Edward doubted his own resolve, the king's resolve. The Cleves mare had graciously stepped aside, the royal coffers swallowed up what was left of Cromwell's estate, so what more could Henry want? More to the point, why kill Cromwell? Because he was insolent? Because he was a greedy magpie? The fact that Cromwell had not technically broken any law presented a difficulty that no one could answer.

Edward kicked at the Persian rug in frustration. An upturned corner presented an instant answer in the form of a small key. He wondered that Cromwell would leave the key in such an obvious hiding place, and he wondered if that was not because Cromwell had less to hide than everyone thought. When he tried the key, the little drawer groaned open like an exhausted whore.

His fingers grappled blindly at the few small objects. He fished out a weathered Latin prayer book. As Edward flipped the pages, imagining why in the world Cromwell of all people would keep a Book of Hours in Latin, something slipped between the fragile vellum. Three separate locks of hair, each bound with a silk knot. The locks were more or less the same color of ashy blonde. He turned back the front cover and recognized Cromwell's flawless handwriting on sight. Edward studied the names: Bess, Grace, Anne. Beside each name were two dates, and the latter date was the same.

"They all died on the same day," Edward said to no one in particular.

He rummaged around the drawer until his fingers sensed cool metal. He retrieved two simple gold rings bound together on a thin chain. Such a far cry from the emerald signet ring that sat on Cromwell's finger from the day he married Lissie until the day he was arrested. Henry had given up trying to fit the ring on his bloated fingers and since had the jewel re-set on his cane.

Like a child sneaking sweets, Edward shoved his latest discoveries into his vest. Anne Stanhope would want to see these. She took an interest in private business that absolutely did not concern her.

"Anne! Anne!" he called. "You will never guess-"

A maid hurrying past him clutched a soiled skirt. A few others kept close on her heels, probably hoping that if they walked fast enough, he would not question them.

Edward threw open the door to Anne's bedchamber. He surveyed the battle scene: bloody rags, bloody sheets, and a basin containing crimson stained water.

"God Damn you, Anne," he swore under his breath.

Anne Stanhope slapped away the little maid trying to dab her thighs clean. She clasped her robe close with one hand and used the other to haul herself upright.

"It's. Not. My. Fault." Anne drew out each word with great effort.

"What's another little corpse to us?" Edward barked. He kicked at the basin. Blood stained water sloshed onto the carpet. "How many? How many little corpses is that now? Help me count the bastards! What is it now? Ten bloody messes?"

"Eight," Anne corrected through grey lips. "Eight."

"Why do I even have to do with you? Answer me that!" He kicked over the basin. A red tide of water spread over the rug. "Like as not, it was not mine."

"You know I left off Sir Francis months ago," Anne hissed. "I will not suffer the blame for your weakness, the fact that your seed cannot even catch." She settled herself back against a bedpost. "Next time you think to barge through my doors, you will find them locked!"

"If you refuse me, I will annul the marriage and pack you off to a convent."

"Oh, I'd like to see you try." Even pale from blood loss, Anne Stanhope would not shy from a fight. She wanted to gnash her teeth at someone, something. Tonight, Edward decided it would not be him. He turned squarely on his heel.

"One of you sluts fetch the bathing tub," he called. Over his shoulder he regarded his wife. "Clean yourself up, Anne. You look like you've been slaughtering pigs."

Edward stalked to his own bedchamber, which was to say the nursery. Hans Holbein himself had painted a woodland scene over the daffodil yellow walls. Edward hung tapestries over the walls but something stayed his hand from blotting out the meadows, the ponds, the gentle trees.

He pulled a chair next to the open window. From the privy garden below, the ducks quacked in time with the crickets. Perhaps the same force that prevented him from painting over the nursery also kept him from serving those ducks for supper. In the moonlight, Edward studied his latest scavenge from the wreckage of Cromwell's enterprise. From beyond the hedges, he made out the drunken boasts of his brother, Tom, and the crackling laugh of Sir Francis Bryan. A woman's squeal pierced the nighttime, then a yelp. Edward could not be sure if it was a rape. Or, maybe his brother just caught the woman unawares.

On that night, when the heat became thick and still like a wall, as Gardiner roasted Lutherans alive, and Tom Seymour tumbled every passerby with two legs and female parts, Edward was quite sure that the wrong man was in the Tower.

The best he could hope for was that Elizabeth would allow some sense into her nonsensical head and accept the passage with the captain that he pushed in her way.

III.

Catherine Brandon never made much of it when Charles failed to return for days on end. She had taught herself to wait. He once told her that he might make her cry, even when he did not mean to do so. She allowed him to break her heart once, and thereafter, she learned the wifely habit of looking the other way.

And so in her library, Catherine waited. As the sun sank in the dim sky, she studied her hands, the black lace against white fingers. Catherine actually thought black suited most people better than any buttery satin or blue silk. Perhaps Cromwell had been more fashion forward than anyone credited him.

At the sound of Brandon's footsteps, she straightened her shoulders and squeezed the soft belly of the wriggling spaniel tucked under her elbow. She heard her husband called out, "Catherine!"

No, she thought. Let him find me for once, let him keep calling for me.

"Oh, there you are." Brandon casually strolled into the library. "I must speak with Elizabeth."

Catherine released the spaniel. She folded her hands and sat back against the wall. He understands nothing, least of all me, she thought.

"Catherine? Darling?" He poked his head around a row of books. "It is nearly dark in here. And has someone died? Why are you all in black?" Brandon forced a chuckle.

Catherine considered each question individually and decided to answer none.

"Charles," she said slowly. "Seven years ago, I stood in the same place as you, right there, exploring all your books. You came in, told me that we were to marry, and then you left me to my books. I said nothing."

"Catherine, what has this to do with anything?"

"I said nothing as you bedded the niece of every ambassador to step foot in London." Her voice quivered, but she swallowed deeply and continued. "I say nothing. That is a wife's duty. That is a wife's place."

"Catherine, why are you head to toe in black?" Brandon opened his arms for her. She only shook her head.

"With the Northern uprising," she whispered. "I reconciled myself to living with the winter that fell between us."

"Sweetheart! It is done now!" Charles insisted. "Cromwell will be dead within the week, and with him all the trouble he caused, the blood he forced me to spill." Charles moved towards her. "The blood that drove us apart. But we can mend us."

Catherine shook her head again. "I will sleep in an empty bed, but I refuse to sleep in one of lies. You may do with your conscience as you wish. You would let the Gospels remain an ignorant mystery to you, yet persecute those who thirst for more, those who follow curiosity and wonder." She moved to leave, and Brandon sidestepped in her way.

"But once Cromwell is dead and his mischief buried with him-"

"I no longer love you, Charles," she finished. "You are no longer my sweet Charles. The Charles I knew loved hunting and jousting. The Charles I knew would never delight in the destruction of another man's principles." She stood and smoothed her black lace petticoat. "Good-bye, Charles."

Now Brandon stepped forward, one arm on each side of the panel, trapping her.

"You leave me, I will never allow you to see our boy again."

Catherine's knees buckled, but she caught hold of the duke's powerful arms and righted herself.

"He's my son, I raised him," she managed. Brandon's face hardened into a death mask.

"He is my son. And his true mother is cold in the ground."

"Of a broken heart, no doubt," Catherine said quietly. His arms fell to his sides and his thick fingers curled up into his palms.

"If you leave me," he repeated, slower this time. "I will take little Henry from you. You will not know him, nor he you. Leave me: leave little Henry."

Catherine's legs quaked like jelly. She pushed herself against the books to keep from faltering. She had known it would come to this. Yet, she could not quite believe it all the same.

"I am not asking for an annulment. I am not asking for a divorce. After all that I have given you, Charles, please grant me this: let us be free of one another.

Brandon thinned his lips. "Madam, the choice is yours. It is either the child or yourself."

The tides of history and tradition pulled at Catherine. She could practically feel the ground slip away under feet, and the waves rushed in to pull her far, far out to sea.

"I choose my own life," she heard herself say. "I choose myself." Catherine nudged herself away from Charles until they stood on opposite sides. She made her way to the door, and the silence choked them both. At the threshold, she turned back and summoned the last of her strength.

"Good-bye, Charles. I wish you peace and a quiet conscience. But if you think to try me, then I will fight. I will fight for our boy, for my lands, for my incomes." She regarded Brandon another moment. "I am sending a man tomorrow morning. I ask that you sign the deeds and mortgage."

"What of Elizabeth," he choked out.

"Gone," Catherine said without turning around. "Gone."

IV.

When Henry summoned Charles Brandon and Edward to the tennis courts, the duke naturally assumed that his king wished to challenge him to a match. As they walked, Brandon loosened the silk ties around his shirt and bandied his racquet as if it were a sword.

"The king's vigor is much improved. He tells me his leg is cured, that sex is a wonderful medicine," Brandon said with the exaggerated lightness of a man trying to ignore dark skies.

"Your Grace," Edward sighed. By now, Cromwell's second letter must have reached Henry. And Edward's little birds chirped that Christina of Milan was taking much more than a passing interest in Cromwell. If Henry summoned his lords to the tennis court, like as not it would be to buffet them over the head with his racquet.

As a squire announced them, a ball cracked against the wall, sailed back over Henry's shoulder, only to narrowly miss a frontal assault on Edward's face.

"What is this!" Henry demanded. "What, by the fucking bones of Becket is this!" He shouted.

"If Your Majesty would advise us as to the difficulty—"Brandon discreetly moved his tennis racquet behind his back.

One of the privy gentlemen scuttled towards Edward and Brandon with two neatly folded letters on a velvet pouch. Henry did not wait for his lords to finish reading.

" 'Most gracious Prince,'" Henry recited. " 'I am but only a woman and only sixteen. It is true as a woman, I am hostage to my heart and am swayed as such, but I fear you have been deceived by false counselors who would have you put to death by light pretense and false pretexts the most loyal, faithful servant-'"

Edward scanned the Duchess of Milan's neat, feminine writing. She wrote in flawless French but spoke in the language Henry liked best.

"She tells me that she cries herself to sleep at night, desiring nothing more to be queen at my side—although she knows that cannot be—because she thought me the most handsome, most gallant prince in Christendom." Henry steadied himself against the velvet tasseled net. His eyes grew large and moist at the thought of a beautiful princess longing for him.

"My lady writes of her respect for the English courts," Henry continued. "And of my wisdom and mercy. But that she believes I have been deceived by the envious and those who wish to return me to Rome." Henry lurched forward and served the ball across the court. "I am my own master! I will not bend the knee to the Bishop of Rome! Am I a bull to be led by the nose?" Henry cracked the ball against the far wall. Then he collapsed against the net.

"Oh, you can hear her voice come across, she is as bereft as I am that the Cleves Mare came between us. I have lost her favor," Henry sighed. He scratched at his chin with the racquet. "Oh Christ…if she believes me ungallant…"

Edward's eyes darted to the last lines. "Majesty," he began. "She offers safe conduct and amnesty in the event that you demonstrate the aforementioned wisdom and mercy by pardoning Master Cromwell."

" 'Should my glorious prince be the knight of my dreams and grant me this small request,' " Edward read. " 'I will think kindly upon you and favor you for the rest of my days.'" He looked up from the letter. Perhaps the Emperor was at play. Perhaps the little duchess had reached some secret understanding with that black badger. Perhaps her formidable aunt thought Thomas Cromwell could make her rich, and he could not do that without his wily head on his shoulders.

"Is there not some, some argument that we have nothing to gain from Master Cromwell's death?" Edward suggested quietly.

"He's attainted, condemned, guilty of treason," Brandon pointed out.

Henry slicked the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. "Condemned, yes. Guilty, yes. Just of what neither you, nor Gardiner, can quite tell me. Just of what heresy, Mr. Cromwell refuses to specify even when threatened with hanging, drawing, quartering. Every day he lives, that overgrown bat grows in strength, conviction. He sent another letter. Another letter where he confesses nothing." Henry's envoys had offered Cromwell a clean, quick death with an axe in exchange for an admission of his heresies. Cromwell, ever a lawyer, gave up nothing, but managed to fill up seven pages worth of platitudes.

"By God, I will cut out Cromwell's heart," Henry muttered. "I said I would make Cardinal Pole eat his heart. I can do the same for the son of a brewer."

"Still…" Edward pressed. Truth be told, a world without Cromwell seemed less and less a place in which Edward wished to live. Cromwell loved money, but he also loved learning, science, and questions. Bishop Gardiner stoked his fires with Englishmen, and if he loved anything, even the word of Christ, the Bishop hid it under his violet robes.

"Lissie Seymour," Henry barked. "How does she?"

"Very well," Brandon said too quickly.

"Oh, so you see her. I would think her in confinement?" Henry edged his bad leg forward.

"My wife tells me."

Henry snorted at that.

"You two never seemed close," Henry mused as he turned to Edward. "Lissie, I mean. She was always about with your brother, with Jane, or Tom Wyatt." He studied his racket, tracing where his tantrum had snapped the twine.

"She might take it better from you," Henry continued. He moved towards Edward, and the faint smell of decay floated to his nostrils. Fortunately, the net prevented Edward from fleeing.

"Take what?" Brandon dared to ask.

"That diamond. The one Cromwell used to buy her maidenhead. I want it," Henry said simply. "I want to give it to my kitten as a wedding present." When silence greeted him, Henry threw the racquet aside. "Must I spell it out for you? I never had to make myself plain to Cromwell! He knew what to do without being told! I want the diamond. Return to court with it, or do not bother returning at all." Henry jerked his head to the side, dismissing the duke and the lord.

Brandon always gambled to the last farthing and beyond, but Edward Seymour knew when to lay his cards flat on the table and admit the awful hand dealt.

"There is some difficulty in that," Edward said to his shoes.

"The diamond is in a state of—" Brandon stalled.

"Go to Lissie. I do not care if you turn her upside down and strip her naked as she came in this world. Find it!"

"My sister is...not reliably located," Edward admitted.

Henry nodded, frowned, ran his tongue over his plump lips. "I see," he said calmly after a while.

"You must forgive the earl, here," Brandon ran on. "Your Majesty loved your sister dearly. Surely, the leniency of a tender brother-"

Edward could hear nothing more. He stared gape mouthed and dumb as Charles Brandon shoved him in front of the runaway cart tumbling straight for them. As Edward tripped in his own web, he considered that perhaps Cromwell would have made for much more reliable company than the duke. If only.

"Cromwell held my sister in his thrall. Some say for black arts, some say for gold," Edward rejoined. He found his footing again. "It should not have surprised me that Lissie took the arrest of her husband so hard and fled the City. She always spent too much time reading stories from France about noble ladies running off with squires."

"Except Master Cromwell was never her husband. And God knows, he was no squire," Henry said coolly. "Did either of you honestly believe that a little bird would not fly to me and whisper that both you bloody fools let her slip through your fingers? Do you think Cromwell ever came to me chirping, 'ever so sorry my king, but I forgot to arrest George Boleyn, and come to think of it, Henry Norris fell off an apple cart and he is nowhere to be seen?'"

"Allow me to bring her to Your Majesty." Edward dodged the king's question.

"So, you know where she is?" Henry purred.

"Lissie is as subtle as a boulder tumbling down a hill. I cannot imagine it will take long to find her," Brandon added.

Henry glanced between the faces of the lord and the duke.

"Smoke her out. Set a little fire beneath her house, and she'll scurry out with all the other rats," Henry thought aloud. "Charles, put it about London that Elizabeth Seymour will present herself, her bastards, and that diamond to me three days from hence. Otherwise, Richard and Gregory Cromwell will join their patriarch on the scaffold."

Henry dragged himself directly in front of Edward. He set to tightening the silk ties around Edward's collar.

"You are too loose, my lord," Henry continued. "You ought to tie a tighter knot about things."

Edward did not dare breathe or swallow.

"Bring your sister to me," Henry said. "Bring me a real confession from Cromwell. And we will see how far you rise, Edward." He clapped Edward's shoulder so hard the flesh stung.

"My sister. A confession. As Your Majesty commands," Edward managed.

Henry took the little Duchess's letter from Edward's fingers. He raised it under his neatly trimmed moustache and breathed deeply of a damsel in distress that only existed in the king's mind.

"I must show Her Grace, Christina of Milan, that England is no Spain, no Rome. That the law rules the land here." Henry shook his head. "That I rule here. Not the Bishop of Rome." He flicked his hand at the door: the audience was over.

As Edward crossed over the threshold, he heard the king mutter: "Cromwell never left his cloth un-hemmed. He would never have botched things. Knaves like you two almost make me long for that black badger."

V.

Elizabeth held her breath. The pains began within the hour after Lucy brought her the awful gossip: kneel before King Henry at Whitehall, or see the heads of Gregory and Richard mounted next to Cromwell.

Mary had told her: "I don't doubt Master Gregory and Master Richard are very fine young men. They may be kin, but they are not blood. Take your boy and the child within you safely across the channel."

"Do you honestly entrust the king with the care of you and your children?" Lucy pressed.

No, Elizabeth did not. And, Edward and Tom, her own flesh and blood, did not seem terribly concerned with tearing her world to pieces, either. Elizabeth now lived in land where blood ran thinner than water, and near-strangers were slightly more reliable.

"There may be nothing for me in Antwerp," Elizabeth answered. "I may lose the baby at sea. The only thing I know for certain is that I am haunted by enough ghosts."

Elizabeth named them silently: Anne and George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton, Will Brereton, the shell that used to be Thomas Wyatt, poor Robert Aske. And Jane. Always Jane.

"Nothing else is for certain," Elizabeth concluded. She slid a silver piece across the table to Lucy. "Not even what you'll fetch at the market for our dinner." Her hosts nodded and left Elizabeth to choose between the cooking kettle and the kitchen fire.

In the years to come, Elizabeth would always wonder if the shock of the news that Gregory and Richard might yet lay their necks bare for the axe was what shook the baby inside her awake, made the child reach for the world outside. Or, perhaps like so many events in her life, the world simply unfurled as it would.

The ache rolled across her lower back and clenched in her womb. Elizabeth forced herself to exhale the breath she sucked in with each pain. The cramps came far enough apart that Elizabeth dared hope she was in a false labor.

"Lotte," she called out. "Bring Harr to me. And run the comb through my hair while we wait for your mother to return from the market." Elizabeth sat on a low stool before a table and thin slat mirror. Good God, she realized. I am twenty-six. I am not young anymore. She recalled looking at herself in her mother's gilt mirror with Jane when they tottered between childhood and womanhood. Elizabeth had had forced Jane to concede that her younger sister was the prettier of the two. When their mother overheard, she stormed towards Elizabeth and slapped her cheek so hard, Elizabeth's ears still rang when she conjured the memory.

"Don't ever let me hear you think such foolishness again," proclaimed Margery Wentworth, the loveliest woman in England. "Beauty is a fool's spring. Have some wits in your head and tenderness in your heart. Because when your autumn and winter come, that will be all you have left."

Charlotte beamed up from the little wooden horse she and Harr had contentedly rolled between them.

"I can try a new braid?" she offered.

Elizabeth nodded and fumbled for a penny to give the child. When Harr came to stand beside her, he impatiently lifted his stocky arms. Another cramp hit Elizabeth between her legs, coaxing a single tear of sweat between her brows.

"Later," she told Harr. He sighed and sat on the hem of Elizabeth's shift. Charlotte ran the comb through Elizabeth's copper hair in smooth, sure strokes. She tried to lose herself to the pleasure of being groomed. Another pang pushed out a low groan from Elizabeth.

"Lotte, how long will your mother be away? What of your grandmother?" Elizabeth's voice shot up an octave in the effort to keep her tone calm.

"Depends on how hard she decides to bargain with the butcher. And Grandmama likes to chase down old tenants who have not paid in full." Lotte twisted up one-half of Elizabeth's hair in a braid that snaked under the nape. "My lady, are you well? You're head is as drenched as if you poured a bucket over yourself."

Salty perspiration dripped off the tip of Elizabeth's nose. No, she mouthed. No, not yet, little one. A warm puddle let loose between her legs.

"Lotte," she managed. "Please stoke the fire and fill your largest kettle."

"But, it's so hot," she protested, starting in on the next braid. "You are so warm."

"Please, Lotte!" Elizabeth snapped. "Do as you're told!" Harr's head shot up in alarm at his mother's tone. Elizabeth clenched his dark curls. "Oh, my lamb, if I had a pence for every time someone told that, I would be rich as the Sultan." She forced a smile as the cramp ebbed. She wondered where the tide washed Ismail and Isabel ashore, she hoped they became lovers, and she desperately wished they were with her now.

"Harr, when Lotte returns, go play with her in the courtyard," Elizabeth said. "I need to rest."

After Lotte poked the embers alive and filled the kettle, she scampered back to Elizabeth's side. She squeaked at the large wet spot between Elizabeth's thighs.

"Is it the baby?" Lotte whispered. "I know a little bit about these things." She blushed furiously. "Isn't there something I should do?"

Elizabeth sank her nails into the table. "We'll need clean linen, as much as the house can spare. But there's something I need you to do now."

Lotte nodded vigorously, desperate to be of service.

"Sweetheart, fetch your mother's sewing scissors. There is one thing I want you to do. Pull my hair back into a single plait."

"Mother will be mad I touched her scissors," Lotte called over her shoulder as she dashed off. "I'll say it was your idea." As Lotte rummaged through a sewing basket, Harr twisted his face up to meet Elizabeth's gaze.

"I'm tired," he whispered. "I'm afraid."

Elizabeth's hand caught under Harr's fleshy chin, so he could not turn from her.

"Harr, there is nothing more for us to fear. You and me, we will be all right. I promise you." For once, Elizabeth actually believed herself, believed in herself and that by fang and claw, she could clear a path to safety for Harr and the baby.

Lotte trotted back with the scissors. Elizabeth might have scolded the girl for running with scissors if time had not been of the essence.

"A single plait, not a hair out of place," she told Lotte. With her hair pulled back, some of the heat and sweat lifted. "Lotte, take those scissors—steady now. I need you to cut the braid off. Get a good chunk of the braid between the scissors and work your way through."

Lotte sniffled and whimpered, but she did as she was told without asking why. When she finished, she laid the braid across Elizabeth's lap.

"I should tidy up the sides," Lotte said more to herself than anyone else. When she finished, Elizabeth snaked her fingers through her hair, stunned when her hair abruptly stopped after her neckline. She almost laughed at the weightlessness of it but stopped short when another labor pain pulled through her entrails.

"Well done, sweetheart. Wrap the braid in some silk and take Harr outside."

Once Mary and Lucy returned from the market, saw the giant kettle boiling and the linen piled ceiling high, the two women quickly pieced together the situation. They burst into the little garret room to find Elizabeth in her shift, panting on her hands and knees.

"I have terrible timing, I know," Elizabeth said. "But, it used to be a matter of always being late."

Mary hiked Elizabeth's shift over her hips without an invitation, while Lucy took the liberty of pushing apart Elizabeth's thighs for a better look.

"You're far along. It should be an easy birth," Lucy said. All three women shared a bitter laugh: an easy birth? Elizabeth thought, all us beings come screaming into this world in a mess of blood and shit, and most of us will probably leave the same way. Do not tell me that nobles sit higher than their maidservants in the eyes of our Lord. Do not tell me that King Henry has been touched by God to rule England when he slithered between Queen Elizabeth's thighs and into the light, carried on a flood of afterbirth.

"Mary Mother of God. Hail Mary full of grace!" Elizabeth shouted. Her Catholicism came back to her out of instinct, riding on clouds of imagined incense and the Latin prayers that rolled off the tongue. The Latin prayers that Jane never understood but loved all the same.

"Love of Christ, I can't," Elizabeth said. She had forgotten how inhuman the labor pains were. How a woman needed to make herself half-divine in order to live to hold her child. Or, a woman needed to strip herself down 'til only a beast and her will remained.

"Lucy, you grab her elbows," Mary ordered. The women hauled Elizabeth from squatting on all fours until she hung on their shoulders. A deep, animal need awakened in Elizabeth, a need that told her to push.

"That's my girl, that's my girl," Mary cooed as Elizabeth sucked in another breath and pushed until she feared her guts would rip. She hung off Mary while Lucy ducked beneath Elizabeth and cleaned her thighs with linen soaked in boiling water.

"I can just make out the head!" Lucy announced. "You need to push again and stop at that." She swung Elizabeth's arm around her neck. "So close. Too late to turn back. Breathe deep and push like the Devil is in you."

Elizabeth swallowed back a scream and what came out was a growl. The muscle memory twitched awake and her muscles, entrails, and anything left she had to give, they all told her body to bear down and push.

"There's the head," Mary said quietly. "Lucy, clean her legs and parts again."

Lucy had just enough time to clean before she caught Elizabeth's second child. Lucy sucked away the mucus, smacked a rump, and the air flooded out of the room as a shrill, indignant cry filled each nook and cranny.

Mary eased Elizabeth back onto the pallet, but Elizabeth peered over the older woman's shoulder.

"Pray God, how does the child?" she panted.

"A healthy boy. And does this one have lungs to hear him."

Another boy. Cromwell had always said the last thing England needed was another Thomas, or another Elizabeth for that matter. We'd be calling for our children, but half of London would have to roll out of bed at the sound, Cromwell had explained one late night.

Lucy wiped the blood from the squirming bundle she pressed to Elizabeth's breast. A miniature, slimy fist reached from the linen and jabbed at the air, ready to pick a fight with a world he had not even met. As Elizabeth watched the infant rage, and she ran her fingers through his wet black curls, a single name stuck in her throat.

"Thomas," she said. "His name his Thomas."

VI.

Henry's deputation to Cromwell was more a troupe of players than anything else: the lords, the priest, and the turn-cloak. These days, Richard Rich crossed himself, knelt before the Host, proclaimed that wine turned to blood, and otherwise competed in Catholicism with the Pope.

"And, how is our prisoner today, Master Kingston?" Edward asked.

"Quiet, he's gone into himself," the Constable answered. "Calm, courteous to his jailers. Although, it set Mr. Cromwell's teeth on edge that he is only able to have his barber once per week." Kingston chuckled at that.

"A man ought to have a decent shave before he dies," Henry, Lord Surrey observed without a trace of irony or malice. Edward and Brandon could barely share the same dining hall, so Edward had asked Surrey to come along instead. Surrey hated Cromwell, but the Howard heir let it be known he hated Edward more.

Kingston jangled the keys until iron screeched against iron and the door swung open. Cromwell sat straight and proud at the crude desk, scribbling away as if he were still the highest man in England after the king. Cromwell wore his breeches but had draped his linen undershirt over the chair. He wrote furiously with one hand, and used his free hand to signal his guests into silence.

"Another moment if you please, gentlemen," Cromwell said, distracted. Always distracted with some business. Far from the weeping, hunched creature that Edward expected, Cromwell sat straight and true. Always a thin man to behold, what little weight Cromwell had to give was gone now, nothing but sinew, black hair, and his mind. His ceaseless mind that now frightened the king.

When the quill ran out of ink, Cromwell set the fine tip aside.

"Good of you to come, Sir Richard," Cromwell said without turning around. "You must be tired, all the contortions you've been making." He glanced over his left shoulder. "But you always were something of an acrobat, when it came to politics, I mean, Sir Richard," he clarified. Even caged, underfed, and utterly defeated, Cromwell maintained an air of invincibility founded in a probably accurate conviction that he was always the cleverest man in the room.

"Would you like to put your shirt on, Mister Cromwell," Surrey offered. Henry Howard's deep, scratchy voice filled the entire cell. "His Grace, Archbishop of Canterbury has come to hear your confession. You might show the respect that such an office deserves."

Cromwell swiveled around, and Edward stared at a point just past the prisoner's head. With his cheeks sunk in, Cromwell's face was all eyes now. But, they were clear blue, no longer that unsettling shade of midnight. He was still a striking man in his own peculiar way, and Edward imagined that a man like that could keep Lissie in thrall, hold her at arm's length, then keep her coming back for more.
Cromwell regarded the chessboard before him, then moved his bishop into play. "Your Grace, most godly man in England, tell me how you find the state of matrimony in the kingdom, as it compares somewhere else—the German free cities, for instance?"

Cranmer's scared, rabbit eyes grew wide and flickered around the cell. "My poor wretched friend. We are here for your confession. I am afraid this will be a one-sided conversation."

"Well, show me a happily married woman, and I will show you a liar," Surrey answered the question for everyone. But he studied Cranmer's discomfort for a moment.

Cromwell allowed the pause to play out into a choking silence. Finally he said: "I see no need to perjure myself as some may think I should." Cromwell pressed his fingers into a steeple beneath his chin, taking in Edward and Surrey. "Just because I am going to die," Cromwell added.

"Dear Thomas, no one is asking you to lie," Cranmer pressed gently. Rich helped himself to Cromwell's ink and paper; the quill dangled above the parchment, ready to transcribe the real undoing of Thomas Cromwell.

"Is not the very definition of a lie something that is not true?" Cromwell examined. He turned to Surrey. "But I suppose that is a question better debated by poets, not by lawyers."

"The truth is that you are condemned to die," Surrey said bluntly. "What remains is the means."

"And I thank God for granting me death for whatever is my offense." Cromwell wiped his hands across his eyes. "Rowing against the tide, it's worn me to the ground in body and heart." At that, Cromwell sank against the desk. A weariness had overtaken the former Lord Privy Seal. And Edward worried what information could reliably be gotten from a man who truly did not mind dying.

Cranmer traversed the cell in two wide steps. The Archbishop of Canterbury knelt at the feet of the son of an innkeeper and brewer. He squeezed Cromwell's arm.

"Dear Thomas, let me, let God take on some of that weight. It is only the truth that can set your soul free."

"And is the truth something borne out by evidence, or is it that which pleases the King?" Cromwell asked.

"You of all people should know the answer to that," Edward murmured. He hung back, taking comfort in the cool brick and mortar of the Tower. We are now all one foot wrong from this place, he thought.

"My confession, my confession is this." Cromwell squared his shoulders, closed his eyes and breathed deep. "I was a poor man, raised very high by the King."

Another pause stretched into another silence.

"All that we have, we owe to the King," Cranmer said.

"But, that is the crime, is it not? I confess I am a poor man, raised—perhaps by an unnatural degree—to great heights by the king. And I was not contented by that, not with having the kingdom at my orders. So, I pursued a higher state." Cromwell shook a little. He nudged off Cranmer's well-meaning hand. "I confess my pride has brought on this punishment." Cromwell swallowed hard. "And not only upon me, but upon those I loved most. And if that is not a crime by law, it is a great offense worthy of the punishment I will meet."

Not another silence, Edward thought. Rich had stopped writing, and Surrey edged towards Cromwell, as if seeing that black badger for the first time but seeing no badger at all.
"It will come as no shock to you, Gentlemen, that since I came of age I have lived as a sinner," Cromwell carried steadily on. "But, are we not all fraught with sin?" he turned to Cranmer. "If we were not so frail, weak, human, wouldn't Your Grace be turned out of a job?
"I am confessing to usury, bribery, for which I ask my God forgiveness." Cromwell flexed his hands, reflected on the ink-stained knuckles before he spoke up. "And, I confess I love my family, my children more than I could ever love any saint or any prince." Cromwell's fingers strained and folded until they disappeared into formidable looking fists. "It is for my family, for my children, for my wife I will confess to the following."

"Elizabeth was never your wife, remember?" Cranmer recalled, not unkindly.

"I offended my Prince," Cromwell said. "I ask his Majesty's hearty forgiveness for…" Cromwell's voice trailed off. The most silver-tongued lawyer in the land could not even come up with a law that had actually been broken. "Well, tell the king I pray for him nightly," Cromwell directed at Rich, who had taken up the quill again.

"Your heresies?" Surrey inquired. He sounded genuinely interested, shelving his contempt for a low man in favor of fascination for a man utterly beyond convention.

"I die as a true Catholic of the New Testament," Cromwell said simply. "I die in the true religion."

"And what is the true religion, Thomas?" the Archbishop pushed. Cromwell threw Cranmer a look so sharp that the younger man had the sense to stare at his embroidered shoes.

"Please, Your Grace, do tell me. I imagined that is what the king pays you for, after all," Cromwell barked.

Cranmer opened his mouth to ask another question, but Surrey wisely raised a hand to stop him, slowly shaking his head. Edward knew now why the king never wanted Cromwell to appear in open court; this lawyer/banker/ soldier of fortune would have made the peerage of England play the fool.

"There is the matter of the diamond," Edward began and then he wished he hadn't. Cromwell arched an eyebrow and settled an easy arm against the desk. The fighting dog in him had caught a whiff of blood and was pacing for a fight.

"So many diamonds at court…a good deal going to Lord Surrey's niece, Mistress Katherine," Cromwell remarked.

"The diamond you gave my sister," Edward explained weakly. Cromwell played the silence again and let the note stretch. And stretch.

Surrey threw up his hands. "The gem is not in the inventory of your houses and goods. The king wants it as wedding gift for my niece. His Majesty is quite beyond your games and your toils. Good God man, make it an easy death for yourself and say where it is."

"In the first place, I should ask Lissie." Cromwell crossed his arms across his jutting ribs. "And I suppose you would have asked her if you could."

Again, that interminable silence. For a man who had tortured Edward by always managing the last word, Cromwell seemed quite comfortable in the vacuum of wordlessness.

"You've got her bricked in one of your safe-houses, no doubt, with your evangelical preachers and sacramentaries," Surrey grumbled.

"Jesus Christ on the cross!" Cromwell snapped. "If I had such sanctuaries, it does not take a great deal of imagination to think I would be there instead of here."

"Thomas, step lightly," Cranmer gently corrected. "The King has it about London that Lissie Seymour must present herself, your children, along with the diamond in less than three days."

"Or?" Cromwell demanded. He knew Henry better than Henry knew himself. The king always trapped himself in a corner with his wild ultimatums.

"Or, your son, Gregory, and your nephew, Richard, will find their heads mounted on a pike next to yours," Surrey finished.

Cromwell cracked his knuckles and released a hitched breath. "I cannot say where she is. Really, I cannot. And if I knew, of all the wrongs I have done Lissie, I will not be her Judas. If she is gone, she's gone."

"You have your older boys to consider, or are they of no consideration?"

Cromwell's eyes fluttered for a moment and his face drained to gray. He looked ready to faint but straightened himself again.

"I promised their mothers that I would protect them with my life," he said simply. "All I have left to offer the King is my life and my conscience. And he can have both." Cromwell turned to sprinkle the paper he'd been writing with sand. Rich outstretched a hand to take the letter, but Cromwell ignored him. He held the paper out -just far enough to make Surrey edge forward to grad hold of the letter.

"Tell the King I beg for mercy," he said quietly.

"I will do my best to keep your boys out of harm's way," Surrey admitted grudgingly. How many Howards had thrown themselves at the throne, only to land on the scaffold? Henry Howard understood that it was bad business for all the great families if King Henry made it policy that to be kin to a condemned traitor was treason itself.

"Well, you fine gentlemen have mostly what you want. I'd like to be left alone now with my prayers." Cromwell turned his back and folded his hands under his jaw. Cranmer stood and reached again, as though he might shake Cromwell's hand. Surrey sighed and waved the men towards the cell door. Sheepish footsteps padded out the door, and only Edward lingered.

"Is there something else, Edward?" Cromwell asked without opening his eyes or turning around.

Edward wanted to dash out to freedom, away from a shame that he desperately did not want to admit.

He pulled out the Book of Hours from his vest. He placed the thin chain linking two rings on Cromwell's desk. Cromwell's fingers moved to the exact place in the book where the locks of hair were ensconced between richly illustrated vellum.

"My thanks," he said with quiet dignity. He pulled the chain over his head. "Everyone, everything, that I ever loved, I have lost. And it may be that when I die, it will be simply be going home." Cromwell finally turned to Edward and looked him squarely in the eye. "But it's wasted breath on you. You love nothing and no one, and no one loves you." He nodded towards the door, dismissing Edward.

"But one more thing, Edward," Cromwell said. "Has Mistress Katherine spoken of a Henry Mannox or a Francis Dereham?"

Edward's tracks stopped directly on the threshold. He had a sick, nagging feeling that Cromwell had set another trap door straight ahead. That he knew something so obvious, that the conspirators in their arrogance had stared straight past.

"No, those names mean nothing to me. Why should they?"

"Because those names mean something to England's next queen." Cromwell turned back to his desk. "Don't bother yourself with it, Edward. It will be clear as glass soon enough."

Just before the iron grate slammed shut behind Edward, he edged his boot to keep the door open.

"The manner of your death, while not official, His Majesty has a mind to cut out your heart and make you eat it." Edward meant to sound triumphant, but when Cromwell did not so much as flinch, Edward felt shrill and useless.

Edward's color must have drained because in the bright, summer sun, Surrey remarked:

"You won't rise much farther if you can't be in the Tower without looking seasick from it. People will question if you are man enough to serve the King."

"It must be reported that you got on rather well with the traitor," Edward retorted.

Surrey laughed at that. "Oh, Cromwell is as base a metal as they come. Not even Jesus Christ himself can make the transmutation necessary to turn that brewer's son into a gentleman, much less an earl. But, the poet in me cannot help but take to a man who lived his life exactly as he pleased."

"Cromwell was a violation to the natural order of things," Edward defended.

"Oh, I do hope not," Surrey chortled. "For I love to see my nieces wear the crown."

VII.

"I know how to hail a boat," Elizabeth said tersely. She gently pushed Harr towards Lucy's skirts. When he had seen Elizabeth being laced into a gown, he quickly put together that his mother was going somewhere without him. Harr spent the morning fussing and clinging to Elizabeth's knees.

"At least one of us to lean on," Mary offered. "Quite literally. You look like death, like you won't make it ten paces. Let one of us help you on and off the boat."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Just promise that you will place my babies into the care of Master Ralph Sadler."

"A cloak? A hood?" Lucy begged as she handed Elizabeth a paper-wrapped parcel. Only after little Tom was cleaned and swaddled did Mary and Lucy realize that Elizabeth's hair had been hacked chin level. And Elizabeth loved them for being utterly scandalized by it.

"This is me. Let the king take me or leave me." Elizabeth stepped into the glaring mid-morning light. It was an effort to get from the door to the edge of the courtyard. But Elizabeth thought she moved rather deft for a woman who had given birth less than a day ago. She was sore and her torn muscles protested every step, but her mission breathed determination into her lungs.

"Have enough coin for the boat?" Mary called out.

"Yes, and I promise not to speak to strangers," Elizabeth answered over her shoulder.

Once out of the inn's grounds, Elizabeth fell in step with the slow moving traffic. She wore a plain dark blue linen gown in a simple pattern. The only thing to set her apart from other London matrons was her uncovered, short hair. A few citizens gasped in pity, thinking she must be ruined and selling her hair to the wigmaker for a pound or two. But it seemed everyone had some place to be, some business to transact, so no one tarried and stared for too long.

The crowd pushed against her at the quayside, and Elizabeth surprised herself when she pushed back to jostle for her place in the world. She hailed a boat, and when she told him "Whitehall," he heaved out a shrug.

"You out to petition a favor?"

"I think so," Elizabeth replied.

"Much good may it do you." He managed short breaths while he rowed. "With Master Cromwell out of favor, no nobleman bothers himself with the likes of you and me." He spat across the side of the boat. "Sit themselves under cloth of gold, they do. Never a thought about what keeps their arses on velvet cushions."

"I'd like to know what keeps an arse on a velvet cushion," Elizabeth challenged. She meant to banter, but the boatman looked at her through red-rimmed deadly serious eyes.

"It's you and me, you and me scraping around for a coin to survive. I sell my arms every day. It looks like you had to sell your hair."

They made their way up the brown Thames in silence. When she paid him, he checked the coin with his black teeth. At the quality of the metal, he regarded Elizabeth carefully.

"Once was a time when you were a somebody, wasn't that the way of it?" he asked.

"Once," Elizabeth shook her head. "And now I sell what I can to keep noble arses on velvet cushions."

He laughed as he pushed off. "Your hair will grow back. Your pretty face will catch a man with money, and you'll be sitting on cushions soon enough."

Elizabeth lucked out that a Seymour servant spotted her first, her bare copper head bobbing in and out of a sea of flatterers, courtiers, and hangers-on. Soon enough, Edward thundered through the crowd with his retinue.

"Edward," she said simply. "If you would take me to—"

"Decency's sake! Cover your head!" he shouted. If a crowd, no, an audience was not already assembled, Edward's hollering had gathered a small army.

Elizabeth felt the weight of dozens of eyes; she cared not in the least. Elizabeth wore the last four years of her life like a shield: Cromwell, fear, love, lust, and grief after grief. I fear nothing, no one, Elizabeth told herself. She squared her shoulders and stepped towards Edward.

"Has the Lord Hertford become the town crier?" Elizabeth asked. "Shall we make this business quiet and quick?" Under her breath, she asked, "Or, I can make this as loud and embarrassing for the Seymours as you want."

Edward measured her determination and conceded: "I will take you to the king." He offered his arm, and Elizabeth rested her hand on him and allowed her brother to play at being a brother.

"You aren't big as a house, so I suppose you had the child," he grumbled.

"A son. His name is Thomas."

"I would not mention either of those details to His Majesty." Edward softened. "I am glad you are well. I wish when Cromwell fell-"

"I wouldn't say 'fell,' Edward," she corrected. "More like 'pushed.'"

"I wish things would have…turned out…"

Elizabeth halted their procession. "I look at you, and I feel nothing, Edward. Nothing. I note no trespasses, I do not tally my debts. Please do not say you are sorry."

"You were supposed to present your children," Edward continued. His liverymen trotted before them. Elizabeth was two doors away from the King of England.

"Your children?" Edward asked again.

"They are safe."

"The king meant for you to—"

"I never gamble with more than I am prepared to lose," Elizabeth interrupted him. Her eyes traveled over lines in her brother's face that she did not recall being etched in so deeply. "You might consider doing the same."

They cleared a set of doors. Only another panel of English oak separated Elizabeth from the king's clemency, or her own death warrant. Elizabeth almost asked for another moment to compose herself then laughed at the absurdity. She would need months, years to regain her red-gold mane.

Edward shoved a scrap of paper at her.

"His last correspondence, before the king had his inks and papers taken away."

No need to ask who "He," was. He. The man who made Elizabeth forget her past, carved out her present, and would haunt her future. Elizabeth discreetly unfolded the note.

Lissie,

Please forgive me. Think well on me. Tell our children what you think is the truth.

Thomas

She nudged the paper into the parcel shoved under her arms. Thomas, she wanted tell him, Thomas, you are the first and only man I will love.

"My sister, Lady Elizabeth Seymour," Edward announced. Elizabeth dropped into a curtsey. She had a part to play here.

Henry didn't bother looking up until he finished signing the document before him. He took his time with the sealing wax, so much time that Elizabeth sank to her knees in exhaustion.

Fortunately, Henry took it for deference.

"Oh, it's you." He said finally. "Well, what have you to say for yourself?"

"Majesty, I-" she glanced about for a page. They all seemed very interested in the floor tiles. She waved over Edward. Elizabeth shook the diamond out of the parcel. Edward walked the gem over to Henry, holding it between his index and thumb fingers, as if it were filthy and soiled with lust, greed, and ambition.

"I hand this jewel to Your Majesty's treasurer. And with it my blessings to Your Majesty and Mistress Howard." Elizabeth cast her eyes down, sweeping her lashes over her cheeks. Then, she licked her lips and glanced up. Henry was too engrossed in the diamond to scrutinize her penitence for sincerity.

"Your children?" he asked distractedly. Over and over he turned the diamond in the noontime light that filtered through stained glass.

"I feared they would take infection on the river." Elizabeth lied.

"So, you have another bastard to add to the roster?" Henry tore his eyes from the gem. He rolled his cane between his thick fingers, so Elizabeth could see the emerald from Cromwell's ring in its new setting.

"Yes."

"A son or daughter?"

Elizabeth winced. She knew Henry would hate this part the most. "A son."

"Named for his father, I don't doubt." The diamond quickly bored him, and he turned his attention full on Elizabeth.

"Little Lissie, some may say you fled your guardians for guilt. What say you?"

The door shut quietly behind her, and Elizabeth realized that Edward and the other pages had fled the battlefield.

"I am innocent," she said quietly. Elizabeth swallowed hard. "But I am a coward, a coward not to trust in Your Majesty's generosity and mercy." She had rehearsed her speech dozens of times but the bitter words stuck in her throat.

"I plead leniency for myself, for my children, for Mr. Cromwell's family."

Henry sucked at something between his teeth. "What do you offer me in return?"

Elizabeth unwrapped the parcel containing a single plait of her once glorious hair. Elizabeth shimmied forward on her knees towards the throne. Between Henry's bad leg and Elizabeth's childbirth scarred body, she was not sure that either of them could make to their feet. At the steps before Henry's great chair, she kept her eyes wide and full of what she hoped passed for awe.

"I offer Your Majesty the last of my youth, my vanity." She held the braid up. "I have nothing left. No looks. No fortune. Surely, I am of little consequence. Surely, my debts are paid."

Henry said nothing. He took the plait of hair and stroked his fingers through it.

"So," Elizabeth marched on. "I ask your permission to join Mr. Cromwell's niece in Antwerp, with my children."

"Are you aware of the crime under which Mr. Cromwell is charged?" Henry demanded suddenly. "What law he has broken?"
"No," Elizabeth said quietly. "I know he has offended Your Majesty greatly, and no doubt with cause."

"Well, you would know how he is, better than anyone," Henry smirked.

"It was not, it was not…a proper English marriage," Elizabeth managed.

"No marriage at all, I should think," Henry said flatly. He sniffed and studied the stained glass windows. "But you loved him?"

"I love him still."

Henry opened his mouth, about to ask why. Instead, he turned thoughtful, almost tender. "Love flows where it will." He shook away whatever ghost had turned him inward.

"You are still aunt to the next King of England, and you are woman of grave consequence." Henry said sternly. "Your place is at the English court. But," he reflected. "I see before me a woman much changed, not the wild filly come down from Yorkshire. I see a woman ready to resign herself to a woman's life." Henry nodded, as if he found that thought comforting. "God knows you aren't trying to catch a husband with your hair the way it is."

"Let me go quietly, and I will live quietly," Elizabeth pressed. "I will be a private person of no account."

Henry sighed. "You make a good show. If today were a masque, for certain you would be Remorse. And I am inclined to play Magnanimous. I think of your sister every day, and it is for that reason, only that reason, I grant your request."

"Jane was a gentle flame, in all our lives." Real tears weighed on Elizabeth's eyes.

Henry shifted in the quietness that descended between them. "Your northern lands are restored to you, in your own person as a widow," he declared.

Elizabeth's head shot up at the sudden generosity. She could not let this moment slip through her hands, when the wind of Henry's favor changed and enmity turned to mercy.

"And Master Gregory? Master Richard?"

"They may stay on as private persons of no account. I won't be ungenerous with them."

Elizabeth made her last desperate gamble.

"Majesty, please, I beg you show the same mercy to Thomas Cromwell," she murmured.

Henry's face turned to thunder at the mention of his minister's name. "He is condemned. And do you know for what crime?"

"I cannot say under what law, exactly," Elizabeth said carefully.

"Gardiner can't. Neither can your brother." Henry leaned down until only a few feet separated their faces. "But, Cromwell's ideas, thoughts, they are unnatural. What say you to that, little Lissie?"

"I understand there is a natural order to this world. I would not presume to fight it," Elizabeth parroted for the king.

Henry nodded at that. "You are welcome back to court if you wish. If you wish to go abroad, then you have my leave to sail tomorrow." He extended his jewel-encrusted hand for Elizabeth to kiss. She recognized the gem from her own wedding ring in a new setting. She placed her lips on the cool, green stone.

Henry caught her chin as she looked up.

"There are times I wonder if I ought not to have traded out one sister for the other." He shook his head. "Leave me. I look at you too long, and I see Jane."

From God knows where, Elizabeth summoned the strength to work her feet under her and rise to standing. She backed away from the King of England, not out of deference, but because Henry Tudor was the sort of beast she did not to turn her back on. Since the pages had fled, Elizabeth pushed open the door herself and within one step was nose to nose with half a dozen eavesdroppers. Katherine Howard stood at the forefront. Shock and embarrassment must have immobilized the girl, because when she remained stuck to her place, blocking Elizabeth's path.

Elizabeth raised her palm, and the crowd eagerly waited for what could only be a slap to the Howard girl's cheek. A gasp of disappointed surprise escaped the gathering when Elizabeth merely laid her hand flat against Katherine's bony shoulder.

"Excuse me," Elizabeth said quietly. "I just need to get by." She pushed Katherine to the side just enough so Elizabeth and her skirts could squeeze by.

Even when Elizabeth was almost half-way down the hall, she could hear Katherine shrilly demand:

"Did you see that?! Did you see that? She cannot do that! She cannot do that!"

"Well, she just did," Henry Howard calmly observed.

VIII.

Ralph Sadler met Elizabeth in front of Cromwell's apartments with Harr and Little Tom. Harr squirmed out of Ralph's arms and ran so fast to Elizabeth that had her skirts not trapped him like a net, Elizabeth could not imagine a force that could stop him.

"I imagine when you entered Cromwell's service, you imagined it was for a higher calling than nursemaid," Elizabeth told Ralph as he handed the infant over.

"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve a man like Thomas Cromwell," Ralph said with quiet dignity. "And it has been my pleasure to serve a lady like you."

"The king will not spare him," Elizabeth choked back a sob. She nestled Tom's head into the softness of her neck and squeezed Harr's fleshy palm.

"The king is sending me to the Tower this evening to bring some final papers for him to sign. If there is a letter, some message, you would like me to bring Master Cromwell…". Ralph's voice trailed off.

Elizabeth almost said, tell him that I love him. But even that sounded too shallow, too trite to fully sum up what she felt for Cromwell. All the nights spent fighting, loving, plotting. He had been her enemy, husband, lover, and most surprisingly, he had been a friend too. They had cut at each other, and the blades of their betrayals may have been put away over the past few years, but Elizabeth could not imagine that either of them every truly forgave the other for Robert Aske. How could Elizabeth send Ralph with a tidy message that summed up all of this? That even through the darkest hours, he remained the most interesting person that Elizabeth had met.

"Tell him," Elizabeth began slowly. "Tell him that I will think of him always. Tell him how glad, how humbled it makes me that I was able to call him my husband, even if it was only for a short time."

Ralph nodded and turned squarely on his heel. Elizabeth imagined Ralph left in such a hurry so he would not see her begin to cry. So she would not see him cry.

Elizabeth took her dinner privately with Edward and Anne, who complained bitterly of the noise that Harr and the baby caused. But, Elizabeth marked the way Anne's eyes tracked Harr, brown eyes worn with longing. And when Tom squeezed Anne's little finger with his whole palm, she quickly excused herself.

"Well it's nasty, positively disgraceful, that you let him suck at your teat like a peasant," Anne remarked. Anne, who could never leave on a sweet note.

When Harr could no longer keep his eyes open, and Tom suckled himself into milk-drunk sleep, only then did Elizabeth ask one of the maids to sit with them in what used to be the nursery. Elizabeth wanted to walk the expanse of Whitehall one last time, retrace the secret passageways that led to intrigue and danger. At the late hour, only a few courtiers remained, either passed out drunk or playing at chess or cards.

It surprised Elizabeth that Henry Howard, soon to come into his great estate with another Howard queen, sat by himself, his head resting tiredly against his hands while he dangled a quill.. Instinctively—he loved women, could not help himself-he glanced up at the click of her heels.

"Blind man cut your hair?" he asked.

"It's the latest French fashion," she smirked. The Earl of Surrey was pompous, too attached to the Howard name, but Elizabeth imagined that if she were not a Seymour and he were a little less arrogant, they would have counted each other friends.

"I understand you sail on the morning tide," he said. "Can't blame you, for wanting to put as much distance between yourself and London when the axe rains down tomorrow."

Elizabeth immediately changed the subject. "What is that, my lord?" She sat next to him without an invitation.

"Oh, it's nothing," he dismissed. "A trifle."

"I daresay that our lord Surrey's trifles will one day be regarded as our greatest poetry," Elizabeth smiled. Surrey stared ahead, reflecting for a moment.

"Then, I daresay, my lady can read it." He slid the page to her. "It's a translation, in sonnet form, one of Martial's epigrams." He read Elizabeth's face for comprehension. "That is of course, the Roman poet. But, that doesn't matter. It's about…the happy life." He paused and met Elizabeth's eyes. She wondered at the sadness in his face, and she could not chalk it all up to too much wine.

"The golden mean," Surrey finished. He held her gaze until Elizabeth began to read.

" 'The happy life be these I find. The riches left and not got with pain. The fruitful ground. The quiet mind. The equal friend: no grudge, no strife. No charge of rule, no governance. Without disease the healthful life. Wisdom joined with simplicity. The night discharged of all care." Elizabeth stopped at that. " 'The night discharged of all care,'" she repeated. " 'the quiet mind, wisdom joined with simplicity.'" "A night discharged of all care," she whispered again. "My God, I wish these things were true," Elizabeth admitted.

Surrey turned to her, almost tenderly, he asked, "And which of these, does my Lady Seymour not have?"

"All of them," she said simply. He regarded her for a moment, without blinking.

"Then you are like me," said the Howard to the Seymour. "And like all the Romans, and all the barbarians, and all the generations before us, and all those yet to come. For who does not wish, my lady, with all their heart for 'the quiet mind.' Tell me a single soul who has ever found it?"

A moment hung between them, and neither wished to cheapen it saying another word. Elizabeth knew that Surrey did not pity her. Instead, his gentleness that night sprouted out of an understanding that the same wheels of fortune that had thrown down one of his nieces has tossed up the Seymours, and now that the Seymours were on their way down another Howard was on the way up.

He kissed her hand.

"My lady, I wish you and your children a long, happy life on a distant shore. Let us wish each other a quiet mind." Surrey returned to his translation and left Elizabeth to ponder and pray.

When she climbed into bed with Harr and Little Tom, it was half way to morning. She listened to their breath, soft and steady as a tide. She could not be sure if it was exhaustion or resignation, but when she curled her body around her children, there it was: the quiet mind.

IX.

Thomas Cromwell knelt at his bedside praying. Sometimes the Gospels came out in Latin, other times in French, Italian, German. Languages from other lifetimes. When his courage faltered, he clutched at the rings he wore around his neck.

"Bess, girls," he whispered. "I'm coming home to you." Really, he only regretted that he would die without ever holding his new son. Cromwell had not been modest when he told Cranmer that he had lived as a sinner. The only sin Cromwell had not indulged was gluttony; the other six sins were well and fully accounted for. But, Cromwell could not, would not, believe that he had been a bad man. He had only been as hard as the life into which he was born. All in all, it had been a good life, far better than he had the right to expect. And not for the riches. Simply put: Cromwell had been loved, and he had loved in return—even now as he admitted he was still unsure how to show it.

Cromwell heard the jangle of keys, and his heart dropped into his stomach.

"Too soon," he aloud. "I am not ready, not yet."

He heard Kingston explain that Cromwell began refusing food three days ago and water two days ago. Kingston said something about Cromwell preparing for his spiritual eternity. Actually, Cromwell's concerns had been far more corporeal: he did not want to risk pissing or shitting himself when the axe-man came towards him.

It was the strange, dragging steps following Kingston that caused Cromwell to turn from his prayers. A faint smell of decay floated through the cold air when the door swung open, and Henry Tudor limped over the threshold.

"How like you my wedding doublet?" Henry demanded as he settled onto a stool. "I am getting married this afternoon." He extended his hand for Cromwell to kiss.

Cromwell studied the ermine trimming and thick embroidery. Garish, unseasonal, and slightly ugly. Instead, he stayed on his knees and kissed the ring that used to belong to Lissie and told Henry:

"His Majesty is every inch the prince that I remember."

"Jesus Christ, can a man every get a 'yes' or 'no' answer out of you?" Henry grumbled. "Do you know why you are to die?"

"I have offended—"

"Oh, shut up, Tom!" Henry shouted. He shot out of the stool, but his bad leg sent the king crashing back to earth. "Fucking Bones of Becket!" Henry cursed at the pain.

"Majesty, I-"

"What do you see when you look at me?"

A monster, a tyrant, a spoiled bully who never quite left the nursery. Cromwell answered, "I see my king."

Henry's fist pounded at the crude writing table. "No! No! You do not. A prince is chosen by God, as God's representative, as God's mouthpiece for his people. When I look in your eyes, Tom, I see only my reflection. Nothing more."

What, was Henry hoping to catch a glimpse of the Holy Ghost?

"I am England," Henry said simply. "I am England's king; therefore, I am the realm. But when I look at you looking at me, I see a man who can envision an England without its king."
"I cannot imagine the Commonwealth without Your Majesty," Cromwell lied.

Henry slammed his fist into the table and cursed the table for being so bloody solid.

"You love England more than you love me. That is your crime, that is why you must die lower than a dog, a traitor's death." Henry worked himself up to standing in labored stages. "You leave me with no choice. But…" Henry shook his head. "Strike off your head and I hardly kill the hydra. Hundreds, thousands more Thomas Cromwells will come out of the woodpile. Christ's love, I killed Thomas More to show my power. And did I get obedience? No, I got a martyr, and emboldened the papists." Henry glared at Cromwell as though the prisoner should solve the dilemma for his executioner.

"You love England more than me," Henry repeated. "And don't deny it. You lie as easily as you breathe." Henry turned to go. "I cannot have a martyr, I cannot have a traitor, above all I cannot have subjects that love the ground beneath their feet more than their prince. So what am I to do with you?"

Cromwell held off on an answer, just in case the king's question was rhetorical.

"I promised to cut out your heart and make you eat it," Henry continued. "And so I shall." He turned to leave. "You are sailing on the next tide. You will never see England again."

X.

Elizabeth had not expected a royal send-off at the dockside. Gregory held Harr tight and tried to explain to the child that "good-byes are not forever." When the trumpets blasted to announce Henry Tudor, little Tom awoke and bawled. Elizabeth shielded her eyes against the dawn reflected off the Thames. That could not really be the royal standard fluttering against the pink sky. When she moved to throw her arms around Gregory again, Edward moved between them, roughly grabbing Harr from his brother.

"The sooner, the faster you get this done with, the better," Edward muttered as he began shooing Elizabeth, Harr, and Tom's nursemaid up the gangplank. "Here's to help you get settled," he whispered as he pushed a pouch of coins against her stomacher. "Damn it, Lissie, move."

Elizabeth blinked and held her hands to shade her view.

"Mary Mother of God," she murmured. Quick as a dance-step, Elizabeth pivoted around Edward as she precariously balanced Harr on one hip and Tom on the other.

When Edward tracked her line of sight, the shock muted him. The king. The king and Cromwell. The king's personal guard hauled Cromwell off the mule he'd been riding when it became clear he was too weak to walk a hundred paces. They used the butt of their axes to shove Cromwell onto the dockside.

The king peered down at Edward. "I told you I would cut out his heart."

And suddenly it became clear: Henry wanted Cromwell in exile, not out of mercy, but so Cromwell's heart would break at little more each day, each morning he woke up knowing he would never again see the England he almost lost his life building.

"Make your farewells to Master Gregory and Master Richard," Henry said impatiently.

Elizabeth held her children tighter to her. She approached Henry, but two battle axes crossed into an perfect "X" blocking her access. Henry laughed at her shocked face.

"You did not honestly think I would let every Cromwell leave, did you? No, no I think better to keep a few Cromwells where I can see them, where they can do as they are bid in Parliament."

"Please, sire. Please don't break their hearts like this," she begged. Henry stared straight ahead.

"I've heard enough of your pleadings to last a lifetime, my lady. You will be silent, unless of course you would like your children to remain on English soil for all time, as well."

In the end, three guards had to wrestle Cromwell's arms from their lock around Gregory. If Elizabeth had not thrown her weight into the fight, she would not have seen Cromwell make one last pull for Gregory, see him put his mouth to son's ear, and tell him:

"I'm coming back. I promise. I will come back."

"Dignity, Master Cromwell. Dignity," counseled Edward as he slipped Cromwell's sinewy arm over his shoulders to get him on the gangplank. Cromwell rounded on Edward like a beaten dog. He grabbed a chunk of Edward's hair and forced his face against Cromwell's.

"One day, Edward," he hissed. "One day you are going to wake up, and the Channel will be black with thousands of ships, and you will know that I am coming back with an army, of soldiers, of traders and bankers. But I'll march straight past Brandon's door, straight past the Howards. But I'll be coming for you. Yours will be the first head I come for." Cromwell shoved Edward off of him as if he were the lowest, filthiest beggar.

The boat was rowed out until the river banks became wider and wider. Elizabeth pressed herself close to Cromwell, and they made a vigil of watching England disappear. Finally, the crew raised the sails, which swallowed up the wind. The ship picked up speed, and Cromwell retched over the side.

"I've lost my boys, I've lost my boys."

Elizabeth pressed Tom and Harr against him, not that she thought that one son could replace another.

When land disappeared into a forgotten memory, Cromwell let Elizabeth urge him to sit with the children on the portside. He sat in such silent disbelief that Elizabeth feared the Tower had stolen his wits until he clumsily pulled her towards him.

"I thought I lost you," he said against her forehead. She settled against him, with nothing to say, too drunk on his weight against her. They huddled that way until Cromwell straightened up, closed his eyes, and sensed the winds change.

"To Calais?" she asked.

"No, no," he replied, almost dreamy. "North. The Netherlands."

She wondered if some monotony might ease his grief. "Edward sent us along with some money. I've been paid in full for my Northern Estates. You might figure out how much we have, what the exchange rates will be. What we'll have to borrow against."

Cromwell gave one of his half-smiles. "You'll have me as your banker, not your husband?"

"I'll have you any way I can. I have it on good authority that we were two of the most notorious sinners in England. No sense in disappointing everyone by showing discretion and propriety. Let's keep on living in sin with each other. Besides, I trust you to make us rich enough again to buy a little respectability."

Elizabeth left Harr in Cromwell's lap. He showed the different coins to the child, explained their different weight and value. Harr seemed most interested in the part where you placed the coins between your teeth.

The winds picked up but the sea stayed calm. So, Elizabeth walked up and down the ship with Tom. When she peered over the side, she made out slim bodies following the boat and misty air puffing out of the water.

"Dolphins!" She exclaimed to little Tom, as if his newborn eyes could make out anything more than her face.

For an ending, Elizabeth felt the sense of a beginning. Part of the story was familiar: she was again a single woman, and her money was again in her name and her name only. And in some of the German free cities, she would be able to hold land in her own name. But the next chapters were hazy. She glanced over her shoulders to where Cromwell and Harr counted and suspiciously eyed Edward's coinage. Then she turned back to the open sea, so expansive it seemed water and sky ran together for eternity. The wind whipped at Elizabeth's cheeks, and she let the tide, the dolphins, and the wheels of fortune carry her to a vast, unknown land just waiting to be re-made by a man such as Cromwell and a woman such as herself.

XII.

Francis Dereham studied the darkening skies as he rested against an apple tree and let his horse nose through the grass. A large droplet splashed off his riding hat. A whole summer without rain, and the moment Thomas Cromwell's feet left English soil, the whole sky decided to open up and rain on Francis Dereham's journey. He stood and shook the water from his hat, hoping Kitty would still think he dressed smartly.

He patted his horse's flanks. "What do you say? Are you man enough?"

He swung himself into the saddle. Francis studied again the bloated rain clouds; it was as good a day as any to head for London.