The king shows me the old moats that have been dug in the past to defend London from invaders.

“No men come now?” I ask him.

“There is no trusting any man,” he says grimly. “The men would come from the North and the East if they had not felt the hammer of my anger already, and the Scots would come if they thought they could. But my nephew King James fears me, as well he should, and the Yorkshire rabble have been taught a lesson they will not forget. Half of them are in mourning for the other half who are dead.”

I say no more for fear of spoiling his happy mood; Katherine’s horse stumbles, and she gives a little gasp and clutches the horse’s mane. The king laughs at her and calls her a coward. Their talk leaves me free to look about me.

Beyond the city walls are bigger houses set back from the road with little gardens before them or close-planted little fields. Everyone has a pig in their field, and some people have cows or goats as well as hens in their gardens. It is a rich country; I can see it in the faces of the people who have the shining round cheeks and the smiles of the well fed. Another mile from the city and we come into countryside of open fields and little hedgerows and neat farms and sometimes little villages and hamlets. At every crossroads there is a shrine that has been destroyed, sometimes a statue of the mother of Christ stands with her head casually knocked off and still a little fresh posy of flowers at her feet; not all the English are convinced by the changes in the law. In every other village a small monastery or abbey is being remodeled or broken down. It is extraordinary to see the change that this king has made to the face of his country in a matter of years. It is as if oak trees had been suddenly banned and every great sheltering and beautiful tree had been savagely felled overnight. The king has plucked the heart out of his country, and it is too soon to see how it will live and breathe without the holy houses and the holy life that have guided it forever.

The king breaks off from his conversation with Katherine Howard and says to me: “I have a great country.”

I am not such a fool to comment that he has destroyed or stolen one of its greatest treasures.

“Good farms,” I say,“and…” I stop for I do not know the English word for the beasts. I point to them.

“Sheep,” he says. “This is the wealth of this country. We supply the wool to the world. There is not a coat made in Christendom that is not woven with English wool.”

This is not quite true, for in Cleves we shear our own sheep and weave our own wool, but I know that the English wool trade is very great, and besides, I don’t want to correct him.

“Grandmama has our flock on the South Downs,” Katherine pipes up. “And the meat is so good, sire. I will ask her to send you some.”

“Will you, pretty girl?” he asks her. “And shall you cook it for me?”

She laughs. “I could try, sir.”

“Now confess, you cannot dress a joint or make a sauce. I doubt you have ever been so much as inside a kitchen.”

“If Your Grace wants me to cook for you, then I will learn,” she says. “But I admit you might eat better with your own cooks.”

“I am quite sure of it,” he says. “And a pretty girl like you does not need to cook. I am sure you have other ways to enchant your husband.”

Their speech is too quick for me to quite follow, but I am glad that my husband is merry and that Katherine has the way of managing him. She chatters to him like a little girl, and he finds her amusing, as an old man might pet a favored granddaughter.

I let them talk together, and go on looking around me. Our road now runs beside the wide, fast-flowing river, which is busy with boatmen, barges of the noble families, wherry boats, barges of trade traveling laden into London, and fishermen with rods out for the good river fish. The water meadows, still wet with the winter floods, are lush and shiny with pools of standing water. A great heron lifts up slowly from a mere as we go past and flaps his great wings and flies west before us, tucking his long legs up.

“Is Hampton Court a little house?” I ask.

The king spurs his horse forward to talk to me. “A great house,” he says. “The most beautiful house in the world.”

I doubt very much that the French king who built Fontainebleau or the Moors who built the Alhambra would agree, but since I have not seen either palace I won’t correct him. “Did you build it, Your Grace?” I ask.

As soon as I speak I discover that it is once again the wrong thing to say. I thought it would encourage him to tell me about the planning and building of it, but his expression, which was so smiling and handsome, suddenly darkens. Little Katherine quickly answers.

“It was built for the king,” she says. “By an advisor who proved to be a false counselor. The only good thing he did was make a palace fit for His Majesty. Or at least, that’s what my grandmother told me.”

His face lightens, and he laughs aloud. “You speak truly, Mistress Howard, indeed, though you must have been a child when Wolsey betrayed me. He was a false counselor, and the house that he built and gave to me is a fine one.” He turns to me. “It is mine now,” he says less warmly. “That is all you need to know. And it is the finest house in the world.”

I nod and ride forward. How many men have offended this king, in the long years of his rule? He drops back for a moment and speaks to his Master of Horse, who is riding beside the young man Thomas Culpepper, talking and laughing together.

The riders ahead of us turn from the road, and I see the great gateway before us. I am stunned at the sight of it. It really is a tremendous palace, of beautiful scarlet brick, the most expensive of all building materials, with arches and quoins of shining white stone. I had no idea that it was so great and fine. We ride through the huge stone gate and down the sweeping road toward it, under the entry gate, and our horses’ hooves sound like thunder on the cobbles of the great inner yard. Inside is a great court, and the servants coming out of the house fling open the huge double doors so that I can see the hall beyond. They line up, like a guard of honor, in the liveries of the royal Tudor house, according to their rank, row on row of men and women dedicated to our service. This is a house for hundreds of people, a massive place built for the pleasure of the court. Again, I am overwhelmed, the wealth of this country too much for me.

“What happened to the man who built the house?” I ask Katherine as we dismount in the great courtyard, amid the noise of the court, the seagulls calling on the river beyond the house, the rooks cawing on the turrets. “What happened to the counselor who offended the king?”

“That was Cardinal Wolsey,” she says quietly. “He was found guilty of acting against the king, and he died.”

“He died, too?” I ask. I find I dare not ask what blow felled the builder of this kingly house.

“Yes, died and disgraced,” she says shortly. “The king turned on him. Sometimes he does, you know.”