He sees it coming. Not in the way she does, or the way she supposedly does. He saw his end right from the beginning, before he had even gone into the king’s employ. Wolsey had cautioned him about this path. He had told him that there was no one that he would be happier and sadder to see take his place as Henry’s esteemed adviser. Wolsey had believed that he deserved the world; that he should be immortalized in history, but he knew that one day, his enemies would catch up to him, no matter how fast he tried to outrun them. Your enemies will become my enemies, Wolsey had said. And he had been right. Wolsey had always been right.He had been right about how he had needed to get rid of Anne Boleyn before she had his head, or rather than chaining himself to her sinking fortunes. Henry would see him swept away with her if he did not do what was necessary for his fortunes. God, he had thought that everything would have been bright and hopeful with Jane Seymour’s reign. He had thought that nothing could go wrong. His wife, god, his wife, had seemed too pessimistic. He’d thought that Jane would live! But she had died, and it seemed like only a minor setback. He had been cautioned not to pursue Anne of Cleves as future wife, but he had seen how the Protestant cause was crumbling and would be entirely forgotten if he did not do this. He thought that he could manage this all, like he had gotten through everything else. But it had not been so. Eventually, came the guards dragging him to the Tower. He hadn’t gone quietly, shouting for the king, as if he might hear him. No, he must have been out with that girl, that infernal girl, Katherine Howard. No doubt the Duke of Norfolk was bloody pleased with himself!In his cell, he wrote to the king, page upon page, until his hand would fall off, or his ink was gone, but he would use his own blood if he had to, use it until he was drained of every last drop, until the king would come.But she came to him instead. What is she? His wife, a witch, an angel of death? She kissed him through the metal bars, and the kiss felt weak and desperate. She was going to pull away, but he grabbed her wrist with a ferocity that a dead, dangerous man would. He would pull her feeble arm through the bar, pull her whole body through it if he could. Bones are brittle, he could break her this way and that way, until he was here with her.“Are you a fraud?” He spat at her sharply, but quietly. His eyes are searching, dark and deep, into those eyes of his wife, of the woman who had slept beside him, whose body had warmed him through the night, whose gentle kiss had soothed his nightmares, when he had seen the ghosts of his friends and enemies in his dreams. “Or did you see this?” His voice is a hoarse whisper. Does he believe in her divine, bewitching powers. “Did you let me die?” He is mad with thoughts of prophecy! Tell me, he implored, he begged! Tell me you are my innocent wife!