“He is aggrieved that my brothers and cousins are given positions at Court while he is ignored. His father’s treason taints him still.”

I caged her hips in a farthingale wide as a cart. Over it I tied a carmine skirt, pinning up the hem to reveal her ankles. My hands darted like a bird pecking seed, working needles and pins, laces and points, circling Frances like a whole flock of maids though I was but one woman. My deftness pleased me, as if the pins and laces grew from my own body as silk comes from the spider. I enjoyed the feel of the sharp metal broaching cloth made on looms in foreign lands, by hands as quick and sure as my own. It pleased me to sculpt fine materials into the shapes in my mind’s eye. To the bodice I tied sleeves, pulling them into sharp peaks above her shoulders. From the shambles of this whipped child rose a castle, every swag and buttress a testament to her worth.

“He has been restored to his titles and lands, he should be content with that or try harder to be liked by my family, who might help him,” said Frankie. It was not for me to discuss the savagery of her husband’s whipping, so I concentrated instead on what I was there to do. I rolled her hair over fat pads and stuck them with jeweled pins. The parrot attempted to steal the jewels but we batted it away and it came to rest among the rose-dyed ostrich feathers atop Frances’s bed, as if among the foliage of its homeland. I took three of the longest feathers and pinned them to her hair, to give her another foot or more of height.

“My great-uncle Northampton sent me that popinjay this morning as a New Year’s present. With it was a note that green is the color of hope and physical love. He has a nose for trouble like no other,” said Frances.

The Lord Northampton was so high a person that to talk casually of him would be like gossiping about God. That her father and great-uncle were, alongside Lord Salisbury, the King’s three closest advisers, his “Trinity of Knaves” as he called them, made me feel again the distance between us.

“He claims it can say ‘Hail Mary,’ but for me it only shrieks and whistles. Comfit?” she asked.

I declined but watched in admiration as she tossed the sweetmeat high in the air and caught it in her mouth. “My brother Harry taught me,” she said with a laugh. “His eyes will pop when he sees me tricked out like this.”

“Your husband’s too. And all the women in your acquaintance. Now I will paint you.”