She glanced discreetly at Franny. Her stockings were torn. The clogs she wore were wooden, good for mud. In fact, they looked as if they had animal poop stuck to them. Not dog poop either. Cowpats, undoubtedly, as there were some pieces of straw mixed in. Her skirt hadn’t been washed in a long time. There were stains on it. And then of course there was Franny’s odd way of speaking, not simply her accent but these outlandish expressions—God’s kneecaps! The most fun swear ever, Rose thought. She pictured God sitting on a throne of cumulous clouds. His flowing celestial garments hiked up a bit, exposing knobby old knees crowning skinny, slightly hairy legs. Maybe God would be groaning a bit—“Oh, lamentations! My arthritis is kicking up again.” To the left of the wide drive they were walking on was a vast lawn. A wonderful scent of freshly mowed grass swirled through the air, and beneath an oak tree was the hunched figure of a girl. Rose couldn’t see her clearly, as her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders shook.

“That girl over there. She’s crying. Who is she?”

“That’s her, poor thing.” Franny sighed.

“Her? You mean the . . .”

“Yes, Her Royal Highness. Princess Elizabeth.”

“Of course,” Rose whispered, because it made sense to her now that everything she thought to be true could change in an instant. Her mom’s life had ended in an instant. Her own life had changed in that same instant. So why should anything surprise Rose now? And though nothing seemed quite real to her, she kept looking to test reality, scouring this scene for certain touchstones of reality like the stains on Franny’s skirts or the poop on the clogs. But nevertheless, she was surprised. And now she had been told that the weeping girl beneath the tree was royal. She could hardly ask to see her blue blood. Wasn’t that the color that flowed through royal veins? And what proof could she offer them, offer to Franny or possibly this princess, of her own identity? Would they believe that she, Rose Ashley, had slipped from her grandmother Rosalinda’s greenhouse in Indianapolis in the twenty-first century, and now she was here in England in what must be the sixteenth century?

“If they take you on, Rose, it’s a fine job. I think she’ll like you.”

Rose was only half listening, as she had spotted September peeking around the immense trunk of the oak tree. Her tilting green eyes were fastened on the princess.

“I . . . I . . . hope so . . . but why is the princess crying?”

“Banished.”

“Banished?”

“Banished from court by her father.”

“Her own father banished her?”

“Well, he’s king, you know. He can do that.”

“But she’s his daughter!”

“He’s not just any king. He’s King Henry the Eighth. He can do whatever he wants. He chopped off her mother’s head.”