“Leave me alone!” I wrenched myself away from his grip and ran, slipping on the cobbles and the manure, dirty water splashing my skirts from the gutters. I blundered into the palace, momentarily blinded by the darkness after the bright light outside, aware of nothing but the gaping faces around me as I clutched Arthur’s letter in one shaking hand. The sobs tore at my chest and I was obliged to stop to steady myself, one hand against the wall, my breath coming in pants.

“Mistress... Dudley, is it not?”

I dashed the tears from my eyes. There was an unnatural stillness around me all of a sudden. The crowds had fallen back, waiting.

It was the Queen. I had not seen her approach. She peered at me, head poking forward like a myopic tortoise.

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty.” I dropped the best curtsey I could manage under the circumstances, wiping my eyes and, surreptitiously, my nose. “Please excuse me. I did not realise...”

“A moment—” She touched my sleeve, staying me. “Walk with me. Tell me what ails you.”

I would much have preferred not to but I had no choice. It was a royal command. Reluctantly I fell into step beside her.

“I have but this moment received the news of my mother’s death,” I said, carefully. “I fear my grief has overset me.”

“I am very sorry.” Her faded, dark eyes appraised me sadly. “I still recall the deep sorrow of losing a parent.”

I could only imagine that she was speaking of her mother, Catherine of Aragon, to whom she had been inordinately loyal and whose memory she still honoured. The death of her father, the late King Henry, who had been such a tyrant towards her could not have been the cause for much regret.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said.

“You were coming from the tiltyard.” The impression of a weary, ageing woman was misleading; she was sharp. “You were apprising your husband of the news?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I see.” I thought she probably did. “Did he tell you that he is to accompany the King to Picardy?”

“Yes, madam, he did.”

“You had not known?” She was a shrewd reader of tone and expression. “Ah.” Her shoulders slumped. “It is a difficult matter to be a neglected wife, Mistress Dudley, is it not? It is even more difficult to be a childless one.” Her eyes met mine and I felt a ripple of shock at the pain and disillusionment I saw there. This woman and I were not so dissimilar though she was Queen of England in her own right and surrounded by all the trappings of majesty. She could not command a man’s good opinion or his loyalty, nor could she, apparently, bear his child. Since the supposed false pregnancy she had experienced eighteen months before there had been nothing.

Something snapped in me then at the accumulated weight of grief and frustration. I grasped her sleeve, pulling her back when she would have walked on, careless of convention.