De la Quadra bows very low and steps up to speak to the queen, but I am not attending to royal business; I am watching Ned, who is walking with Frances Mewtas through the people to the back of the hall where the candles throw intimate shadows and courting couples dawdle in the alcoves. I cannot see him, and I am not allowed to go to find him. This is an ordeal for me, and then I hear, almost in the distance, Elizabeth telling the Spanish ambassador that Robert Dudley’s wife is dead of a canker.

I am so shocked as the words penetrate my anxious surveillance of the back of the hall that I stop looking for Ned and I stare at Elizabeth. Did she really say that Lady Dudley is dead? “Or nearly so,” she corrects herself. “Poor woman.”

De la Quadra looks as stunned as I am. Only good manners prevent him yelping: “Qué? Qué?”

Why would Elizabeth say such an extraordinary thing? What woman is dead one moment and “nearly so” the next? Is Elizabeth blind and deaf to simple good manners? Does she not realize that it is not very charming of a mistress to release the news of an abandoned wife’s death as if it were a matter of mild interest? And then muddle whether she is dead or not? And if the woman is dead, why is Robert Dudley not at his home, ordering mourning clothes, arranging her funeral? Or if she is on her deathbed, why is Robert Dudley dancing at Elizabeth’s birthday feast and not at his dying wife’s side?

I long to find Ned and tell him this extraordinary conversation, but when the presentation of gifts is over, there is general dancing and I am still nailed to the dais behind Elizabeth, who is now whispering with Robert Dudley. Whatever she is saying, while he smiles down at her with his eyes on her mouth, they are not talking about cankers and deathbeds.

Ned is not among the couples on the floor. He is not among the men watching the women dancing. He is not cautiously working his way to the top of the room so that he can be near me. I can’t see him anywhere, and I cannot see Frances Mewtas either.

I am trapped on the dais with Elizabeth, and Ned does not come near me. I don’t see him again all night, though the court retires late as Elizabeth dances and dances, drinks her own health, and finally leads us from the room. Ned is nowhere to be seen among the men bowing as we withdraw. Frances Mewtas scuttles from one of the galleries at the last minute, all flushed, and joins the procession of ladies leaving the room.