I go to bed in tears, I am so furious and so pained. I did not think I could feel like this again. It is so much worse than the last time that I lost Ned. This time I have given him my promise, I believed us to be all but married.

I toss and turn in the hot sheets, and my lady-bedfellow mutters sleepily: “Are you ill, your ladyship? Shall I fetch you something?”

I make myself lie like a bolster but I can hear my hurt heart thudding in my ears. I hear the clock strike the hour, every hour from midnight till five in the morning, and only then, as it starts to get light and the servants start to clatter about and put fresh wood on the dying fires, do I fall asleep.

Elizabeth at chapel looks as if she has slept as badly as I have. I don’t know what is wrong with her. There can be nothing wrong for her. She has everything to hope for. Her rival is dying or dead; her birthday is celebrated throughout the kingdom as if she were a beloved queen; Robert Dudley is at her side, as smiling and relaxed as a confident bridegroom. But Elizabeth shrinks from him. She asks for Cecil to be sent for. She walks with him, her head bent towards him in low-voiced consultation. He is urging her to stand fast, as she trembles and leans on him. Something serious is happening, but I am so absorbed in looking for Ned that I cannot be troubled with Elizabeth and her sudden changes of mood.

The court walks behind Cecil and Elizabeth, who are clearly not to be disturbed, until Cecil bows and steps back and someone else leaps forward to be presented to the queen and ask her for some favor. William Cecil finds himself alongside the Spanish ambassador; Mary and I walk behind them, their slow pace suiting Mary’s short stride. I take her hand.

“I can manage,” she says, shrugging me off.

“I know you can. I just wanted some comfort. I am very unhappy.”

“Hush!” she says, unfeelingly. She is openly eavesdropping on the conversation going on ahead of us. I can hear snatches of Cecil’s talk, over the lapping noise of the water on the riverbank. He is complaining of Elizabeth—a thing that he never, never does—telling the Spanish ambassador that he is going to leave court, that he cannot tolerate another day of it. I pinch Mary’s arm. “Hark at Cecil!” I say, shocked. “What is he saying? He can’t be leaving court again?”