Katherine is no help at all in defending us against this sudden plan. My lady mother commands her to come to court on a flying visit, and Katherine is thrilled by the rooms and the servants, the foods and her gowns. She dresses Mr. Nozzle in a coat of Tudor green and buys a pure white kitten with her ribbon allowance. She calls him “Ribbon,” of course, and takes him everywhere in the pocket of her cape. Her only regret is that she has been taken away from the horses at Bradgate, and the bear. She was hoping to tame the bear with kindness so that he could be a dancing bear instead of a killing one. She is not horrified, as a virgin maid should be, at the sudden prospect of wedlock; she is completely delighted.

“I’m to be married? Oh, God be praised! Thank God! At last! To who? To who?”

“Whom,” I say coldly.

“Oh, who cares? Whom should care? Whom am I marrying? Tell me!”

“Henry Lord Herbert,” I say shortly. “The Earl of Pembroke’s son.”

She blushes red as a rose. “Oh! So handsome!” she breathes. “And he’s young, our age, not some old heap of bones.” She has a pretty small bird clinging to her finger, and she lifts it to her face and kisses its beak. “I am to be married!” she tells it. “And to a handsome young lord!” The bird cheeps as if it understands her, and she puts it on her shoulder where it spreads its tail for balance and puts its head on one side to look at me, as bright-eyed as my sister.

“Yes,” I say levelly. “He’s perfectly pleasing.”

“And he’s godly,” she says to cheer me. “He’s Kateryn Parr’s nephew. Surely, you must like him.”

“Actually, I do.”

“How happy we shall be!” She gives a little twirl on the spot as if her feet have to dance for joy. The little bird flaps and clings on. “And I shall be a countess!”

“Yes,” I say dryly. “And his father will be locked down hard into an alliance with our father and with John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.”

She doesn’t think about this, the three most powerful men in the country, the three leaders of the reformed faith, coming together and marrying their children to each other to provide against betrayal. Trusting each other so little, so faithless in their shared faith that they barter their children to confirm their agreement, like Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain with wood and a knife to burn him for God.

“Oh, but who are you to marry?” She pauses in her self-absorbed jig. “Who do they have for you? Are they staying with Seymour?” She gasps. “Oh! Not the king? Tell me! Tell me you’re not going to marry the king and be Queen Jane?”