For once in my life, I have nothing to say, not a scream of protest, not even a flood of tears, not one word. I am so shocked I am struck dumb. Where Elizabeth sank down onto the steps at the watergate and wept in self-pity and made sure her words were recorded, I am silent. I disembark from the barge, I take the outstretched hand to help me up the steps. I go quietly, like a frightened child, to wherever they lead me, up the stone steps and through the garden gate into the front door of the lieutenant’s house, the mansion house of the busy little walled village that includes both mint and armory, treasure house and palace, prison, and place of execution.

They help me up the narrow staircase to a good-sized bedchamber at the front of the house, and when I sink into a chair, they go out and close the door quietly. Then I hear the key turning in the lock. It is not a long terrible grating sound—it is an oiled lock that has been used often. I am only another prisoner.

THE LIEUTENANT’S HOUSE, THE TOWER, LONDON,

SUMMER 1561

When I get up in the morning and look through the leaded panes of the small window, I can see the green where they built the scaffold and beheaded my sister. If I squint to the left, I can see the chapel where they buried her severed head beside her slight truncated body. I sleep in the bed that was hers when she was queen, I cry into her pillows. I sit in her old chair. The tapestries that hang on the walls are those that hung in her bedroom.

On the other side of the Tower grounds, past the White Tower and out of sight, are the stables where she put her hand on our father’s rein and begged him not to leave her. I can hear the clang of the gate that opened for him on that day. This is the place of my sister’s crowning, betrayal, and death. My father is buried here, too. This is where Elizabeth, with extraordinary cruelty, has chosen to imprison me.

She took her time like the heartless automaton that she is. She smiled at me on progress, she waved to the crowds along the route. She favored me before the Spanish and the French ambassadors. She said nothing, not even to Robert Dudley when he told her the news that triggered her jealous hatred. She gave everyone—even me—to understand that I was still an heir, just as I was before he confessed to her, that I am her cousin, her lady-in-waiting, a favorite, a girl she regards as her daughter. Actually, she behaved as if he had said nothing, that she had heard nothing. It was as if no confession had ever been made, and Bess St. Loe and Robert Dudley said nothing either.