The days are very long, and my room is hot and stuffy. I play with the puppies and I whistle to the linnets, let them fly around the room and call them back to my hand. Mr. Nozzle scrabbles painfully at the foot of the stone walls but then scampers up the chairs and takes a flying leap from one carved back to another. He jumps on the wall hanging and holds with one tiny black hand and then springs into my arms.

“And what will you make of a baby?” I ask him. “You must be kind and not pinch him.”

I listen for Ned, and sometimes I hear his footsteps on the floor. He sends me little gifts and every morning and night he taps with his heel to send his love. They do not allow him to send me anything written, and they still question us both every day. I hear them troop up the stairs to his room and back down again after an hour. I think they are hoping to prove that we conspired together against the queen, but by the end of the month the lords whom Cecil sent to question us seem to be as tired of their interrogation as I am. Without colluding, we tell the same story—the simple truth, and they have to believe that it was a marriage for love, that we had no thought that the queen would see us as anything but two young lovers incapable of resisting each other. Indeed, that was obvious to everyone from the beginning. Only the fearful Elizabeth thought it must be a conspiracy. Only the coldhearted Elizabeth would look for an explanation when everyone else would see springtime and youthful desire and thoughtlessness.

THE TOWER, LONDON,

AUTUMN 1561

I notice the questions change. No longer are they asking who knew of our plans, who were our friends at court, how often did I meet the Spanish ambassador? Now they are on another tack. They are starting to concentrate on who was present at the betrothal, who witnessed the wedding. They ask about servants; who prepared the cold meats that Ned had in his bedroom? Who served the wine? Who was the minister? They ask about Janey.

“So he was not known to you, this so-called minister?” Sir Edward asks me. The panel of three men have allowed me to sit as I complained that I am weary and near to my time, and it is late in the evening.

“As I said when you first asked me.”

“He was not attached to a church?”

“I don’t think so. Janey ran out and fetched him.”

“Fetched him from where?”

It sounds so unlikely when they question me like this. “I don’t know. I think she went to where the ministers preach, perhaps at Saint Paul’s Cross. She just brought him back and he read the service and she paid him ten pounds.”