“He complains very much at your husband’s freedom, and that you can meet. He misses his own wife, Lady Margaret, very much. He weeps for loneliness in his room at night.”

“Then he should not have conspired against the queen,” I say primly.

“If he did so.”

“Yes, of course. But what is wrong with him?”

The lieutenant leans towards me, as if anyone can hear him but Mr. Nozzle on my shoulder and Teddy in my arms.

“He is quite distracted, poor gentleman. He scrabbles at the door and cries for his wife. He says that the walls are closing in on him and begs me to open the windows.”

“He is going mad?” I ask.

“He’s not right,” Sir Edward confirms. “Some people cannot stand it, you know. And not all prisoners live as merrily as you and his lordship.”

“We’re very grateful,” I say. It is true. We are as happy as the linnets in their cage, my husband, his baby, and me. And now I have the added joy of knowing that there is a new baby on the way as well.

THE TOWER, LONDON,

AUTUMN 1562

I wait for a visit from my little sister, Mary, with increasing confidence that she will come and tell me that we are to be released, but she does not come. She sends me a note to say that they are still at Hampton Court and the queen has taken to her bed with some illness; the physicians have been called, but nobody knows what is wrong with her.

“No, it is worse than that, she is fatally ill,” Ned whispers, coming to my room early, kissing his son and handing him back to the maid. “Come here,” he says, drawing me to the window seat where we can talk privately. Mr. Nozzle leaps up and sits solemnly between us.

“Fatally ill? I thought she was just dropsical again?”

“I have friends at court who send me the news. It’s serious, very serious. Kitty, the queen has taken smallpox. It is true: smallpox, and she is unconscious. Right now, she cannot speak or move. For all we know, she may have already died. She may be dead right now. The Privy Council is in emergency meeting. I am getting messages all the time. They are trying to choose a successor if Elizabeth dies.”

“If she dies?” I choke on the words. She has been such a curse and a blight on my life that I can hardly imagine a world without her. “Dies? Elizabeth might die?”