“All sorts of little toys and fairings. The people love you. Everyone shouts out to me that you should be released and allowed to live with your husband. Everyone in England thinks you have done nothing wrong and should be freed. Everyone—I mean really everyone—from the ladies at court to the sluts of Smithfield.”

“They call for me?”

“I think they would march for you.”

We say nothing, looking at each other for a moment. “No marching,” I say quietly. “Anyway—praise God that you did not take the smallpox,” I say, kissing her. It is awkward for me to bend over and she notices it at once.

“It would be large pox on me,” she remarks. “What’s the matter with you? Have you hurt your back that you are so stiff?”

I wait till she has hauled herself onto the chair and then I put my finger across her mouth to prevent her crying out. “I am with child,” I whisper in her ear.

She is wide-eyed in my grip until I release her.

“My God, how?” she demands.

I laugh. Mary is always so practical. “Since they found against us, the lieutenant has let Ned come to me most nights,” I say. “We bribe the guards and we spend all night together.”

“When do you expect the birth?”

“I am not sure. Soon, I think, within a month or so.”

She looks anxious. “Katherine, you must keep it secret, for everyone is speaking of you at court. The people who call for you to be free would go mad if they knew you were carrying another baby in here. They would storm the Tower for your release and the guards would throw open the gates. I think Elizabeth will be forced to name you as her heir, recognize your marriage as valid and your son as heir apparent.”

“Really? I know the lords are advising her to name me...”

“She attended parliament, and in the church service before the opening the dean himself told her that she must marry, in his sermon! Then both Houses told her, one after another, that she must name her heir. They won’t tolerate a deathbed nomination of Robert Dudley. She has gone too far now. She has lost the loyalty of the lords and the parliament by that mistake. She spoke to the lords in council very fair, and told them that it must be her choice, and they told her flatly that she must marry and make an heir or name one, that they wouldn’t be commanded by her passions.”

I gasp at her. “They never said that!”

“I can’t begin to describe the scenes at court. She summoned Henry FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, and he said to her face in front of all of us ladies that if she was going to be ruled by passion, then he and all the lords would prevent it.”

“He dared to say that to her?”