I wash the boys’ linen myself. I take Teddy out to play in the early morning: the midday sun is dangerously hot for a Tudor like him, with his fair skin and copper hair, and the evening mists carry disease. I wash our own plates, but the water comes from the well in the Tower, sometimes I can see it is cloudy with dirt, and there is nothing I can do about the dinners that come from the lieutenant’s kitchens. The baby suckles from a woman who may have tainted milk. I have no way of knowing, but I dare not starve him by sending her away now. Lucy continues to be well and I watch her for any sign of faintness or fever and discourage her from coming and going. Mrs. Rother sends a message that her sister is ill, and that she is going with her to the country. She says she is sorry to abandon me but she dare not delay. The villages outside London are closing their doors to anyone from the city, and if she does not leave now, she will have to sleep in outhouses with sick people fleeing sickness.

I watch Ned’s window and every day there is the blue handkerchief that shows me that he is well. I give one of the guards a silver penny to tell Ned that none of us is sick, and we hope to be released. He sends me back a poem:

My love is not blighted by plague

Nor burnèd by the sun

My love is constant through all days

Until our freedom’s won.

I sprinkle it with powder before I take it from the guard’s hand and I read it at arm’s length. The words I hold in my heart. I burn the paper.

THE TOWER, LONDON,

SUMMER 1563

In the early morning, while it is still cool, I can hear the tramp of many feet coming up the stairs to my rooms, which means a visit from Sir Richard, the new lieutenant of the Tower. I stand beside my tattered throne, Mr. Nozzle on my shoulder, Thomas in my arms, Teddy beside me, his hand in mine. Lucy stands behind me. I think we look more like a poor family of plague-struck beggars than the royal heirs of Elizabeth’s nightmares.

The door opens and Sir Richard comes in and bows. “Forgive me,” I say, “but the guards must stay outside. I am afraid of the plague.”

“Of course,” he says. He gestures to them and they step backwards. “I am glad to say that you need fear no more. You are to be released.”

I am so flooded with joy that I cannot hear him. “What?”

He nods. “Yes, my lady. You are to be released from the Tower. You can leave today. You can leave this morning.”

“Released?”

“Yes,” he confirms. “Thanks be to God—and to the mercy of our sovereign lady the queen.”