I kiss him again and then I climb on the mounting block and into my saddle. Everyone is mounted and waiting for me. I wave my hand to Ned and my son, and follow the guards out of the stable yard. “See you in a little while!” I call. “See you soon.”

* * *

The horses’ hooves clatter on the cobbles of the main gate. We ride under the arch of the gateway and, as the shadow falls on me, there is a deafening roar. Beyond the gateway, the lane is lined by the guards of the Tower and the bridge over the moat is massed with the Tower servants. As I ride past, the guards present arms and salute, as if I were a queen riding out to take my throne, and I emerge into the sunshine into a blast of cheering as the servants throw their hats in the air and the women curtsey and kiss their hands to me. I am free at last; I can smell it on the breeze and in the joy of the cry of the seagulls.

I smile and wave at the Tower servants, and then I see that beyond the bridge and the farthest gatehouse the citizens of London have somehow heard that we are free, and there are people being pushed back from the roadway by the guards, cheering, and even holding up roses for me.

I go through them all as if I were leading a royal procession. I am still fearful of the plague so I don’t stop to take any flowers, and besides, my guards, stern-faced, push their way through the crowd that parts before them. But the fishwives and the street sellers, apprentice girls and the spinsters and brewsters, all dressed in their rough work aprons, defy the guards and throw roses and leaves down before me so my horse walks on a trail of flowers and I know that the women of London are on my side.

We wind our way past Tower Hill and the scaffold that stands there, where my father ended his life, and I bow my head to his memory, and remember his hopeless struggle against Queen Mary. I think how glad he would be to see one daughter, at least, riding from the Tower to freedom, her baby beside her and her noble husband and heir following behind. It’s bitter for me to think of him, and the death that he brought on Jane, so I turn my head to the wet nurse as she rides pillion behind the guard with Thomas strapped against her, and I beckon her to ride beside me so that I can see my boy, and feel my hope for the future.

That’s when I notice that we are riding north instead of west, and I say to the officer riding ahead of me: “This isn’t the road to Hanworth.”