Thomas Keyes has to stay on duty at the gate of the castle and may not help me from the saddle, but there is always one of the young men of court quick to my side to lift me down. They know that my sister and her two boys are the next heirs to the throne; they know that my rank is acknowledged by the queen. None of them knows how great is my influence, and what I might do for them if they please me. I hardly notice them. My only smile is for Thomas Keyes, the queen’s sergeant porter; he is the only man that I would trust in this rivalrous pit of two-faced serpents. Thomas gives me a private nod as I go by, and I know that I will see him later in the day when Elizabeth is entertained by someone else and forgets to look for me.

“Where is Lady Mary?” she asks as soon as she is off her horse, as if she loves me dearly and has missed me all day, and I step forward to take her beautifully embroidered leather riding gloves. Someone else takes her whip and she holds out her white hand to Robert Dudley, who leads her out of the sunlight into the cool dimness of Windsor Castle, where breakfast is served in the great hall and the Spanish ambassador is waiting to greet her.

I take the gloves to the royal wardrobe rooms, dust them with a little perfumed powder, and wrap them in silk, and then I return to the hall to take my seat at the table for the ladies-in-waiting. Elizabeth sits at the top table with the Spanish ambassador on one side and Robert Dudley on the other. I sit at the head of the table for the ladies; I am her cousin, I am the daughter of a princess of the blood. We all bow our heads for grace, which Elizabeth defiantly hears in Latin to show her scholarship more than her piety, and then the servants bring in the ewers and bowls for us to wash our hands. Then they bring in one great dish after another. Everyone is hungry from the morning in the saddle, and the great joints of meat and fresh-baked loaves are served to each table.

“Have you heard from your sister?” Bess St. Loe asks me quietly.

“I write, but she does not reply,” I say. “She is allowed to receive my letters, though my uncle has to read them first, but she does not reply.”

“What’s wrong with her—oh! not the plague?”

“No, thanks be to God, it has not reached Pirgo. My uncle tells me that she will not eat, and that she cannot stop crying.”

Aunt Bess’s expression is tender. “Oh, my dear.”

“Yes,” I say tightly. “When the queen took her child, I think that she broke Katherine’s heart.”