“I’m going home,” I say firmly, and I walk to the door. I will not be part of this. My barge is waiting for me at the pier, my ladies are waiting for me in the gallery. Nobody can stop me going home to my mother with the news that the Dudleys have run mad, that they think that they can change the succession, and that they want to take me to the Tower.

“Stop her,” Guildford’s mother orders him.

He steps forward and takes hold of my wrist. I round on him. “You let me go!” I spit, and he flinches back as if Katherine’s kitten had suddenly turned on him and scratched his face.

I don’t wait for a second chance. I dive out of the room and take to my heels. I run through the palace, I clatter across the gangplank. “Cast off!” I say breathlessly, and then I laugh because I am free.

SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,

JUNE 1553

I see that my mother is in a state of fury before I have even entered the room or have a chance to tell her that I am mistreated by Lady Dudley. She is striding up and down her privy chamber, my father sitting at the table, silently watching her, his fingers steepled together, his expression guarded. She whirls around as I come in and then she sees my white face.

“They’ve told you, then.”

“Lady Dudley told me,” I say quietly. “But I don’t understand. I came away at once, Father.”

“Tell her!” my mother commands him. “Tell her what John Dudley has done and you have all agreed!”

“It became clear to the king and to us all that he will not live to have children of his own,” my father says heavily. “His doctors doubt that he will even live to see your son born.”

“And with Princess Mary and Elizabeth set aside, then I am the next heir,” my mother asserts loudly.

“The doctors say weeks, not even months.”

“Blessed God! So soon?” I murmur.

“I should inherit in weeks, not even months!” my mother squawks.

“But the king was determined to get to a male heir, as soon as possible,” my father continues, overriding her grunt of protest. “And so he wanted to pass over your mother—for the good of the country—to the next generation, to you and your sisters—and to the generation after that: your son, Jane.”

“But you said—”

“So he has named you as queen, and any son that you have will be king after you. He can’t name a boy as yet unborn, so he names you.”

“And the whole council, including your father, have signed to this!” my mother exclaims. “Excluding me! Casting me aside! And they expect me to agree! They go to the king and sign away my right!”