I never even glance towards Thomasina the dwarf to thank her for the warning, and when a movement in the dance puts us side by side, I change my place if I can. I don’t acknowledge the sisterhood of tiny feet. I don’t subscribe to a stunted sorority. Of course I can recognize my features in Thomasina, in her rolling gait on her short legs, in the constant turn of her face upwards so that she can follow a conversation that is going on far above her head. I guess that her back aches like mine after a long day in the saddle, and that we both hate it when people address us as children, mistaking stature for age or wisdom. But I will never indicate that she and I are of the same mold. There is a coincidence of appearance but that is all. Should Elizabeth claim cousinhood with every redhead? Should Lady Margaret Douglas be sister to a horse? Appearance means nothing compared to breeding. I am all royal and no dwarf; I am all Grey and no pretty toy. I am an heir to the throne of England, and Thomasina is an heir of nothing more important than short bones.

But one evening, in early spring, we go to dinner and I see that William Cecil is absent, which is unusual, and Robert Dudley’s flattery and good humor are a little forced. Elizabeth bristles like a cat that has been caught in a shower of water tossed from a chamber window; everyone can see her irritability. No one but Thomasina the dwarf seems to know who has been so foolish as to cross Elizabeth, and I cannot bring myself to ask her.

When the tables are being cleared, Robert Dudley bends over the queen’s hand and I see her nod to her clerk, who gives him a sheaf of papers. He bows and takes them, and starts to leave the hall. I sidle round, against the walls, unnoticed by anyone as my head disappears behind the high-backed chairs, and I meet him just inside the great doors, and slip out when they are opened for him.

“Lady Mary,” he says, bowing to me. The doors close behind us, hiding us from the view of the court.

“Is there some trouble?” I ask him frankly.

He bends down low so that he can speak quietly to me. “Yes. Someone—I imagine the French ambassador—has put a book in the hands of the queen that supports your sister Lady Katherine’s claim to the throne.”

“Lady Hertford,” I say, giving her married title.

He scowls at me. “Lady Katherine,” he repeats. “This is not the time for you to be asserting a marriage that the queen has ruled is invalid.”

I look into the dark face of the man whose own marriage would have been ruled invalid, if his wife had not been conveniently murdered instead.

“We know the truth,” I say staunchly.