He lifts me up onto a stool so I can peep out of the window to see, and not be seen. Hales rides in on a poor horse and behind him I see another man, his face downturned, in the center of an armed guard.

“My God! And that is my uncle John. John Grey, who was keeping my sister!”

Thomas leaves me, taking up his black staff of office. I hear his shout of challenge and then he opens the gate to them, admits them, and comes back to me, putting his great staff back in the corner and loosening his leather belt.

“But what have they done?” he asks me, his kind face puzzled. “Is it just for writing their book?”

“Yes,” I say bitterly. “You know my uncle would never do anything against Elizabeth. He has been loyal to her forever. And John Hales himself says that all he was trying to do was to prove the case for a Protestant to succeed. He wasn’t calling for Katherine to take Elizabeth’s place, just for her to be named as heir if Elizabeth should die without a son.”

“The Privy Council will see that,” Thomas says hopefully.

“Unless they close their eyes very tight,” I say bitterly.

GREENWICH PALACE,

SUMMER 1564

Elizabeth summons me to her bedchamber as she is dressing for dinner. She is seated before her table; her mirror of Venetian glass is before her, her red wig planted on its stand, candles all around her while her ladies meticulously, carefully paint her face with ceruse. She remains perfectly still, like a marble statue, as the mixture of white lead and vinegar is spread flawlessly from her hairline to her neck and down to her breasts. Nobody even breathes aloud. I freeze like all the other statues in the room until she opens her eyes, sees me in the mirror, and says, without moving her lips where the ceruse is drying, “Lady Mary, look at this.”

Obedient to the downward cast of her eyes, I step forward and when she blinks her permission, I take up the little book that is open before her.

The title is the Monas Hieroglyphica and the author is John Dee. It seems to be dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor and the long preface challenges the reader to consider that the symbols of the planets are meaningful in themselves, and can be read as a language or as a code.

I look up and meet Elizabeth’s dark gaze in the mirror. “Look through it,” she orders through her closed lips. “What do you think?”

I turn the small pages. They are covered with designs and astronomical symbols and tiny print explaining what each one means, and how each fits with each other. I can see that there are some mathematical pages, demonstrating the connection between the symbols, and some that look more like philosophical writing, or even alchemy.