The queen summons the Scots diplomat to sit beside her throne at the center of the barge. I am on one side, Kat Ashley, restored to favor, on the other. Thomasina the dwarf is standing on a box in the prow so that she can see the flow of the silvery stream ahead. I turn my gaze away from her. I don’t like to see her standing up like a child to wave at the fishermen, at the rowers of the wherries.

Elizabeth is head-to-head with the Scots advisor. Whatever she is saying, she hopes to keep it secret. But I can read his discreet smile as clearly as my sister Jane could read Greek. I know exactly what she is telling him—she is telling him that he has to persuade Mary Queen of Scots to marry Robert Dudley, and in reward she will be given my sister Katherine’s rights: she will be named as Elizabeth’s heir. She is promising him that Katherine will be kept under house arrest until that day, that any campaign for her will be silenced, that any publications will be suppressed. Elizabeth is favoring Mary Queen of Scots as her heir, and my sister will be ignored by everyone until it is agreed.

I dare not glance across at Kat Ashley, who must disapprove of this madness as much as Melville, as much as William Cecil, as much as the reluctant bridegroom, Robert Dudley himself. I dare not look at any of the ladies for fear of someone winking at me. None of us thinks that when the moment comes for him to leave, Elizabeth will bring herself to let her lover go. None of us thinks that Mary will be grateful for a castoff. None of us thinks that Robert Dudley—even with his immense ambition—will dare to reach as high as a queen who is not already compromised by his lovemaking. But Elizabeth gives every appearance of being determined; and she whispers and whispers earnestly to the Scots ambassador, until, finally, he nods in agreement, bows, and steps back.

Elizabeth leans back in her chair and smiles at her beloved Kat. “He’ll do it” is all she says. “He will convince her. And she will take Dudley.”

“I can see why Melville will try—for the great prize of seeing his queen as heir to the throne of England. But will Dudley do it? Will you?”

Elizabeth turns her head. “I can trust no one but Robert with her,” she says in an undertone. “And I trust her with no one but him. If she were to marry Don Carlos of Spain or the French duke, then we have an enemy at our back door, and papist priests pouring across the Tweed. But Robert will save me, as he has done before. He will marry her and master her.”