I go through the crowds to the door of her privy chamber. People make way for me—they know that I am one of the Grey girls. I see glances of pity from people whose own lives are so endangered that they have come to court for help. People under the shadow of the scaffold are pitying me. There are two guards on the doors to Elizabeth’s privy chamber. They swing open the doors for me and I go in.

Most of the queen’s ladies and some of her maids-in-waiting are already in attendance, and clearly they are all talking about me. A terrible silence falls as I walk into the room and look around at these women who have been my companions and friends for eleven years. Nobody says a word.

“Where is Blanche Parry?” I ask. She is the new first lady of the bedchamber; she will know how much trouble I am facing. Lady Clinton nods her head towards the closed door.

“She’s with Her Majesty. She is much displeased.”

There is a ripple of talk, but no one speaks directly to me. It is as if they dare not address me for fear of the contamination of treason. Nobody wants to be known as my particular friend, though almost all of them have been proud to call themselves my friend at one time or another.

“Is it true? Are you married, Lady Mary?” one of the younger maids blurts out, and curtseys and colors red to her ears. “Begging your pardon,” she whispers.

I don’t have to answer her, but I am not going to deny it now. I am never going to deny my marriage or the man I love. Part of me thinks—but this is quite absurd! I have one sister executed for claiming the throne, and one sister imprisoned for falling in love—and here am I, with a ring in my pocket and a private marriage, neither claiming the throne nor marrying a noble.

“Is she very angry?” I ask.

Someone makes a little whistle like calling up a storm.

“Am I to go in?”

“You’re to wait here,” Lady Clinton says. “She’ll send for you.”

“I’ll go to my room and change my hood,” I say. Nobody says that I may not go and so I go out through the doors again, through the presence chamber and the furtive glances, and up the narrow stairs to my rooms. My maid, white-faced, brushes my hair and pins my hood without saying a word. I don’t speak to her.

* * *