“Candlemas,” I say, thinking of Thomas, cramped in his cold cell, lying on the damp floor, starved. “That’s not till February.”

CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,

SPRING 1566

There is no Christmas feasting for me at Chequers. I am afraid that there is no joy for my sister at Ingatestone, nor for her husband in London at Sir John Mason’s house. Perhaps Teddy at Hanworth gets a fairing from his grandmother for Christmas, perhaps a gingerbread man; but he will know by now that he will never get a Christmas blessing from his mother or father. I know that my husband, Thomas, will be desperately cold and starved. As the weather grows colder and it snows in January I think of him, bent over his little window, peering out to see if he can catch a sparrow for the morsel of meat on its little bones. I expect he traps and eats rats. I think of him sitting over a tiny fire of kindling and trying to get warm. I think of him hunched in his bed at night, and the strange agony of never being able to stretch out, standing all day with his shoulders bowed, sleeping with his legs folded up.

I hear that there is little joy in the court in London either. Elizabeth has been thrown down into a jealous despair at the news from Edinburgh that her rival queen and cousin is with child. Mary Queen of Scots and her young husband, Henry Lord Darnley, are about to give Scotland a royal heir, and England yet another child with a claim to Elizabeth’s throne. When Sir William tells me this, I have a rare moment of being glad that I am far from court. I cannot imagine the torment that the ladies-in-waiting will suffer at Elizabeth’s hands if Queen Mary has a boy. I so wish I could be with Katherine and hear her giggle at the thought of it. As fast as Elizabeth denies her heirs, we give birth to new ones. It would be funny if it were not so bitter.

Robert Dudley remains confident that Elizabeth will marry him at Candlemas, according to her sworn word; but January comes and goes and then Candlemas passes him by, without Elizabeth’s consent. I don’t know how she puts him off—probably with another promise or another convincing delay—but her chaplain preaches a sermon that Candlemas no longer exists, it is now a heresy, so perhaps Robert’s betrothal day disappears with the old tradition.