“No,” I say. “I’m well.”

It’s a lie. Already my back is aching and my legs are sore from being astride on the saddle, for I ride as my father taught me: I won’t go pillion, seated like a country girl behind some dolt. I ride my own horse, and I straighten my back to sit proudly in the saddle; but I have been cooped up in a tiny room for so long that I have lost my strength and energy. But I have not lost my will to live or my passionate desire for freedom. I would rather die of the pain, cramped in the saddle, than confess that I am weary, for fear that the commander would say that we must go back to Chequers and make the journey when he can find a litter. Nothing will get me back into prison. I will ride with chapped hands and bleeding legs rather than go back into that little room and the view from the window of that square of sky.

It is like being born again, with the sky arching above me and the wind blowing gently against my cheek, the sun ahead of us. I ignore the pain in my back and the ache in every bone in my body. I can smell the honeysuckle and the wild bean flowers in the hedgerows. When we ride over the high hills where the sheep are grazing, I can hear a lark soaring high above me, singing a leaping cadence with each beat of his tiny wings. Swallows swoop and circle over the village ponds, people stare and wave from the fields, dogs run and snap at the horses’ heels. When we overtake a pedlar on the road, he swings his pack to the ground and begs me to stop and take a look. I am dazzled by the sights and sounds of the everyday world: I never thought I would see them again.

We halt for dinner at midday, and at four in the afternoon the commander brings his horse beside mine and says: “We will stop for the night at Headstone Manor at the village of Pinner. They are expecting us.”

I am immediately alarmed. “I won’t be confined,” I say.

“No,” he says. “You are free. You will have your own bedroom and a privy chamber, and you will dine in the hall with our hosts, if you wish. This is not a new prison.”

“I won’t be tricked,” I say, thinking of Katherine leaving the Tower to live with her uncle and thinking that her husband was joining her.

“I swear that I am to take you to the Duchess of Suffolk,” the commander assures me. “But we couldn’t do the journey in one day. We will have a half day’s ride tomorrow morning.”

“Very well,” I say.

* * *