Just before Christmas, Elizabeth sends to the Holy Roman Emperor and finally says that she cannot marry his brother the archduke Charles. Of course, the entire Habsburg family is hugely offended, and all of papist Christendom sees England as stubbornly and persistently heretical. It would have been better for us all if she had never gone through the charade of pretending that she was willing. Now they see us as perfidious. The French, who are persecuting every Protestant in their realm, are particularly bitter, and Elizabeth is without an heir once more, except for the deposed Queen Mary in her prison and my poor sister, in hers. We are back where we always seem to be—playing with the inheritance of the kingdom so that Elizabeth can remain free to love Robert Dudley.

GREENWICH PALACE,

SPRING 1568

Sir Owen Hopton, Katherine’s new jailer, writes to William Cecil begging him to send a London physician into Suffolk. My sister, weaker every day from starving herself, is now desperately ill.

Dr. Symondes has been sent to see the Lady, Cecil writes diplomatically, leaving it unclear who has taken the expensive decision to send the best doctor in London to my sister. But this is not his first visit and he is not optimistic. We should pray for her soul.

“I have to go to her,” I say to my stepgrandmother. “You must write to Cecil and ask for permission for me to be at her side. He will not refuse. He will know she cannot die alone. I have to go.”

She is pale with anxiety. “I know. I know. I will write to him, you can write yourself, too, and we will send it at once.”

“Can I start without permission? Can I go now?”

She clasps her hands together. “We dare not,” she says. “If the queen should hear that I let you leave my house without permission, you would be taken from me, and who knows where they would put you then?”

“She’s dying!” I say flatly. “Am I not allowed to say good-bye to my dying sister? The last of my family?”

She thrusts a sheet of paper at me. “Write,” she says tersely. “And we will leave as soon as we are allowed.”

* * *

We don’t get permission. We get a bundle of papers forwarded to us by William Cecil’s office. On the top he has written a note in a steady hand. I am afraid that even if you had set out at once, you would have been too late. Lady Katherine is dead.

I look at my stepgrandmother as if I cannot believe that such news should be told me in such brevity. Not one word of sympathy, not one word to recognize the tragedy of the loss of a young woman, aged only twenty-seven. My sister. My beautiful, funny, loving, royal sister.