“And I expect my sister’s companionship,” I say. “You may not take her away without my permission.”

I cannot stop myself glancing at my mother to see if she agrees with me. She nods; even Lady Dudley makes a little gesture of agreement. Everyone knows that we have to stick together.

“Nobody may leave,” Guildford says, as if I have not already made that clear. “It is my father’s wish.”

* * *

We have to work together, we cannot appear disunited. We are the soldiers of God—we have to march in step—so the council meet, and we all agree that they shall write to Lord Richard Rich, who swore for me, but has now vanished, and remind him that he must stay loyal. The counties of Norfolk are wavering, the East is becoming uncertain. They are afraid that the sailors on ships in port will declare for Mary. They hold the meeting, they send the letter, but later in the morning Katherine comes to my rooms and pulls at my sleeve while I am writing, making me blot the paper.

“Look what you made me do! What is it?” I ask her.

“We’re leaving,” she says in a tiny whisper. “I have to go right now. My father-in-law says so.” She shows me her pet monkey in the crook of her arm. “I have to put Mr. Nozzle in his cage. He has to come, too.”

“You can’t go. I told him, I told them all. You were there, you heard it. You all have to stay.”

“I know you told them,” she says. “That is why I have come to you, now.”

I look at her. For the first time in our lives I look at her and see her not as a slightly irritating younger sister, part of the familiar landscape of Bradgate, like a pale rose in the garden that I pass every day, but a real girl, real as me, a young woman, suffering as I am suffering. I look at her white face and her dark emotional eyes and the strain that she is showing, and I feel no sympathy but much irritation.

“What’s the matter with you? Why are you looking like a wet May Day?”

“They’re all coming with us,” she says miserably. “Lots of them, anyway. Your council—the Privy Council—they’re coming with us to Baynard’s Castle. They have agreed with my father-in-law, William Herbert, to meet there. They are leaving you and going with him. I am sorry, Jane. I can’t stop them...” She trails off with a little shrug. Obviously, she can’t stop the lords of the land doing as they think fit. “I did say that they should not...” she begins feebly.

“But I commanded them to stay here! What do they think they are going to do at your house?”

“I am afraid that they’re going to proclaim Lady Mary.”