God knows, not I, why nothing ever goes right for us Tudors. Queen Mary does not get the son she longs for. She goes into confinement with a good belly on her and all us ladies of honor are very charming when we sit with her and sew baby clothes, and when we come out we toss our heads and say that we really cannot discuss intimate female matters with the handsome Spanish courtiers. I make much of saying that a maiden like myself (never an abandoned wife, a girl whose marriage was annulled within weeks) cannot remark on how well the queen is doing today, such things are a mystery to a virgin like me. We keep this up—it is absolutely delightful—from the seventh month to the full nine, and then (with less conviction) for the tenth. Now it appears that it really is a mystery to all of us—maids and midwives alike. We conceal our growing anxiety as best we can and we say that she has mistaken her dates, and the birth will be any day now, but even I think this is a bit far-fetched.

* * *

In this time of waiting Elizabeth is a complete lick-spigot, charming to all the ladies, thoughtful and attentive to the lords, breathlessly concerned as to the health of her beloved half sister, and seductive as an expelled nun to her sister’s own husband, Philip of Spain, who clearly sees her as the guarantor of his safety if his old wife dies in childbirth.

I ask my lady mother what is happening with the queen and why she does not labor and bear her child like a normal woman—and she snaps at me and tells me that of all the stupid girls in the world I should be the last one to ask where the heir to the throne is, since every day that there is no birth, she is the first legitimate heir and so my position gets better and better. I whisper “Elizabeth?” and my lady mother says sharply, “Declared a bastard by her own father?” and raps me on the knuckles with her riding whip. I take it I am going to get no helpful maternal advice from her, and I ask her nothing more.

Another month goes by and the queen’s belly simply goes down, as if it were nothing but pasture bloat in a greedy old sheep that broke into clover, and now we all say nothing at all as she comes out of confinement and rejoins the court as if nothing had ever happened.