I drop into a little daydream. The courtiers decide to jape the Country Mouse for being a Northerner. They take a ball from their bowling and plan to knock him on the head with it. From here, at the window, I wave to him. He spies the movement and stands, moving out of the ball’s path. He rounds on the courtiers and they scatter in shame. He finds my face, like a picture in the window . . . all at once the Country Mouse’s face does rise. I feel when his eyes arrive at my face. There’s a quick look of startlement. Without knowing why, I raise my da’s ring into the sunlight and twist it to send a sunbeam to him. It hits his chest. He looks down at the white circle of light hovering on him like a moth. Slowly, he raises his own ring and catches the light with it. Sends it back to me. It makes me laugh as it pricks at my eyes.

There’s a rough cough beside me from the maid, pulling me back into the servants’ passage. Everything seems dim and sunken after the bright garden light. The porters are gone, and the maid wants to go.

He sent the sunbeam back. The thought bounces down the corridor. I tuck my little sunbeam memory into my heart and follow the maid to Tilly Howe’s Eating.

It’s warm enough in the small hall where the coffin’s laid out that the oil slips down the deer heart like water. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see it. Tilly warned me.

But the folk who’ve come to pay respects weren’t warned. In their faces I see the reflection of the deer heart, like a pall. Many come, some women with grown children and some of the Queen’s ladies too, but none stay to take one of the stools. They are aghast at the crime. Tilly was a midwife as well as a healer. Supposed to bring life into the world, not end it. And so soon after Corliss’s Eating.

The only one who stays is the Willow Tree. He stands in the corner, his eyes glancing off the coffin like a fly after a pie. Mayhap he’s checking to see if I’ll eat the heart.

Should I? There are no sword blades against me now. I start on the hippocras, so as to put off the question.

Fair Hair and Mush Face, I notice, are among those come to witness. They walk with a girl I don’t know who wears yellow taffeta. As they near the coffin, I see Mush Face is wearing the same dress she did before.

The yellow-taffeta girl turns to the other two. ‘I only went to her once when I overturned a candle and burned my wrist.’ She looks to Mush Face. ‘You saw her, didn’t you, for your headaches?’

Mush Face nods.