Trapped indoors by days of rain, my ladies and I continue our studies, reading texts from the Bible and translating them, both as practice for our Latin and as a stimulus to thoughtful discussions on the meanings of the words. I notice that I have become more and more aware of the sonorous beauty of the Bible, the music of the language, the rhythm of the punctuation. I set myself the task of trying to write better English, so the beauty of my translation matches the importance of the words. Before I write a sentence, I listen to the sound in my head before I put it on the page. I start to think that words can be pitch-perfect just as a musical note can be, that there is a beat in prose, just as there is in poetry. I realize that I am undertaking an apprenticeship in writing and reading, and I am my own master and my own student. And I realize that I love the work.

We are studying one morning when there is a little knock at the narrow door that leads down a stone stair to the stable yard. My maid puts her head into the room. “The preacher is here,” she says quietly.

She has waited at one of the many gates to bring the man directly to my rooms. It is not that they are instructed to come in secret—the king himself knows that I have preachers from his own chapel, from Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and from the other churches. But I don’t see why the court in general—those who do not attend our sermons and readings, others who criticize my interest—should know what we study and who we meet. If they want to learn, they can come and sit with us. If they simply want to know for the sake of gossip, they can do without. I don’t need the Lord Chancellor to look down his long nose at me, or his household to whisper the names of the serious pious men who come to talk to me and my ladies, as if we were meeting gallants. I don’t need Stephen Gardiner’s men to keep a list of the names of everyone who comes to talk to me, and then send his clerks to follow them to their homes and question their neighbors.

“There’s an odd thing, Your Majesty,” the maid says tentatively.

I look up. “What odd thing?”

“The person who claims to be your preacher is a woman, Your Majesty. I didn’t know if it was all right?”

I can feel a giggle starting, and I dare not look at Nan. “Why should it not be all right, Miss Mary?”

The girl shrugs. “I didn’t know that a good woman could preach, Your Majesty. I thought a good woman had to be silent. It’s what my father always told me.”