She comes in and curtseys as low as if I am an empress, then she shoots a little smile at Catherine Brandon and curtseys again to the ladies. I see at once why Mary hesitated to allow her into my chamber. She is an outstandingly pretty young woman, dressed like a country lady, the young wife of a wealthy farmer or town merchant. She’s not nobility, but one of those on the rise who probably have an old name and have used it to get a new fortune. Her white cap on her glossy brown hair is trimmed with expensive white lace. It frames an exquisite heart-shaped face with bright brown eyes and a ready smile. She is wearing a plain gown of wool in brown with a kirtle of red silk. Her sleeves are plain brown too, and round her neck she has a filet of good linen. She looks like a young woman whom we might meet on a progress, voted as Queen of the May for her pure beauty, shining among the other girls of the village. We might see her in a tableau, chosen to play the princess to a painted dragon in a prosperous town. She is so lovely that any mother would get her married young, any father would see that she married extremely well.

She is certainly not how I imagine a woman inspired by God. I was expecting someone older, with a scrubbed, plain face, engraved with benevolent lines. Someone more like one of the abbesses of my childhood, certainly someone more austere than this little beauty.

“Have we met before?” She seems oddly familiar, and I am sure that I recognize her dazzling smile.

“I did not dare to hope that Your Majesty would remember me,” she says politely. I hear the rolling Lincolnshire accent. “My father, Sir William, served your father-in-law, Lord Brough, at Gainsborough, and I used to be invited to the hall when you held a feast and dancing. I always came to the hall for the Twelve Days of Christmas, and at Easter, too, and at Maytime. But I was a little girl. I didn’t expect you to recognize me now.”

“I thought I knew you.”

“You were the most learned young lady I’d ever seen,” she confesses. “We talked together once, and you told me that you were reading Latin with your brother. I understood then that a woman can study, a woman can learn. It set me on my path to learn and memorize the Bible. You were my inspiration.”

“I’m glad that I talked to you, if this is the result. Your reputation as a gospeler goes before you. Do you think you can teach us?”

She bows her head. “I can only tell you what I have read and what I know,” she replies.

“Have you read more than me and these learned ladies?”