There is a throne ready for the king when he comes and a chair beside it for me and then lower chairs for the princesses. Elizabeth comes bounding forwards and then smiles and blushes when she sees Thomas. He’s not even aware of her as she turns away and strolls back to the archery butts, picks up a bow, and poses: fitting an arrow on the string, and drawing it back. I take my seat and he stands slightly behind the chair, leaning down so that he can whisper in my ear, but we are both facing the green and the competitors testing their strings, and taking aim, and throwing a few blades of grass in the air to see the wind. We are completely visible to everyone, we are on show. We are hidden in plain sight.

“Don’t move, and keep your face still,” he warns me.

“I am listening.”

“I have been offered a wife,” he says quietly.

I blink, nothing more. “Who?” I say shortly.

“Mary Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter.”

This is a remarkable offer. Mary is the widow of the king’s beloved bastard son that he made the Duke of Richmond. If the boy had not died, he might have been named Prince of Wales and the king’s heir. Edward was not born then, and Henry needed a son; even a bastard would have done. At Richmond’s death the king refused to mention his name and Mary Howard, the little widowed duchess, went back to live at her father’s great castle at Framlingham. When she visits court the king always greets her warmly, she is pretty enough to attract his heavy gallantry; but I didn’t know that there had been any proposals for her second marriage.

“Why Mary Howard?” I ask incredulously. Someone bows to me and I smile and nod my head to acknowledge their greeting. A few archers start to line up for practice shots. Princess Mary walks towards us.

“So that the Howards and us Seymours should forget our differences,” he says. “It’s not a new proposal. They made it before, when she was first widowed. So that the Howards can become kinsmen to Prince Edward. Princess Elizabeth is not royal enough for them.”

“You didn’t seek it then?” I can feel a taste in my mouth as bitter as the morning drink of rue. I realize that this is the flavor of jealousy.

“I don’t seek it now,” he points out.

I want to pinch my face as it feels numb. I want to shake my hands and stamp my feet. I feel as if I am frozen, as still as ice on my throne, as Princess Mary comes slowly towards me across the grass.

“Why would you?” I ask.