“It is advantageous,” he says. “A set of alliances to link the families. We gain their alliances: they’re friends with Gardiner and all who think like him. We would cease the endless struggle over the king. We could agree together how far reform is to go instead of fighting it out step by step. And they’d give me a fortune with her.”

I can see it is a good match. She is a daughter of a duke, and sister to Henry Howard, one of the king’s young commanders, reckless in Boulogne but still a favorite. If Thomas marries her, she will come to court, she will ask to be one of my ladies. I will have to watch him walk with her, dance with her, whisper to her. She will ask permission to leave my rooms early to go to his bed; she will go away from court to join him at Portsmouth. She will be his wife; I will attend her wedding and hear him swear to love and honor her. She will promise him to be bonny and blithe at bed and board. I think: I will never be able to bear it. I know that I must.

“What does the king say?” I ask the all-important, the only, question.

Thomas shows me his twisted smile. “He says that if Norfolk wants to give his daughter a husband, he might as well choose a man so young and lusty as he will please her at all points.”

“Points?”

“That’s what he said. Don’t torture yourself. It was years ago.”

“But the marriage is proposed again now!” I exclaim.

He bows, as if I have made a good remark in an argument that anyone may join. “It is.”

“What will you do?” I whisper.

“What d’you wish?” he returns, his eyes on Princess Elizabeth. “I am yours heart and soul.”

“Is the king my father coming to watch?” Princess Mary joins us and nods her head to Thomas’s bow.

“Yes, he’s coming at once,” I reply.

* * *

As I walk to dinner at the head of my ladies that night I pass Will Somers. He is throwing a ball in the air and catching it in a cup, a foolish little game. We hesitate as we go by.

“Would you like to try?” he asks Princess Elizabeth. “It’s harder than it looks.”

“It can’t be,” she says. “I can see, it’s nothing but catch.”

Will turns and gives her a fresh cup, a new ball. “You try,” he says.

She throws the ball high, and confidently she stretches out the cup as it falls. She catches it perfectly and a splash of water from the cup drenches her. “Will Somers!” she shouts, and she runs at him. “I am soaked! I am drowned! You are a wretch and a varlet and a rogue!”