I smile. “Then we’ll go to my rooms for an hour or two and ride out later.” I turn to my master of horse. “We’ll all ride,” I say.

He bows and gives me his hand as I step down from the dais and walk through the silently bowing court. I smile and nod from left to right. Nobody shall say that I looked afraid.

* * *

When we get to my rooms, Nan, Maud Lane, and Elizabeth Tyrwhit are there, waiting for us to come back from breakfast. Nan is seated in her favorite spot in the window seat, her hands folded in her lap, the picture of womanly patience. Something about her powerful rigidity warns me that she has not returned to safety. I walk into the room and I stop myself running to her. I don’t fling myself into her arms. I stand in the center of the room and I say very clearly, so that everyone can hear me, and everyone who is appointed to report to the spies of the Privy Council can make their statement: “Lady Herbert, my sister, I am glad to see you are returned to us. I was surprised and concerned to hear that you were explaining yourself to the Privy Council. I will have no heresy and no disloyalty in my rooms.”

“None at all,” Nan says without a quaver in her voice, without the flicker of an expression on her blank face. “There is no heresy here and there never has been. The councillors questioned myself and two of your ladies and were satisfied that nothing had been said or written by us, either in your presence or in your absence, that could ever be construed as heresy.”

I hesitate. I can’t think what more can be said for the listening court. “Have they cleared your names and discharged you?”

“Yes,” she says, and the other two nod. “Completely.”

“Very well,” I say. “I will change my gown and we will go out riding. You can help me.”

We go into my room together, Catherine Brandon comes in too, and the moment that the door is shut behind us we clutch each other.

“Nan! Nan!”

She holds me with a fierce strength, as if we were little girls in Kendal once more and she had to keep me from jumping out of a tree in the orchard. “Oh, Kat! Oh, Kat!”

“What did they ask you? Did they keep you awake all night?”

“Hush,” she says. “Hush.”

I find I am choking with frightened sobs and I put my hand to my throat and pull back from her grasp. “I am all right,” I say. “I won’t cry. I won’t go out there with red eyes. I don’t want anyone to see...”

“You’re all right,” she confirms. Gently she takes a handkerchief from her sleeve and touches my wet eyes and then dabs at her own. “Nobody must think that you’re distressed.”

“What did they say to you?”