He makes a little gesture with his pudgy hand to say that I can take all the time I like. I curtsey and walk backwards from the card table where he suddenly demanded the greatest stake that a woman can wager: a gamble with her life. It is against the law to turn a back to him: some people secretly joke that it is safer to keep an eye on him. Six paces backwards down the long gallery, the spring sunshine beating through the tall windows onto my modestly bowed head, and then I curtsey again, lowering my eyes. When I come up, he is still beaming at me, and everyone is still watching. I make myself smile and step backwards to the closed doors that lead to his presence chamber. Behind me, theguards swing them open for me to pass, I hear the murmur as the people outside, excluded from the honor of the royal presence, watch me curtsey again on the threshold, the great king watching me leave. I continue backwards as the guards close the double doors to hide me from his sight, and I hear the thud as they ground their halberds.

I stand for a moment, facing the carved wooden panels, quite unable to turn and face the curious stares in the crowded room. Now the thick doors are between us, I find I am shaking—not just my hands, not just trembling in my knees, but shuddering in every sinew of my body as if I have a fever, shivering like a leveret tucked down in a wheat field hearing the swish of the blades of the reaping gang coming closer and closer.

* * *

It is long past midnight before everyone is asleep, and I put a blue cloak over my night robe of black satin and dark as a shadow in the colors of the night sky, go quietly out of the women’s rooms and down the great stairs. No one sees me pass, I have the hood pulled over my face, and, anyway, this is a court that has bought and sold love for years. No one has much curiosity in a woman going to the wrong room after midnight.