The fine weather continues and the king himself is as sunny as the mornings. He declares that he is well again, much better, he has never been better, he feels like a young man. I watch him and I think that he will live forever. He returns to the full life of the court and takes every meal seated on his great throne, calling for one dish after another as the kitchen wrestles with cartloads of ingredients that arrive rumbling down the lanes to the huge arched kitchen doors, and sends out one heaped dish after another. The king is in his former place, at the center of the court, the great cog that turns everything, and the machine that is the court becomes once more a huge clockwork engine that takes in food and grinds out amusement.

He even rises from his chair to take slow steps in the garden or in to dinner. The pages walk beside him—he has a heavy hand on each of their shoulders—but he declares that he can walk almost unaided and will do so again. He swears that he will ride, and when I and my ladies dance before him, or when the masquers come in and choose their partners, he says that perhaps next week he will be up and jigging.

He bellows for diversion, and the choristers and the musicians and the players go into a frenzy of creation so that the king can see a new piece or hear a new song every night. He roars with laughter at the slightest joke. Will Somers was never in his life so popular, and takes up magnificently incompetent juggling. At every meal he has rolls of manchet bread spinning around his head and flying out of control around the hall so the dogs leap up and snatch them from the air before Will can catch them, and then he complains that no one understands his artistry, and chases the dogs and goes under the table with them and there is a noisy joyful riot as people place bets on dogs or Will. The king gambles, losing a small fortune with his courtiers, who are wise enough to return it to him in the next game. The king has a lust for life, a joy in life, which people say they have not seen for years. They say it is to my credit that I have made him young and happy again. They ask how I have pleased him.

One evening at dinner I see a stranger, dressed as grandly as a hidalgo of Spain, make his bow to the king and take his place at the table for noblemen.

“Who’s that?” I ask Catherine Brandon as she stands behind my chair.

She leans forward so that she can speak quietly in my ear. “That, Your Majesty, is Guron Bertano. Apparently, he is an emissary from the pope.”

I nearly shriek. “From the pope?”

She nods, her lips folded together.