The king gives me a new horse for riding, a beautiful bay mare, and a puppy, an adorable spaniel with a shining tan coat. I take him with me everywhere and he sits at my feet even when I go to chapel in the morning. I’ve never owned a dog that was not a working dog before, only the hounds for hunting in the stables at Snape, or the sheepdogs with their quick dashes here and there.

“You are the most idle thing,” I tell him. “How can you live with yourself when all you have to be is ornamental?”

“He’s very sweet,” Nan agrees.

“Purkoy was a darling,” Catherine Brandon remarks.

“Oh, what was Purkoy?” I ask.

“Anne Boleyn’s dog.” Nan frowns at Catherine. “Nothing like little Rig, here.”

“Is there anything new?” I ask irritably. “Is there anything that I do that one of them hasn’t already done?”

Catherine looks embarrassed.

“Your clocks,” Nan says with a small smile at me. “You’re the first queen to love clocks. All the goldsmiths and clockmakers in London are in heaven.”

* * *

The court is to go on progress, as it does every summer. I cannot imagine how we are to pack up everything and move, every week, sometimes after only a few days, from one house to another, where all our servants will be expected to unload furniture, tapestries, and silverware and make a court in a new house. How am I to know what clothes to pack? How am I to know what jewels I should take? I don’t even know how they take enough linen for the beds.

“It’s nothing for you to trouble yourself about,” Nan says. “Really, nothing. All the servants have moved the queen’s household a score of times, a hundred times. All you have to do is to ride beside the king and look happy.”

“But all the bedding! And all the clothes!” I exclaim.

“Everyone knows their part,” she repeats. “You need do nothing but go where you are sent.”

“My birds?”

“The falconers will take care of them. They’ll go in their own cart behind the falcons and hawks.”

“My jewels?” I ask.

“I take care of them,” she says. “I’ve done this for years, Kat, honestly. All you have to do is to ride beside the king if he wants you there, and look beautiful.”

“And if he doesn’t want me?”

“Then you ride with your companions and your master of horse.”

“I don’t even have a master of horse yet, I haven’t filled all my household posts.”

“We’ll appoint them as we travel. It’s not for lack of applicants! All the clerks will travel with us, and most of the court. The Privy Council meets wherever the king happens to be; it’s not like we are leaving court, we take everything with us.”

“Where are we going?”