“My lord bishop!” I exclaim, and I drop a little curtsey, for he has become a great man under the pious rule of My Lady.

He makes the sign of the cross over my head, and bows as low to me as if I were still the heiress to the royal house. “Lady Pole! I am sorry for your loss. Your husband was a fine man.”

“He was indeed,” I say.

Bishop Fisher offers me his arm and we walk side by side on the little path. “It is rare that we see you at court, my daughter?”

I am about to say something lighthearted about wanting to buy new gloves when something in his friendly, smiling face makes me want to confide in him.

“I have come for help,” I say honestly. “I am hoping that My Lady will advise me. My husband left me with next to nothing, and I cannot manage on my dower rents.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” he says simply. “But I am sure she will hear you kindly. She has many worries and much work, God bless her; but she would never neglect one of her family.”

“I hope so,” I say. I am wondering if there is any way in which I can ask him to plead my case with her, when he gestures towards the open doors of the gallery before her presence chamber. “Come on,” he urges me. “I’ll go in with you. There’s no time like the present, and there are always many people waiting to see her.”

We walk together. “You will have heard that your former charge, the Dowager Princess of Wales, is to go home to Spain?” he asks me quietly.

I am shocked at the news. “No! I thought she was betrothed to marry Prince Harry.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not widely known, but they cannot agree on the terms,” he says. “Poor child, I think she is very lonely in her big palace with no one but her confessor and her ladies. Better for her to go to her home than live alone here, and My Lady does not wish her to come to court. But this is between the two of us. I don’t know that they have even told her yet. Will you go to see her while you are in London? I know she loves you very much. You might advise her to accept her destiny gladly and with grace. I truly think that she would be happier at home than waiting and hoping here.”

“I will. I am so sorry!”

He nods. “It’s a hard life she has had. Widowed so young and now having to go home again a widow. But My Lady is guided by her prayers. She thinks it is God’s will that Prince Harry should marry another bride. The dowager princess is not for him.”

The guards stand aside for the bishop and open the doors to the presence chamber. It is crowded with petitioners; everyone wants to meet My Lady and ask her for one favor or another. All of the business of being the queen has fallen on her shoulders, and she has her own great lands to manage too. She is one of the kingdom’s wealthiest landowners, by far the wealthiest woman in England. She has endowed colleges, and chantries and built hospitals, churches, colleges, and schools, and all of them send representatives to report to her or to ask for her favor. I look around the room and calculate that there are about two hundred people waiting to see her. I am one of very, very many.

But she singles me out. She comes into the room from chapel, with her ladies walking two abreast behind her, carrying their missals as if they were a small exclusive convent of nuns, and she looks around with her sharp, observing gaze. She is more than sixty years old now, deeply lined and unsmiling, but her head is erect under her heavy gable hood, and though she leans on one of her ladies as she walks through the room, I suspect that she does this for show; she could walk equally well on her own.

Everyone curtseys or bows to her as low as if she were the queen whose rooms she occupies. I sink down but I keep my head up and smiling: I want her to see me. I catch her eye, and when she stops before me, I kiss the hand she holds out to me, and when she gestures that I may rise up and she leans forward, I kiss her soft old cheek.

“Dear Cousin Margaret,” she says coolly, as if we had parted as good friends only yesterday.

“Your Grace,” I reply.

She nods that I am to walk beside her. I take the place of her lady-in-waiting and she leans on my arm as we walk through the hundreds of people. I note that I am being publicly honored with her attention.

“You have come to see me, my dear?”

“I am hoping for your advice,” I say tactfully.

The beaklike nose turns to me, her hard eyes scan my face. She nods. She knows full well I do not need advice but that I am desperately short of money.

“You have come a long way for advice,” she observes dryly. “Is everything all right at your home?”

“My children are well and ask for your blessing,” I say. “But I cannot manage on my dower. I have only a small income now that my husband is dead, and I have five young children. I do the best I can, but there is only a little land at Stourton and the estates at Medmenham and Ellesborough only pay fifty pounds a year in rents, and of course I only get a third of that.” I am anxious not to sound as if I am complaining. “It is not enough to pay my bills,” I say simply. “Not to keep the household.”

“Then you will have to reduce your household,” she advises me. “You are not a Plantagenet now.”

To use my name to me in public, even so low that no one can hear, is to threaten me.

“I have not heard that name in years,” I say to her. “And I have never lived like that. I have reduced my household. I want only to live as the widow of a loyal Tudor knight. I don’t look for anything grander than that. My husband and I were proud to be your humble servants, and to serve you well.”

“Would you like your son to come to court? To be a companion to Prince Harry?” she asks. “Would you like to be a lady-in-waiting to me?”

I can hardly speak; this is a solution that I had not dreamed of. “I would be honored . . .” I stammer. I am amazed that she should suggest such a favor. This would resolve all my difficulties. If I could get Henry into Eltham Palace, he would have the best education in the world; he would live like a prince, with the prince himself. And a lady-in-waiting gets a fee for her services, is awarded posts when they fall vacant, is tipped for the smallest of tasks, is bribed by strangers coming to court. A lady-in-waiting gets gifts of jewels and gowns, a purse of gold at Christmas, her keep and that of her household, her horses stabled for free, her servants fed in the royal hall. The thought of dining out of the royal kitchens with my horses in the royal stables eating Tudor hay is like the promise of release from a prison of worry.

Lady Margaret sees that hope illuminates my face. “It is possible,” she concedes. “After all, it is suitable.”

“I would be honored,” I said. “I would be delighted.”

A smartly dressed man steps before us and bows. I scowl at him; this is my time with My Lady. She is the source of all wealth and patronage; she and her son, the king, own everything. This is my only time and my only chance; nobody is going to interrupt us if I can help it. To my surprise, Bishop Fisher puts a hand on the gentleman’s arm before he can present his petition and draws him away with a quiet word.

“I have to ask you a question that I asked you once before,” Lady Margaret says quietly. “It is about your time at Ludlow, with the Prince and Princess of Wales.”

I can feel myself growing cold. John Fisher has just told me that they are planning to send Katherine home to Spain. If that is the case, why would they care whether the marriage was consummated or not? “Yes?”

“We are troubled by a small matter, a legal question, for the dispensation of her first marriage. We have to ensure that we get the right wording of the dispensation so that our dear Katherine can marry Prince Harry. It is in the interest of the princess that you tell me what I need to know.”

I know that this is a lie. Lady Margaret wants to send her home.

“The marriage between Prince Arthur and the princess was consummated, was it not?” The grip on my arm tightens as if she would squeeze a confession from the marrow of my bones. We have reached the end of the room, but instead of turning to stroll back again through the crowd of petitioners, she nods to her liveried servants on the double doors to throw them open, and we pass through into her private rooms and the doors close behind us. We are alone; nobody can hear my answer but her.

“I cannot say,” I say steadily, though I find I am frightened of her, here in this empty room with guards on the doors. “Your ladyship, I told you, my husband took the prince to her bedchamber; but she told me that he was not able.”

“She said that. I know what she said.” There is a grating impatience in her voice, but she manages a smile. “But, my dear Margaret, what do you believe?”

More than anything else I believe that this is going to cost me my post as lady-in-waiting and my son his education. I rack my brains to think of something I can say to satisfy her that will not betray the princess. She is waiting, hard-faced. She will be satisfied with nothing but the words she wants to hear. She is the most powerful woman in England and she will insist that I agree with her. Miserably, I whisper: “I believe Her Grace the Dowager Princess.”

“She thinks that if she is a virgin untouched, we will marry her to Prince Harry,” My Lady says flatly. “Her parents asked for a dispensation from the Pope and told him the marriage was not consummated. He gave them a dispensation that leaves it deliberately unclear. It is typical of Isabella of Castile to get a document that can be read any way she wants. Even after death she tricks us. Apparently, her daughter is not to be challenged. She must not even be questioned. She thinks that she can walk into our family, walk into our house, walk into these very rooms—my rooms—and make them her own. She thinks to take the prince and everything away from me.”