Katharine looked at the young man and prayed silently for him: “Oh, Lord God, preserve him. Preserve us all.”

She said quickly: “Your Grace, listening to the Earl’s verses has set up a longing within me to hear something of your own.”

Henry’s good humor was miraculously restored. How strange it was, thought Katharine, that this great King, this man whom the French and the Spaniards feared, should be so childish in his vanity. The King’s character contained the oddest mingling of qualities; yet the brutality and the sentimentality, the simplicity and the shrewdness, made him the man he was. She should not regret these contrasts; she could watch for those traits in his character, and, as her knowledge of them grew, she might find some means of saving others from his wrath, as well as herself. She had indeed now saved Surrey from his displeasure.

“Since the Queen commands,” said Henry graciously, “we must obey.”

“Would Your Majesty care to come to my musicroom, that my musicians may first play the new melody set to your verses?”

“Aye. That we will. And we will take with us those who most appreciate the pleasure in store.”

He scanned the assembled company. “Come…you, my Lady Herbert, and you, my Lady of Suffolk….”

The King named those whom he wished to accompany him to the Queen’s music room. Surrey was not among them, and for that Katharine was grateful. Let the young man withdraw to his own apartments and there ponder his recklessness in solitude.

But others noticed that Surrey’s sister was one of those who received the King’s invitation; and that during the musical hour he found a pretext for keeping her close beside him.

THOMAS SEYMOUR, not being among those who had been invited to the Queen’s chamber, strolled out of the palace into the gardens.

He was thinking of Surrey’s words, which had been deliberately calculated to stab the King. What a fool was Surrey! Thomas Seymour had no intention of being such a fool.

He strolled past the gardens which would soon be ablaze with roses—red and white roses which would suggest, to all who saw them, from what the founding of the Tudor dynasty had spared the country. The Wars of the Roses had ended with the coming of Henry the Seventh; now the red roses of Lancaster and the white roses of York mingled peaceably, enclosed by wooden railings of green and white, the livery colors of a Tudor King; the pillars were decorated with the heraldic signs of the Tudors as an additional reminder.

Looking at these gardens, Seymour thought afresh what a fool Surrey was. What was his motive? To undermine the Tudors? That was ridiculous. The Tudors had come to stay.

Seymour leaned on the green-and-white fence and surveyed the rose trees.

Life was good to the Lord High Admiral of England. Ambition would be realized. He was sure of his destiny. But, sure as he was, he knew that he must be constantly on the alert, ready to snatch every advantage; and one of the greatest assets which a kindly fate had thrown into the hands of Sir Thomas Seymour was his personal charm.

Marriage! What could not be achieved by the right marriage!

Now, it seemed, haughty Norfolk was looking his way; and if Seymour was not mistaken, so was his daughter.

Seymour could not suppress the laugh which came to his lips. Her family would have no difficulty in persuading the Duchess of Richmond to become the wife of Sir Thomas Seymour, he fancied.

How far we have come! he mused. The Seymours of Wolf Hall— humble country gentlemen—and now we are related to the King and fit to ally ourselves with the greatest families in the land.

The question was not whether my lady of Richmond would take Sir Thomas Seymour, but whether Sir Thomas would take her.

He liked her. He liked all beautiful women; but a woman must have more than her beauty to offer an ambitious man. “And, my dear Mary Howard,” he murmured, “there are others who have more to offer me than you have.”

The spring air was like a glass of wine; he could smell the scents of the earth. Life was good; and would be better.

There were four women now whom he must consider before he took the final step. A duchess, a Queen, the kinswoman of a King, and a King’s daughter.

There was no doubt on whom his choice would fall, were it possible for him to make the choice. For the Queen he had a great tenderness; he loved Kate and there would be great happiness with such as she was. But she could not be his wife until she was a Dowager Queen; whereas the Princess might one day be a Queen in her own right.

He could love the woman for her sweet nature, but he longed for the redheaded Princess. Ambition and desire could mingle so pleasantly.

He left the rose gardens and strolled toward that new pond garden of his master’s. How beautiful it was! How quiet! What perfect peace there was in such a garden, with its lily pond, its statues and terraces. Already it was gay with spring flowers and the blossoming shrubs.

He looked into the future—a future in which the King would be dead, and he and his brother would rule; but his brother was a man who would wish to take first place, and it seemed to Thomas that since Edward lacked his own superior personal charms, people thought he must be the more astute statesman. Edward was sly; Edward was clever; and he had an ambitious wife. Those two would wish to rule without the help of Thomas.

Marriage was, therefore, of the utmost importance to the Admiral; but it must be the right marriage.

A movement in the gardens caught his eyes, and his lips curved into a smile of deep satisfaction as a small figure rose from the grass, a figure in crimson velvet, her red hair just visible under her pearltrimmed hood.

Seymour lost no time in approaching the Princess Elizabeth.

He bowed and took her hand.

“I was admiring the flowers,” he said; “then I saw that I wasted my admiration on them.”

“It rejoices me that you realized the wastage in good time,” she said, “for I know you are a man who does not care to waste his talents. It grows chilly.”

“Then I must fain give you my cloak. We cannot allow the Lady Elizabeth to be cold.”

“My walk back to the Palace will doubtless warm me.”

“I hoped that you would tarry and talk awhile.”

“Your hopes, Sir Thomas, I doubt not are always high. Perhaps too high.”

“Hopes can never be too high, my lady. If we hope for much, we achieve a little. But to hope for nothing is too achieve nothing. That, you will agree, is folly.”

“You are too clever for me, my lord.”

“Nay. There are times when it saddens me to think that I am not clever enough.”

“You speak in riddles and I must leave you to them. My lord …” She curtsied, and would have walked past him; but he had no intention of letting her go.

“Could we not dispense with ceremony now that we are alone?”

“Alone! Who is ever alone at court? Such as you and I, my lord Admiral, are never alone, for there will always be eyes to watch us when we do not see them, and ears to listen. There will always be those who treasure your simplest utterances—and mine—and mayhap use them against us.”

“Elizabeth… most beauteous Princess….”

She flushed. Clever as she was, she was susceptible to flattery, even as was her royal father; and she lacked his experience in hiding this fact. Important as she knew herself to be in the affairs of state politics since she had been reinstated at court, and much as she enjoyed her new position, she was more pleased at hearing herself called beautiful than she would have been by any reference to her importance in the realm.

Seymour kept his advantage. “Give me this pleasure…give me this pleasure of gazing upon you.”

“I have heard the ladies of the court say that it is not wise to take too seriously the compliments of the Lord High Admiral.”

“The ladies of the court?” He shrugged his shoulders. “They are apart. You are as different from them as the sun from the moon.”

“The moon,” she retorted, “is very beautiful, but it hurts the eyes to look at the sun.”

“When I look at you I feel myself scorched with the passion within me.”

Her laughter rang out clear and loud.

“I hear talk of your marriage, my lord. May I congratulate you?”

“I would welcome congratulations, only if I might announce my coming marriage to one particular lady.”

“And can you not make the announcement? I have heard that there is no man at court more likely to sue successfully for a lady’s favor.”

“She whom I would marry is far above me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Do I hear aright? Is the Lord High Admiral losing his belief in himself?”

“Elizabeth…my beautiful Elizabeth….”

She eluded him and ran from him; she paused to look back, artful and alluring, urging him on, yet forbidding him to come.

She was aware of the Palace windows. Much as she would have enjoyed a flirtation with this man, who fascinated her more than any person ever had, she did not wish to endanger her new position at court.

If Seymour had his dreams and ambitions, the Lady Elizabeth had hers no less. Indeed, they soared higher even than those of Seymour; and if they were more glorious, they were more dangerous.

He would have followed her, but she had suddenly become haughty.

“I wish to be alone,” she said coldly, and she walked from the garden, forcing herself to conquer her desire to stay with him, to invite his warm glances and perhaps the caresses which he longed to give and she would not have been averse to receiving.

Coquettish as she was, she longed for admiration. Flirtation was an amusing pastime, yet beyond the love of light pleasures was her abiding ambition.