I’d been back in London for five days and, though I’d contrived to be around the palace on several occasions, had not set eyes on Tomas in all that time, nor received any message from him. I did, however, expect to see him that day, for I was in St James’s Park with the Queen’s Players, and we were to perform a new play, named The Taming of the Shrew, for the queen. I thought that Juliette would be accompanying the queen, and I hoped to get the chance to ask her once again about her sponsor. If she maintained it was Lady Ashe, then I would tell Tomas and see what he thought about it. I was in the park because I’d remembered that Tomas had said the queen wanted to see a play acted as part of the spring celebrations, and by going to the Curtain and reacquainting myself with Mr James, I’d made sure I had a part in it. It was a very small role (for all the actors who usually played women had now returned to the company), and not one which called for me to be dressed in fine clothes with copious amounts of jewellery, as before, but merely to be a serving-woman in a tavern.
