She had spent the previous evening in the company of her ladies-in-waiting, listening as they took turns to read aloud from a translation of the long French poem The Romance of the Rose. It had been a relief not to preside over the feast again, for Walsingham’s tales of spies and assassins had left her nervous and on edge when surrounded by the full court. It was not quite noon but already the heat in the Presence Chamber was stifling. She could just see, out on the lake, the blue-green water dazzling, a family of swans making their slow way towards the bank, ducking under the bright surface every few yards in search of food. The swans’ immaculate feathers shone white in the sunlight – as pure and chaste as her own ladies-in-waiting, she thought drily. Beyond the dusty stretch of the walled tiltyard, she could see the tower they called the Watergate – an unlikely attribution, since the Lesser Pool below it seemed too shallow to reach its base – and beyond it, the ancient earthwork Brays, through which she had passed to enter the castle’s outer defences.
