Robert and I were happy that summer of 1551, or at least that is how I remember it now. Perhaps time has sweetened my recollection of those days and nights. To begin with we lodged at Ely Place in Holborn, the old bishop’s palace, where the gardens reminded me a little of the country with their tumbledown walls and secretive orchards and the nightingales singing. On the hot nights of June we would run barefoot over the dew-drenched grass and make love beneath the shadows of the trees. I loved Robert so dearly then. His blatant desire for me was the balm I needed to convince me that his love for the Princess Elizabeth was no more than the courtly devotion of an old friend.
We journeyed into Norfolk too later that year. Both my father and Lord Warwick were anxious to establish Robert as one of the most influential landowners in the region. He became Constable of Castle Rising, which was no great privilege since the medieval walls were in great decay and overrun with rabbits. We lodged in the new buildings, which were already more than fifty years old and leaked whenever the wind drove the rain in from the east. Robert spoke of repairing the ruins but I knew it would not happen. We had so little money and though Robert was already gathering other estates and offices, I knew that our future lay in London rather than the flat lands of my birth. Arthur came to see us, however, and was his usual easy company. I had not expected him to like Robert but they shared a passion for horses and for riding. Robert recognised Arthur’s skill with animals and respected it. Their friendship made me happy.
My mother and my sister Anna also visited one day in August when the fields baked in the hot sun, clattering over the stone bridge and through the gatehouse to where I waited in the inner bailey. I was poised to apologise for the meanness of receiving them in such a tumbledown ruin and then I saw Anna’s face as she looked up at the soaring towers and stone buttresses. She was completely overawed and the sensation of triumph I felt was sweet. Her mouth pinched, her brow furrowed and she greeted me with a kiss that was cold as a noblewoman’s charity.
‘Sister…’ Anna said coolly. Her awe had already changed into resentment.
I saw Mother give her a meaningful look and then Anna smiled at me although the smile did not reach her eyes. ‘It is so good to see you again, Amy,’ she said, and I thought: She wants something from me.
We went into the solar and the servants brought us ale and cold pigeon pie. We spoke of Stansfield and the harvest and our great brood of family. Mother asked after life in London, grasping eagerly for details of the court and the latest gossip. Then I saw her kick Anna under the table; an awkward silence fell, which Anna broke by clearing her throat.
‘Amy,’ she said, ‘out of the love you bear me—’
Which is small, I thought.
‘I would beg a small favour from you.’ Anna stopped. Mother was staring at her fixedly. I tried not to appear too impatient.
‘As you know, my husband Antony Huddleston is not in favour with the King,’ Anna blurted out. Colour had come into her face now, the red of anger and embarrassment at having to ask for goodwill from the little sister she had once patronised. ‘It is to our eternal grief that he is overlooked, for he could offer great service to the crown.’
I did not know Antony Huddleston well. He had a manor house at Sawston in Cambridgeshire and before Robert had sued for my hand in marriage he had seemed a good enough catch for Anna, the modestly dowried step-daughter of a knight. I wondered if she ever wished I had wed first so that she could have gone to court and found herself a lord.
‘Antony’s Catholic sympathies make that impossible,’ I said coldly. ‘Surely you understand that? The King is not sympathetic towards papists.’
Anna cast her eyes down. ‘Antony has recanted,’ she said. ‘He realises that the path he chose was the wrong one. I have helped him to see—’
‘That Robert’s position could gain him preferment,’ I finished for her, ‘as it has for our brothers.’
‘Amy!’ Mother exclaimed. ‘Shame on you for playing out