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stood in front of her, drawings in his hand.
    “I’m getting reports of riots in Paris. Mobs killing Protestants,” Walsingham said, coming to her side, quietly briefing her. She had turned, ready to listen to him, when Lord Howard stepped closer, trying to persuade her to look at three small portraits, sent by would-be suitors to the queen, standing on easels.
    “A French prince, Majesty,” he said. “Cousin to the king.”
    “I’m told his breath smells.” She went back to the architect. Unrest in France could lead to danger in England. “You have the plans for the new docks?”
    “Here, Majesty.” She studied the papers he handed to her as Walsingham continued to press her, his voice low.
    “A Franco-Spanish alliance against us would be a disaster.” Henri III, king of France, a Catholic, had courted Elizabeth to disastrous effect when he was the Duke of Anjou. Though they were not openly hostile to each other politically, neither felt the slightest affection for the other on a personal level. But if she were to marry his cousin, Henri would never be able to offer Philip assistance.
    “What if enemy ships should sail up the Thames?” Elizabeth asked the architect. “Can the docks be closed?”
    “Not closed, Majesty. But here we have gun positions—”
    Lord Howard interrupted. “The second portrait, Majesty. King Erik of Sweden.”
    The queen looked around, suddenly realizing one of her entourage was missing. “Where’s Bess?”
    
    Bess had slipped into the Privy Garden, looking for solitude, and was reading, completely caught up in Spenser’s poetry:
    So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought.
    The most romantic bits she read aloud, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine someone penning such perfect phrases for her. Gentlemen wrote poems for the queen, but they weren’t like these—these were less self-conscious, more unfettered, full of genuine passion. As she considered this, she began to understand the queen’s loneliness. There was something empty in the attention Elizabeth received from her courtiers, gentlemen much younger than her, who, when Her Majesty was not in the room, were all too happy—relieved, even—to flirt with ladies their own age.
    She closed the book, tucked it under her arm, and had begun to wander through paths lined with boxwoods cut at perfect right angles when she panicked at the sight of how high the sun had risen. She was late. She picked up her skirts and ran back inside, through the corridors of the palace, dodging crowds of lesser petitioners who were waiting, hoping, to gain access to the queen.
    As she reached the doors of the Presence Chamber, she saw the gentleman who’d been with the puddle man, outside, the other day. Beside him were two fierce-looking foreigners, whose dark skin and rough features made all those around them seem sickly pale. Then, despite herself, she gasped. There was the puddle man, looking much more handsome than before, trying—futilely, she thought—to persuade the doorkeeper to let him in to see the queen.
    “Just look aside for a moment,” Raleigh said, pressing a coin into the man’s hand.
    The doorkeeper pocketed the coin but did not step aside. “You’ll have to see the Controller of the Household, sir.” Beyond the open doors to the inner rooms stood the Controller, a portly man surrounded by persons no less eager than Raleigh to see Elizabeth.
    “Christ in heaven. I had less trouble than this boarding a Spanish ship of the line,” Raleigh said, and Bess nearly laughed. This man was witty and appealing; the queen would like him. The doorkeeper moved, but to let her through, not him. Bess flashed the stranger her most stunning smile as she passed, her heart fluttering.
    
    Raleigh watched the girl—a vision of blond loveliness— go by. “Tell the queen the New World is beating at her door,” he called out, but she gave no sign that she’d heard him and he was left stuck on the wrong side of