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Richard Fitzgrey is practising standing on his hands—only he isn't at all good at it, and keeps falling over. You'd think all the ladies watching would think less of him for not being able to do something Masou does every day. But no, there they are gasping every time he crashes to the ground, as if he were in danger.
Late afternoon, with Carmina in her chamber
    This is in ink because I have somehow mislaid my graphite pens, Jove blast it. By the way, that's not swearing, I got it from the play we had. I came especially to see how Carmina was faring and perhapsstart to divine the mystery of what ails her. As the Queen's most privy Lady Pursuivant, I had best keep in practice, and besides, I hate to see Carmina so sad and tired and weak.
    Only I know not how I can investigate anything with such a rabble of girls around! I don't know how they do it; I really don't. We are all here—all six Maids of Honour, that is—and the noise would put a flock of starlings to shame. Nobody has been saying anything with much sense in it at all, and Carmina is presently fast asleep—which is probably just as well because the din would give anyone a relapse.
    But perhaps I am being unfair, for that was interesting. Just as I was writing of the starlings, Mary Shelton started talking to Penelope about diseases.
    “It isn't a gaol fever,” she said, “because there's no fever. And it's not smallpox, because she had that when she was a little girl, and—”
    “I do hope she gets better soon,” said Lady Sarah solicitously. “Her family have had a lot of bad luck recently. Look at what happened to her father at the New Year.…”
    “What was that?” asked Lady Jane, who isn't good at remembering gossip that doesn't directly involve her.
    “He was hurt in the jousting tournament,” saidMary Shelton patiently. “Don't you remember? The horse slipped just at the moment when the two were going to meet and—”
    “Fell right through the barrier onto the other horse and knocked it down,” put in Penelope, excitedly.
    “And poor Carmina's father had his leg broken!” finished Lady Sarah.
    “It was lucky the bone didn't go through the flesh, for then it would have had to be cut off,” Mary added ghoulishly. “Once any air touches the bone it rots and you can die.”
    “But it didn't,” said Sarah. “He's at home getting better now.”
    “The other one was killed, though,” Penelope pointed out. “It was terribly tragic, because he was in his first ever proper joust, and he just fell off awkwardly and broke his neck. By the time they took his helmet off, he was dead!”
    “Poor Sir John Willoughby was devastated when he was recovered enough to be told,” Sarah remarked, sounding thrilled. “He said he had rather it was the other way about, him dead and the boy with his leg broken. He swears he will never joust again, even when his leg is mended.”
    “It sounds like something that happened to me when I was in France,” put in Lady Jane. “There wasa young nobleman who was desperately in love with me, and I gave him my kerchief as a favour because he was quite handsome and rich. Then he was just showing me how his horse could stand on its back legs, when it fell right over onto the nobleman. He broke his leg, too. I was devastated.”
    Lady Sarah rolled her eyes. “Served him right for showing off,” she said. “Did you laugh?”
    “No, of course I didn't!” snapped Lady Jane. “I was terribly concerned, and I visited his bedside in my best new damask kirtle embroidered with
fleurs de lys.
…”
    One of the reasons why Lady Jane is so elegant, and gives herself such airs and graces, is because she spent two years at the French Court while her father was an Ambassador there. The French Court is the most fashionable in Europe, so of course Lady Jane thinks she knows much more than any of us about Court fashions, which really annoys Lady Sarah, who hasn't been anywhere except England. The Queen herself, of course, has