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on a green background, and the room was furnished with elegant tables, vases of flowers and high-backed chairs. There were only two people present. The first was a woman in a plain cornflower-blue dress, her hair grey beneath her white coif. She half-rose from her chair, giving me an apprehensive look. The man with her, tall and thin and wearing a lawyer’s robe, put his hand gently on her shoulder to indicate she should stay seated. Master Robert Warner, the Queen’s solicitor, his thin face framed by a long beard that was greying fast though he was of an age with me, came across and took my hand.
    â€˜Brother Shardlake, thank you for coming.’ As though I could have refused. But I was pleased to see him, Warner had always been friendly.
    â€˜How are you?’ he asked.
    â€˜Well enough. And you?’
    â€˜Very busy just now.’
    â€˜And how is the Queen?’ I noticed the grey-haired woman was staring at me intently, and that she was trembling slightly.
    â€˜Very well. I will take you in now. The Lady Elizabeth is with her.’

    IN THE SUMPTUOUSLY decorated privy chamber, four richly dressed maids-in-waiting with the Queen’s badge on their hoods sat sewing by the window. Outside were the palace gardens, patterned flower beds and fishponds and statues of heraldic beasts. All the women rose and nodded briefly as I bowed to them.
    Queen Catherine Parr sat in the centre of the room, on a red velvet chair under a crimson cloth of state. Beside her a girl of about eleven knelt stroking a spaniel. She had a pale face and long auburn hair, and wore a green silken dress and a rope of pearls. I realized this was the Lady Elizabeth, the King’s younger daughter, by Anne Boleyn. I knew the King had restored Elizabeth and her half-sister Mary, Catherine of Aragon’s daughter, to the succession the year before, it was said at the Queen’s urging. But their status as bastards remained; they were still ladies, not princesses. And though Mary, now in her twenties, was a major figure at court and second in line to the throne after young Prince Edward, Elizabeth, despised and rejected by her father, was hardly ever seen in public.
    Warner and I bowed deeply. There was a pause, then the Queen said, ‘Welcome, good gentlemen,’ in her clear rich voice.
    Before her marriage Catherine Parr had always been elegantly dressed, but now she was magnificent in a dress of silver and russet sewn with strands of gold. A gold brooch hung with pearls was pinned to her breast. Her face, attractive rather than pretty, was lightly powdered, her red-gold hair bound under a circular French hood. Her expression was kindly but watchful, her mouth severe but somehow conveying that in a moment it could break into a smile or laugh in the midst of all this magnificence. She looked at Warner.
    â€˜She is outside?’ she asked.
    â€˜Yes, your majesty.’
    â€˜Go sit with her, I will call her in shortly. She is still nervous?’
    â€˜Very.’
    â€˜Then give her what comfort you can.’ Warner bowed and left the room. I was aware of the girl studying me closely as she stroked the spaniel. The Queen looked across at her and smiled.
    â€˜Well, Elizabeth, this is Master Shardlake. Ask your question, then you must go to your archery lesson. Master Timothy will be waiting.’ She turned back to me with an indulgent smile on her face. ‘The Lady Elizabeth has a question about lawyers.’
    I turned hesitantly to the girl. She was not pretty, her nose and chin too long. Her eyes were blue and piercing, as I remembered her father’s. But, unlike Henry’s, Elizabeth’s eyes held no cruelty, only an intense, searching curiosity. A bold look for a child, but she was no ordinary child.
    â€˜Sir,’ she said in a clear, grave voice, ‘I know you for a lawyer, and that my dear mother believes you a good man.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ So she called the Queen