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yet it was still night and she could not recall having left her bed.
    ‘Kate?’
    ‘Thank God,’ her friend breathed, a look of relief on her face. Then she turned to the tight huddle of women about them, all clad in nightshifts and caps, staring at Margerie by the light of a flickering torch as though she were mad. ‘As you can see, Mistress Croft is awake now, so you may all go back to bed. Go, I will tend her.’
    ‘We do not answer to you, Mistress Langley,’ one of the women said sourly, looking her up and down in a contemptuous manner. It was Mistress Lew, one of the chief seamstresses to the royal wardrobe and thrice widowed before she was even forty years of age. ‘I wish to ask this silly fool what she was thinking, frightening us out of our wits like that.’
    ‘And how exactly did she frighten you, Mistress Lew?’ Kate demanded.
    ‘Why, screaming so we thought she was murdered, then moaning and stumbling about in the darkness like a soul in torment.’
    ‘Aye,’ said another of the seamstresses, plump Mistress Carew, nudging closer to examine Margerie with round-eyed curiosity, ‘and refusing to answer to her name, though her eyes were open and she seemed awake. Why would any decent woman do that?’
    Margerie frowned at these descriptions, shaking her head. ‘I was . . . what? ’ She stared from one woman’s face to another. Her voice grew husky. ‘I pray you forgive me, ladies, I have no memory of these events.’
    ‘She lies!’ one of the younger exclaimed, then turned back to her bed. ‘And she ought to be whipped for disturbing our peace at such an hour.’
    ‘Come, let us all get back to sleep,’ said Mistress Lew, her thin lips pursed. ‘It will be dawn soon.’
    Margerie tried to explain again that she could not remember what she had done, stuttering a little in her anxiety, but the women were already moving away, back to the warmth of their mattresses. Then someone carried the torch back outside, replacing it in its high sconce in the corridor. The chamber was left in smoky darkness, only a thin and flickering stream of light falling across the women’s beds from the open door.
    ‘Come with me,’ Kate muttered, sounding angry, and led Margerie out of the women’s chamber.
    Alone together in the smoky corridor, Kate took her by the shoulders and peered closely into her face. ‘Truly, you remember nothing?’
    ‘Not a moment.’
    ‘When they could not rouse you, Mistress Lew sent for me, knowing us to be fast friends. I took it for a jest at first, and was angry myself, for I had only just climbed into bed with my husband. But then I saw you pacing up and down, muttering and wringing your hands, and knew it was no trick. I thought you must be bewitched – or else sick. So I sent one of the guards to fetch a physician.’
    ‘ A physician? ’
    ‘I was afraid for you, Margerie. What else could I have done?’
    Margerie stared at her friend, beginning to feel sick indeed at the thought of all the fuss she had caused. ‘The last thing I remember is closing my eyes in bed. Now you say I was wandering in my sleep? Talking to myself? My mother used to say I wandered in my sleep as a child, yet I never had any memory of doing so. What is happening to me?’
    ‘We will wait for the doctor and see what he says.’ Kate laid a hand on her forehead. ‘You are not feverish though. Do you feel unwell?’
    ‘Perhaps. I cannot tell.’ Margerie wrapped her arms about herself, shivering. ‘Which doctor did you call?’
    ‘Whichever would answer the summons.’
    She bit her lip. ‘I am so cold.’
    ‘Well, that is no surprise,’ Kate commented impatiently, rubbing up and down her arms to warm them, ‘for you are clad in nothing but your shift.’
    Suddenly aware of her lack of decent covering, Margerie glanced down at the thin material clinging to her breasts and belly. She wore nothing beneath, and could only imagine how she would appear to any respectable gentleman, standing out