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block.”
    Maman cradles her chin in her hands, looking at me. I notice the way the dim light enlivens her chestnut hair and sculpts the angles of her face; she is pale and finely wrought, like Jane, and I can see for an instant the way we are all undeniably tied together, seeing the golden branches of that family tree, veins of Tudor blood, joining us inextricably. The inevitable question emerges from among my newly ordered thoughts. “And Kitty!” I say. “There are so many who do not want a Catholic on the throne; will someone not try to put the crown on Kitty since she is next, after Jane?”
    She looks away from me, down towards the floor, with the words, “I hope to God not.” Then repeats more quietly, “Dieu nous garde.” It feels as if a great dark blanket has lowered itself over us, and she murmurs, “Let us pray that this Spanish marriage produces an heir.”
    “When you are wed,” I say, to change the subject, “is it sure I will live with you away from court? Will the Queen not want me?”
    “The Queen has her husband now, and if God is on our side will soon have an infant.”
    I know she means that I will not be required to play the Queen’s poppet when she has a real baby.
    “It is all I want, Maman, to stay close to you.”
    “And so you shall.” She unclasps the pomander from her girdle, placing it on the pillow. The scent of lavender reaches me. “It will help you sleep, little one.”
    “Sometimes I wonder though, Maman, what will become of me, for no man will want me for a wife, despite all the royal blood Icontain.” Unless, I think bitterly, there is some noble boy out there with only one leg or two heads who would accept me.
    “You must not vex yourself with such thoughts, Mouse. Ne t’inquiète pas. ”
    But what I cannot say is that, having lost my father and my sister so brutally, my world seems barely strong enough to hold the remnants of our family, and I wonder what will become of Katherine, who seems now teetering on the brink of safety. What if I should lose Maman too, and spend my days a ward of the crown, traipsing from palace to palace forever? I know it is sinful to think only of myself, but the fear has got inside me like a fever, so I close my eyes firmly and force myself to think of another kind of future: a simple life, a quiet place, where girls are not used as pieces in this game of crowns.
    July 1554
    Ludgate
    Levina
    Levina watches the sleeping form of her son, Marcus, back from his studies. He is sprawled across a bench in the Ludgate yard, with Hero stretched out beside him in a pool of sun. It seems hard to believe that sixteen years ago she was cradling him, a tiny swaddled bundle, in her arms; now he is becoming a man and she has begun the process that every mother must, of letting him go. The thought squeezes her heart tightly. He was born so early no one thought he could survive. A few whispered that was what happened when a woman sought to do a man’s work. Spending too much time among painters’ materials had poisoned her womb, they said; and women like her could not birth healthy infants. But Marcus survived, and more than that he thrived; that silenced the goodwives of Bruges. Levina sometimes wonders what they would all say if they knew she had been barren since; they wouldhave liked that—the satisfaction of being right. But London had beckoned and Bruges is nothing but a memory now. The women of Ludgate offer begrudged respect, due, she can only assume, to her success at court, but she is aware that they think her occupation displeases God. Everyone has an opinion on what God might or might not think, whether in Bruges or London, but for Levina God is a private matter—more so now, with a Catholic queen on the throne.
    She unfurls a sheet of paper onto the table and begins to sketch out a rough outline of her boy and Hero, who has shifted to rest his chin on Marcus’s thigh. She can hear the street sounds beyond the wall, hawkers calling their