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clouded, and a tiny silence fell. I felt I should offer a similar account of myself, but I didn’t know what to say, and in a moment he picked up again.
    ‘When my old man died and left me his savings, Master Henslowe was just moving into the Rose, with a new company. Under Lord Howard’s protection, it is – he and her ladyship, they’ve been good to me.
    ‘So now I’m a sharer in the Admiral’s Men, and everything is dandy! But of course, you’ll have heard all about us.’
    I stammered, until I saw that he was teasing me.
    I tried to ask him something of what an actor felt – whether it wasn’t a thrill, to be someone else every day. To my own surprise, I found I was waiting for his answer, quite as if it really mattered to me. There was a pause before he answered.
    ‘Yes, of course it is. You can be a lover, a lunatic, or a poet. You know what it’s like to be a girl as well as a boy, and that’s quite something – wouldn’t you say?’ He wasn’t looking at me.
    ‘It’s as if you get to look at the world through different eyes – or through the eye slits of different masks. You know, you can almost wind up despising those who only experience life one way.
    ‘But of course …’ He paused again. He’d turned away and was gazing down the gallery. ‘… of course, the most important thing is that you get to take the mask off at the end of the day.’
    Katherine, Lady Howard
Spring 1596
    The queen’s furs should be sent to the skinner soon for beating, and stored away for the season in their bags of sweet powder. I must check whether we’ve enough summer hose from the silkwoman: the woollen stockings can go back to the hosier, to have their feet remade against next winter. The dresses of tawny and brazil colour that did for the cold should be put away; the peach satin furred with miniver, the russet satin nightgown and the robe striped in silver and couleur du roy . In their place come the lighter garments; the carnation-coloured hat embroidered with gold and silver butterflies, the yellow satin petticoat laid with silver lace to ripple like the sea and the velvet in light watchet blue trimmed with silver roses.
    I had a dress that colour as a girl, with fine streamers off it to look like water; in my father’s house at Hunsdon, it was, when we all put on a masque to represent the rivers of England, because the queen was coming to stay. Still, I have finer dresses now, even if they do not look as good on me.
    At court, of course, the queen’s ladies may wear only black and white, and I regret that occasionally. But I wear what I want to in my own house, needless to say. (Twenty years – more – First Lady of the Bedchamber: there is no way any lady in the land can raise herself higher by her own efforts, and efforts there have been, make no mistake, her majesty’s cousin though I may be.) There’s one dress the queen says she’ll give to me, in the dark brocade suited to a middle-aged lady, and one of my own that should be given away in turn, though I’ve given enough to the players this season already.
    Perhaps there is something to be said for keeping one’s mind on the practical. It holds the fear at bay. Seven years ago, the Armada summer, it was almost easier, oddly. With invasion planned we were all in danger, every one of us, all London throbbing with the knowledge of how vulnerable we were, how close to the sea.
    This time it’s different; it feels like a foreign war, this alliance with the French to drive the Spanish out of Calais and keep the Channel free of Spanish fleets, and with my boys, my girls, my own shrinking skin safe out of it, I have time to fret about my husband Charles as I sort taffeta and embroidery.
    Mind you, some of Charles’ preparations have been domestic, too, in their way. You don’t take six thousand men to sea without victuals, prepared to sit there in the Channel for months if necessary. They’ve been at it since Christmas, almost, and knowing what to