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because she talked with us and informers rarely go free.”
    Kate was silent and he went on: “The Queen spends her life in prayer and she does needlework. She is making a magnificent altar cloth for the glory of God.”
    “You may like saints,” said Kate, “but I don’t. They are all old and plain and that’s why they’re saints.”
    “It’s not true,” I said.
    “Don’t try to be clever, Silly Child.” But she was piqued, and said we must get back or they might come to look for us, and what if they found us? Then they would find the door too, it would no longer be a secret and our meetings would be discontinued.
    This was a thought which horrified us all.
    It was May and proclamations were sent out that a coronation was to take place. Queen Anne Boleyn would set out from Greenwich to the Tower and after a sojourn there go to Westminster Abbey. It would be a spectacle such as had rarely been seen before.
    Kate was impatient with what she called our unfashionable household. This was a coronation—even better than a wedding, she said. Crowds would be gathered in the streets and on the banks of the river to see the Queen pass by. And yet according to some it might be a funeral!
    I pointed out that there had been some funerals because of this coronation.
    “Never mind that now,” said Kate. “ I am going to see the coronation.”
    “My father would not wish us to,” I said.
    She narrowed her eyes. “It’s treason not to go to the coronation of the King’s chosen Queen.”
    Treason! It was a word of which people were becoming increasingly fearful.
    On that lovely May day when Anne Boleyn was to start on the first stage of her coronation Kate came to the nuttery where I was seated in my favorite spot under a tree, reading. Her eyes were alight with excitement.
    “Get up at once,” she said, “and come with me.”
    “Why?” I demanded.
    “Never mind why. Just come.”
    I followed her, as I always did, and she led me by a devious route through the orchards down to the privy steps and there was a barge in which sat Tom Skillen, looking somewhat sheepish.
    “Tom is going to row us down to Greenwich,” said Kate.
    “Has my father given his permission?”
    Tom was about to speak when Kate silenced him and said: “There’s no need to worry. Everything is all right. No one can manage a boat better than Tom.”
    She pushed me into the boat and Tom grinned at me, still sheepish. I supposed it was all right because Tom would not take us anywhere without my father’s permission.
    He began to row us rapidly up the river and very soon I knew the reason for Kate’s excitement. We were going toward Greenwich and the river was becoming more and more crowded with craft. I was as excited as she was to see so much activity. There was the great city state barge in which sat the Lord Mayor in scarlet with a heavy gold chain about his neck; and all the companies and guilds were there in all their different barges. The sound of music filled the air and there was laughter and chatter from the smaller craft. Salutes from guns could be heard in the distance.
    “We shall soon see the Queen,” Kate whispered. “This is the start of the coronation festivities.”
    “Shall we see her?”
    “That is why we are here,” answered Kate with exaggerated patience.
    And we did see her. Tom’s skillful oar work brought us close to the palace itself so we saw the new Queen with her retinue of pretty girls board her barge. She was dressed in cloth of gold and she looked strangely attractive…not beautiful perhaps but more elegant than anyone I had ever seen; and her enormous dark eyes were as bright as her flashing jewels.
    Kate could not take her eyes from her.
    “They say she is a witch,” she whispered.
    “Perhaps she is,” I answered.
    “She’s the most fascinating woman I ever saw! If I were in her place….”
    Kate held her head high; I knew that she was imagining herself in that barge sailing down the river to the