VIII

given you permission to use it at all. Well?”
    Not as such, is the answer, though no one offers it.
    The chamberlain flaps his arms. “Away with you – all of you! Go up to your chambers! Do not think you will get away with this! There will be consequences! And you are not exempt, my Lord Prince! Your father will hear about this!”
    We file past the chamberlain, attempting to look contrite, as he calls household servants to fetch mops and cloths. As soon as we make it to the stairs, we’re laughing again, running and jostling up the steps and scuffling along the passageway to my rooms.
    Bryan stops off for his lute, Compton instructs a pageboy to run and find dry shirts, and Brandon sends for jugs of ale, which he persuades his favourite serving girl to bring up the back stairs without alerting the chamberlain. Then we pile into my bedchamber.
    Bryan sweeps aside a scatter of chessmen and lies full length on one of the window seats.
    Brandon sits down on the other window seat, springs up, shoves aside a comb and a tennis racquet, and sits down again. “Hal, does no one ever tidy up here? Your gentlemen are neglecting their duties.”
    “On account of how he keeps us jousting and fighting all day,” says Guildford from inside his shirt, which a page is helping him to strip off.
    It turns into a pleasant enough evening. Bryan, from his horizontal position, sings us a song with lute accompaniment. I discuss armour with the newly shirted Guildford, whose father and older brother are in charge of the Royal Armoury. I fancy designing my own jousting armour, but I can’t see my father agreeing to pay for it. Brandon and Compton, meanwhile, play a ridiculously competitive game of shuffleboard.
    Later, I grab the lute from Bryan and start on a madrigal that I love, and the boys join in with the other voice parts, with varying degrees of success.
    At the end Brandon clears his throat. “I usually don’t sing except to impress girls.”
    “Know some deaf ones then, do you?” says Bryan. Brandon picks up a shuttlecock and throws it at him.
    Deftly dodging it, Bryan gets up and pulls a card table towards him. “Hal, come and lose some money to me, would you? I could do with a new pair of boots.”
    “Oh, aim a little higher. What about a horse?” says Brandon. “Or a house? Come to think of it, count me in. I could do with both.”
    “I haven’t lost to you, Charles, in a month,” I say, putting down the lute and walking over, “and I don’t intend to start now.”
    “Only because you ply me with drink while we’re playing,” Brandon says, pulling a mournful face.
    I grin and hitch the stool under me.
    “Primero?” says Bryan, hands poised with the pack, ready to deal.
    I nod.
    “For serious money?”
    I laugh. “What else?”
    Two hours later I’ve won a fair amount of cash, and Brandon has downed a large quantity of ale. On account of having lost a forfeit, he is currently kneeling on the bed pretending to be my Spanish sister Catherine, who for the past three months has been presiding over her married household at Ludlow, along with my brother. Bryan is taking the role of Arthur, which is all the funnier because he is so much smaller than Brandon.
    My bed is a sight to behold: it has a crimson cloth-of-gold canopy and striped curtains made of purple and yellow silk. Brandon has grabbed the curtains in a fistful under his chin and has poked his head between them; it looks like a puppet show. Now he’s squawking (in an attempt at a Spanish accent), “Oh Arthur! Be gentle with me!”
    Bryan can mimic Arthur’s drawl perfectly. “Be patient, sweetheart, while I fetch my books. I’m sure there is a diagram of the female body somewhere…”
    Guildford and I are laughing uproariously. Compton seems to have disappeared.
    Brandon’s body is entirely hidden by the bed-curtains. As Bryan approaches, riffling through a copy of some book he’s grabbed from my cupboard, the blade of Brandon’s dagger appears, poking out between the curtains some way below his face.
    Bryan looks up from the book, and gasps. “But, my love, I thought you were a woman!”
    “Did your book not tell you, sir? This is what women’s parts are like.” Brandon bats his eyelashes. “Where can I put it, sir? Do we not fit together?”
    Guildford falls off his chair, and carries on laughing on the floor.
    “Hal…”
    “What?”
    It’s Compton, evidently returning from a conversation in the outer chamber. He says,