VIII

away; birds chirrup repetitively, all on one note.
    Among the fruit trees, several of Catherine’s maids of honour are walking with some gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. I watch the teasing social dance: the men bend in, solicitous; the women step away, and laugh.
    Seeing the ebb and flow of a group as it moves – conversations beginning or ending, people breaking away, fresh gambits made, accepted or refused – you can tell who holds most power.
    Here it is an unlikely figure: a slight girl with a face too odd and pointed to be beautiful. It is the same girl I saw on the turret-top that day at the tournament: George’s younger sister, Anne.
    I see men, intrigued, trying to make her laugh – trying to say something clever enough to win her approval. I see women, in spare moments from their own conversations, glance at her with mistrust or plain dislike. It is a puzzle: she hasn’t the rank, the money or the looks to be so assured.
    “Good shot!”
    Wyatt turns away, dusting off his hands and grinning. It’s me up next.
    At the far end of the alley, the woods – each the shape of a squashed sphere, like a whole cheese – cluster around the small white jack. Some of the woods have been overshot; others, too tentatively thrown, have fallen short.
    I swing my arm back, and launch my wood. It arcs up the curved bank of the clay wall, overtaking Seymour’s and Norris’s, and descends at speed, knocking out Boleyn’s, which rolls on, into a corner.
    There’s applause all round as I walk back up the alley. I’m limping, still – my left leg, though the skin has healed, is uncomfortable and swollen. But I don’t sit; I lean on the sill again and stare out at the orchard.
    In recent months I have caught myself thinking more and more about this young woman – God knows why; it makes no sense to me. What is she? An insignificant girl with nothing to recommend her but a quick wit and those strange dark eyes – eyes that can flash with merciless hilarity, then look blank as a frozen pond.
    I have even gone so far as to make my interest plain. But her response has been confusing, drawing me in one minute, pushing me away the next. Which is downright impudent.
    She is no great lady, after all; she is a girl about Court, who should be worth no more than a brief bit of fun – some easy entertainment – and then forgotten.
    But it is getting worse. The feeling, the interest – whatever it is – has become an annoyance, like my leg wound, which itches and aches, and festers.
    Seymour’s just thrown. “Best shot yet,” Compton calls from the far end. He holds up a finger and thumb. “Inch off the jack.”
    Norris throws, then Boleyn. Wyatt’s wood cannons Seymour’s out of the way.
    “A lucky kiss,” says Wyatt, holding up his hands.
    As he walks back up the alley, Wyatt keeps turning to the windows; he has been watching George’s sister too. There is something pained in his expression that I recognise all too well.
    “Sir?”
    I turn.
    “Your wood, sir.” Norris hands it to me.
    The last throw. I step forward to take it. It is another good shot: the wood swings in from the wall as before and comes to rest only just beyond the jack.
    Compton hops about, looking at the balls from different angles. “Close-run thing. It’s between you, sir, and Wyatt.”
    So Wyatt and I approach, to examine the state of play.
    On the little finger of my right hand there is a small ring – a woman’s ring. A topaz only – nothing costly. I slip it onto my index finger – it cannot even pass the first joint – and point to the jack.
    “Wyatt, I tell you it is mine.” I’m grinning.
    Wyatt catches sight of the ring, and his eyes flick up to my face. He knows where the ring comes from: it is Anne’s. He hesitates – then, grinning too, he digs inside his doublet and produces a small pearl on a length of ribbon.
    “But if you’ll just let me measure the distance, Your Grace, I hope I’ll find it’s actually mine.”
    The pearl, the ribbon: I recognise them. Anne’s too.
    Wyatt kneels and stretches the ribbon between the two woods and the jack, comparing distances – looks up at me, and, seeing my expression, instantly blanches. The ribbon goes slack; he slowly rises to his feet.
    Before he can think what to say I am gone, striding as fast as my sore leg allows, back up the bowling alley and out through the door into the orchard.
    Everyone hears the door bang; groups split and fall back before I reach them,