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Salisbury had not yet returned from her meeting with the Bishop of Exeter, head of the council that governed Wales in the princess’s name. The other older ladies of the household were likewise absent, although I did not know where they had gone.
    Aside from the princess and her maids of honor and the ever-present gentlemen ushers, gentlemen waiters, yeoman ushers, and grooms, the only other person in the presence chamber was Princess Mary’s Welsh musician. Ushers, waiters, grooms, and musician allwore the princess’s green and blue livery. Only the highest-ranking gentlemen of the household were permitted black velvet doublets under black camlet gowns furred with black budge.
    We were in luck. All of the black-clad officers were also busy elsewhere.
    “May I borrow one of Your Grace’s goblets to hold the wagers?” I asked.
    She nodded, looking intrigued.
    “This game is called Maw, a simple trick-taking game my father taught me. Each player must put in a penny, or some marker good for an equal amount. A bit of ribbon or a pin will do.”
    There was momentary confusion while everyone found something to wager. None of us had a coin on her person, not even a ha’penny. Few of us had any anywhere.
    “Now we each receive five cards,” I said. “The goal is to win three or more tricks. Failing that, you try to prevent anyone else from winning that many.” I shuffled the cards and dealt.
    “What happens if no one wins?” Anne asked.
    “Then what is in the goblet carries over to the next game.”
    “But what is a trick?” Maria wanted to know.
    When I realized that I was the only one among us who had ever played a game of cards before, I grew quite puffed up with my own importance. I answered Maria’s question and went on to explain that the Ace was the card with the highest value and the Deuce the lowest and that a King outranked a Queen and a Queen was of greater value than a Jack.
    “There are four suits,” I continued, using the cards in my own hand to demonstrate. “Clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades. If the first card played, by the player to the dealer’s left, is a heart, everyone else must follow suit, unless you have no cards in that suit. Then you put down a card from any suit. The highest card in the suit thatstarted the hand wins the trick and the winning player takes all those cards and leads the first card of the next trick.”
    I started to add that there were many variations of the game. The player who won three tricks could choose to claim the pot or lead to the fourth hand and by winning five tricks require all the players to pay a second stake. There was also such a thing as a trump. But looking at the faces surrounding me, their expressions ranging from deep concentration to baffled puzzlement, I decided to keep this first game simple.
    We played for an hour, all of us sitting in a circle on the floor, even the princess, before we were caught. Fortune smiled on us that day. It was Lady Catherine who returned to the presence chamber first. Her eyes widened when she saw what we were doing, and she scolded us, but she did not confiscate my deck of cards and she did not tell Lady Salisbury.
    “Do you know other card games?” the princess whispered when I stepped close to her to adjust her gown, which had become wrinkled where she’d been sitting on it.
    “A great many of them,” I assured her, thinking of Primero and Pope July and One and Thirty.
    “Then you will teach them to me, too, when next we have opportunity for leisure.”
    As it happened, that was sooner than anyone anticipated. King Henry had not, after all, forgotten his daughter on the faraway Marches of Wales. He sent her a Lord of Misrule, with orders to provide all the delights of the Yuletide season. The fellow arrived late that afternoon and for the next twelve days, the usual regimen did not apply. We gave ourselves over to the enjoyment of the season.
    On the first of January, called New Year’s Day even though the