The Visit.

"Mary- raise up girl and let me kiss you."

As she embraces me I think, 'Ah - to have a loving friendship with this Queen.'

But it comes also in my mind that, verily, I paid a high price to possess it, nursing her through smallpox as if fighting alongside my Queen as she fought a hard battle against death. And when her battle was won I found my own war just begun.

"Your majesty, I'm delighted-"

"Shh, Mary Sidney- it's our great delight to have you returned to Court. I have missed my dear friend. Let us go and eat- we have much to talk about."

My muse often takes me on journeys I never expect. Bucky from Alternative History asked for pieces for the 'Guess who is coming to Dinner' section in the Suite101 History newsletter.' I started to write one- then found myself thinking about Mary Sidney- and this fiction piece resulted. Mary Sidney was a brave, loyal woman (just as her son Phillip Sydney would also one day prove to be a brave, loyal man) who became a virtual recluse after being badly scarred by smallpox- caught from her Queen in 1562.

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