‘You grudge me the opportunity,’ Anthony says. ‘A man could wish for a master who rolls his words around his mouth, or is always crossing himself and crying Jesu-Maria, or grinning, or frowning, or a man with a twitch. But you don’t hum, or shuffle your feet or twirl your thumbs.’

‘My father had a savage temper. I learned as a child to be still. If he noticed me, he hit me.’

‘As for what is in there,’ Anthony looks him in the eye, taps his forehead, ‘as for what’s in there, who knows? I may as well impersonate a shutter. A plank has more expression. A water butt.’

‘I’ll give you a good character, if you want a new master.’

‘I’ll get you in the end. When I learn to imitate a gatepost. A standing stone. A statue. There are statues who move their eyes. In the north country.’

‘I have some of them in custody. In the strong rooms.’

‘Can I have the key? I want to see if they are still moving their eyes, in the dark without their keepers.’

‘Are you a papist, Anthony?’

‘I may be. I like miracles. I have been a pilgrim in my time. But the fist of Cromwell is more proximate than the hand of God.’

On Christmas Eve Anthony sings ‘Pastime With Good Company’, in the person of the king and wearing a dish for a crown. He expands before your eyes, his meagre limbs fleshing out. The king has a silly voice, too high for a big man. It’s something we pretend not to notice. But now he laughs at Anthony, his hand covering his mouth. When has Anthony seen the king? He seems to know his every gesture. I wouldn’t be surprised, he thinks, if Anthony has been bustling about the court these many years, drawing a per diem and nobody asking what he’s for or how he got on to the payroll. If he can imitate a king, he can easily imitate a busy useful fellow with places to be and business to see to.

Christmas Day comes. The bells peal at Dunstan’s church. Snowflakes drift on the wind. Spaniels wear ribbons. It is Master Wriothesley who is first to arrive; he was a great actor when he was at Cambridge, and these last years he has been in charge of the plays in their household. ‘Give me just a small role,’ he had begged him. ‘I could be a tree? Then I need not learn anything. Trees have an impromptu wit.’

‘In the Indies,’ Gregory says, ‘trees can ambulate. They lift themselves up by their roots and if the wind blows they can move to a more sheltered spot.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I’m afraid it was me,’ says Call-Me-Risley. ‘But he was so pleased to hear of it, I’m sure it was none harm.’

Wriothesley’s pretty wife is dressed as Maid Marion, her hair loose and falling to her waist. Wriothesley is simpering in skirts, to which his toddling daughter clings. ‘I’ve come as a virgin,’ he says. ‘They’re so rare these days that they send unicorns out looking for them.’