‘He has enjoyed the favour of the king,’ John insisted. ‘He was a cup-bearer and then a groom of the bedchamber and the favourite of many great men. They helped him to the post of Master of the Horse and he has brought the king such horses as no prince ever had before. Of course he enjoys great favour, he has earned it. He brought the king an Arab horse, the only one in England. The finest horse that ever was seen in England.’

She shook her head. ‘So they make him Lord High Admiral – for trading in a horse?’

‘Elizabeth –’ John said warningly.

‘Bear with me,’ she said swiftly. ‘Hear me out, this once.’

He nodded. ‘But I will not hear treason.’

‘I will speak nothing but the truth.’

They looked at each other for a moment and she saw in the sliding away of his glance that he knew that the truth was treasonous. That you could speak the truth about Buckingham and the truth was that the king was mad for the man and unfit to rule through his madness. That Buckingham was higher than his ability, higher than any single man’s ability could ever take him, because the king was mad to please him.

‘What hold is it that he has over the king?’ she asked, her voice very low.

‘The king loves him,’ Tradescant said firmly. ‘And he is his faithful servant.’

‘He calls himself the king’s dog,’ she said, naming the unthinkable.

‘In play. The king calls him Steenie after St Stephen – he admires his beauty, Elizabeth. Nothing wrong with that.’

‘He calls himself his dog and there are those who say that the king mounts him like a dog mounts a bitch.’

‘Silence!’ Tradescant leaped to his feet and away from his wife. ‘That you should speak such words, Elizabeth! At your own hearthside! That you should listen to such things! Bawdy talk! Dirty tavern talk! And repeat them to me! What would your father say if he heard his daughter speaking of such things like a whore!’

She did not even flinch from her father’s name. ‘I say what must be said, what must be clear between the two of us. And God knows that my heart is pure though my mouth is filled with filth.’

‘A pure heart and a dirty mouth?’ Tradescant exclaimed.

‘Better than a sweet mouth and dirty heart,’ she retorted. He checked, they were both thinking of Buckingham and the sweetness of his singing voice.

‘Finish what you have to say,’ John said sullenly. ‘Finish this, Elizabeth.’

‘I say to you that his mother who was born a serving maid is now a countess, and is said by many to be a witch –’

John gasped, but she went on.