‘A witch. And others say that she is a Papist, a heretic, who would have been burned at the stake only a few years ago. I say to you that he is a man who has earned his place by sodomy under the king, and by pandering for the king, who won his wife by kidnap and by rape, who has seduced the king and seduced the prince. Who has been a sodomite with a man and with his son. For all I know he is leagued with the Devil himself. Certain, he is deep, deep in sin. And I ask you, John, I beg you, John, to let us go now. To let us leave him now. He has gone to Spain, to the enemy of our country, so he is a traitor even to the king who sins with him. So let us go, John. Let you and me and J get away from here to somewhere where the air is not rank as sulphur with sin and debauchery.’

There was a long silence.

‘You are intemperate,’ John said weakly.

She shook her head. ‘Never mind about that. What’s your answer?’

‘I have been paid for the full quarter –’

‘We can find a way to repay your wages if we leave now.’

He paused for a moment, thinking of what she had said. Then slowly he rose and shook his head. He put his hand on the chimney breast, almost as if he needed to steady himself as he went against his wife’s declared wish, and his own sense, his own deep and hidden sense, that she was right.

‘We stay,’ he said. ‘I have given him my promise that I will make him a fine garden. I will not go back on my word. Even if all that you say were true, I would not go back on my word. All I will do for him is garden, there can be no sin in that for us. We stay, Elizabeth, until the garden is finished and then we will leave.’

She stood beside him, looking up into his face, and John saw her face alter, as if he had failed some great test and she would never fully trust him again.

‘I beg you,’ she said and her voice shook a little, ‘by everything that I hold sacred, which is everything that this new lord of yours denies, to turn aside from him and walk in the paths of righteousness.’

John shrugged irritably at her scriptural tone. ‘It’s not like that. I have agreed to make a garden for my lord and we will stay until I have completed it. When it is done we can leave, as I have said.’

He went from the room and she heard him close their bedroom door and the floorboards creak as he undressed to get into their bed.