John was standing on the mount he had created in the duke’s new lake, checking the line of the winding path to the top. Below him, the men hired to plant the trees were digging and setting in apple, cherry, pear and plum alternately up the circling slope. Small stakes supported each tree against the constant easterly winds which were John’s bugbear in this Essex garden. Bigger posts were set in the ground, tied tautly with twine, one to another, to guide the espaliered branches to reach out, one tree to another, so they would make unbroken lines of blossom in spring, and unbroken lines of fruit in autumn. J’s task was to check that each tree was placed to its best advantage with the outstretched branches lying conveniently along the twine, and tied in so they could not stray and be wayward. John was following with a sharp knife to cut off any twigs which were growing out of the smooth line of the interlaced trees. It was one of John’s most favourite tasks: a delicate marriage of wildness and artifice, an imposition of order upon unruliness which in the end looked as if it had grown ordered and well-ruled out of simple good nature. A garden as God might have left it, an Eden without disorder or weeds.

‘God be praised!’ John said, straightening up from his pruning. ‘Did he ask for me? Is he coming out into the garden?’

J shook his head. ‘He’s sick,’ he said. ‘Very sick.’

John felt his breath suddenly stop as if he too were ill. A sudden pulse of dread went through his body at the thought of his master’s frailty. He suddenly remembered Cecil, dying in bluebell time. ‘Sick?’ he asked. ‘Not the plague?’

J shrugged. ‘A great quarrel with the king, and he took to his bed.’

‘He is pretending to be ill?’ John asked.

‘I think not. The duchess is running all around their apartments and the kitchen is making possets. They want some herbs for medicine.’

‘Good God, why did you not tell me at once?’ John ran down the path, slithering on the muddy track, and flung himself into the rowing boat moored at the delicate ornamental jetty. He grabbed at the oars and laboured clumsily across the lake, splashing himself with water and cursing his own slowness. He got to the shore, beached the boat, and ran through the shallows and up towards the house.

He went straight away towards the great hall, his boots making wet prints on the floor. ‘Where is the apothecary? What does he need?’