John stayed late in the hall, drinking with the men at his table. At midnight he headed unsteadily to the duke’s chamber.

‘Where d’you sleep?’ one of his drinking companions asked him.

‘With my lord.’

‘Oh, yes,’ the man said pointedly. ‘I heard you were a favourite.’

John wheeled around and stared at him, and the man held his gaze, half a question on his face which was an insult. John spoke a hasty word and was about to strike the man when a serving maid ran between the two of them, a basin in her hand, blinded with hurry.

‘What’s the matter?’ John asked.

‘It’s the king!’ she exclaimed. ‘His fever has risen, and his piss is blue as ink. He is as sick as a dog. He is asking for his physician but he has only Lady Villiers to attend him.’

‘Asking for his physicians?’ the man demanded. ‘Then the duke must send for them, to bring them back.’

‘He will do,’ John said uncertainly. ‘He is bound to do so.’

He went to Buckingham’s chamber, and found the duke seated by the window gazing at his own reflection in the darkened glass, as if it would answer a question.

‘Shall I ride out and fetch the physicians?’ John asked him quietly.

The duke shook his head.

‘I heard the king was asking for them.’

‘He is well nursed,’ Buckingham said. ‘If anyone should ask you, John, you may tell them that he is well cared for. He needs rest; not a dozen men harrying him to death.’

‘I’ll tell them,’ John said. ‘But they tell me that he is asking for his physicians and your mother is not a favourite.’

The duke hesitated. ‘Anything else?’

‘That’s enough,’ John warned him. ‘More than enough.’

‘Go to sleep,’ the duke said gently. ‘I am going to bed myself in a minute.’

John shucked off his breeches and shoes, lay down in his shirt and was asleep in moments.

There was a hammering on the bedroom door in the early hours of the morning. John started out of sleep, leaped from his bed and ran, not to the door, but to the duke’s bed, to stand between him and whoever might be outside battering the door down. In that first moment, as he pulled back the bed curtains, he saw that the younger man was not asleep but was lying open-eyed, as if he were silently waiting, as if he had been wide awake and waiting all night.

‘All’s safe, Tradescant,’ he said. ‘You can open the door.’

‘My lord duke!’ the shout came. ‘You must come at once!’

Buckingham rose from his bed and threw a cape around him. ‘What’s to do?’ he called.

‘It’s the king! It’s the king!’

He nodded and swiftly went from the room. John, pulling on breeches and his waistcoat, ran behind him.