John shrugged. ‘I ask people if they smell good or better than other roses. But it is hard to judge. They always tell me the scent in terms of another scent. And since I have never had a nose which could smell then it’s no help to me. They say “lemony” as if I would know what a lemon smells like. They say “honey” and that is no help either, for I think of one as sour and one as sweet.’

Robert Cecil nodded. He was not the man to pity a disability. ‘Well, it smells good to me,’ he said. ‘Could I have great boughs of it by August?’

John Tradescant hesitated. A less faithful servant would have said ‘yes’ and then disappointed his master at the final moment. A better courtier would have guided him away to something else. John simply shook his head. ‘I thought you wanted it for today or tomorrow. I cannot give you roses in August, my lord. Nobody can.’

Cecil turned away and started to limp back to the house. ‘Come with me,’ he said shortly over his sloped shoulder. Tradescant fell in beside him and Cecil leaned on his arm. Tradescant took the burden of that light weight and felt himself soften with pity for the man who had all the responsibility for running three, no, four kingdoms with the new addition of Scotland, and yet none of the real power.

‘It’s for the Spanish,’ Cecil told him in an undertone. ‘This gift that I need. What do people in the country think of the peace with Spain?’

‘They mistrust it, I think,’ John said. ‘We have been at war with Spain for so long, and avoided defeat so narrowly. It’s impossible to think of them as friends the very next day.’

‘I cannot let us stay at war in Europe. We will be ruined if we go on pouring men and gold into the United Provinces, into France. And Spain is no threat any more. I must have a peace.’

‘As long as they don’t come here,’ John said hesitantly. ‘No-one cares what happens in Europe, my lord. Ordinary people care only for their own homes, for their own county. Half the people here at Cheshunt or Waltham Cross care only that there are no Spaniards in Surrey.’

‘No Jesuits,’ Cecil said, naming the greatest fear.

John nodded. ‘God preserve us. We none of us want to see burnings in the market place again.’

Cecil looked into the face of his gardener. ‘You’re a good man,’ he said shortly. ‘I learn more from you in a walk from my mount to my orangery than I do from a nation full of spies.’