‘He was very tired last night,’ Elizabeth said with her usual mixture of discretion and honesty. ‘He said hardly a word that made sense. I left him to sleep this morning. I expect he will tell me all the news from London when he wakes, and it will be old news by then.’

‘It’s time for a change!’ her neighbour said decisively. ‘I’m all for a new king. God bless King Charles, I say, and keep us safe from those damned Spaniards! And God bless the duke too! He knows what should be done, you can count on it!’

‘God bless them both,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And guide them in better ways.’

‘And the king is to be married to a French bride!’ the neighbour went on. ‘Why can he not marry a good English girl, brought up in our religion? Why does it have to be one of these Papist princesses?’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The ways of the world are strange indeed. You would think that with the whole of the country at their feet they would be content …’ She paused for a moment and her neighbour waited, hoping against all likelihood for a juicy piece of gossip. ‘Vanity,’ Elizabeth concluded, unsatisfactorily. ‘It is all vanity.’

She looked around the quiet market. ‘I shall go home,’ she said. ‘Perhaps John is awake now.’

She packed her little pots of herbs into her basket, nodded to her neighbour and made her way through the muddy street to her own cottage.

John was seated at the table in the kitchen, a mug of small ale and a piece of bread untasted before him. When Elizabeth came in and hung her cape on the hook on the back of the door, he started up.

‘I am sorry, Elizabeth,’ he said quickly. ‘I was tired and angry yesterday.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘I was troubled by what I had seen and heard.’

She waited in case he would say more.

‘The court life is a tempting one,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You think you are at the very centre of the world, and it takes you further and further away from the things which really matter. What I love more than anything else is gardening, and you, and J – the last thing I should be doing is dawdling like a serving wench in the halls of great men.’

She nodded.

‘And then I think I am in the centre of great events, and an actor on a great stage,’ he went on. ‘I think it will all go wrong if I am not there. I think I am indispensable.’ He broke off with a little laugh. ‘I am a fool, I know it. For look! He has come to the highest point of his power yet, and his first act was to send me home.’

‘Shall you go to the house?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Will you go to work today?’