The figure at the desk was still.

There was a silence.

‘For God’s sake, my lord, tell me you are well and that all is well with you!’ John finally burst out.

At last Cecil looked up and his face, normally scored with pain, was alive with mischief. His eyes were sparkling, his mouth, under his neat moustache, was smiling.

‘I have a game to play, John. If you will take a hand for me.’

The relief to see his lord happy was so great that John assented at once, without thinking. ‘Of course.’

‘Sit down.’

John pulled a little stool up to the dark wood desk and the two men went head to head, Robert Cecil speaking so softly that a man in the same room could not have heard them, let alone any of them waiting outside the door.

‘I have a letter that I want delivered to Lord Monteagle,’ he whispered. ‘Delivered to him and none other.’

John nodded and leaned back. ‘I can do that.’

Cecil reached across and pulled him closer again. ‘It’s more than a messenger boy I want,’ he whispered. ‘The contents of the letter are enough to hang Monteagle, and to hang the messenger. You must not be seen delivering it, you must not be seen with it. Your own life depends on you getting it to him with no man seeing you.’

John’s eyes widened.

‘Will you do it for me?’

There was a brief silence.

‘Of course, my lord. I am your man.’

‘Don’t you want to know what’s in the letter?’

Superstitiously, John shook his head.

Cecil, mightily amused at the sight of his gardener stunned into silence, broke down and laughed aloud. ‘John, my John, what a poor conspirator you will make.’

John nodded. ‘It is not my trade, my lord,’ he said with simple dignity. ‘You have others in your service better skilled. But if you want me to take a letter and deliver it unseen, then I will do that.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It will not undo Lord Monteagle? I would not be a Judas.’

Cecil shrugged his shoulders. ‘The letter itself is nothing more than words on a page. It’s not poison, it won’t kill him. What he does with the letter is his own choice. His end will be determined by that choice.’

John felt himself to be swimming in deep and dark waters. ‘I’ll do what you wish,’ he muttered, clinging only to his faith in his lord and his own vow of loyalty.

Cecil leaned back and tossed a small note across the table. It was addressed to Lord Monteagle, but the hand was not Robert Cecil’s nor that of any of his secretaries.