‘Get it to him tonight,’ Robert Cecil said. ‘Without fail. There’s a boat waiting for you at the jetty. Make sure you are not seen. Not in the streets, not at his house, and not, not, with the letter. If you are captured, destroy it. If you are questioned, deny it.’

John nodded and rose to his feet.

‘John –’ his master called as he reached the door. John stopped and turned around. His lord sat behind his desk, his face, his whole stance alive with joy at plotting and trickery and the game of politics which he played so consummately well. ‘I would trust no other man to do this for me,’ Cecil said.

John met his master’s bright gaze and knew the pleasure of being the favourite. He bowed and went out.

He went first to the knot garden and gathered up his tools. The plants which were not yet bedded in he took back to his nursery plots and heeled them into the earth. Not even an act of high treason could make John Tradescant forget his plants. He glanced around the walled nursery garden. There was no-one there. He rose to his feet and brushed the earth from his hands and then he went to the potting shed where he had left his winter cloak. He carried it over his arm, as if he were headed for the hall for a bite to eat, but turned instead towards the river.

There was a wherry boat waiting at the lord’s private jetty but it was otherwise deserted.

‘For London?’ the man asked without much interest. ‘In a hurry?’

‘Yes,’ John said shortly.

He stepped into the little boat and he thought the lurch it made at his weight was what caused the sudden pounding of his heart. He sat in the prow of the boat so the man might not have the chance to look in his face, and he wrapped himself warm in his cape and pulled down his hat over his face. He was sure that the sunlight along the river was pointing a rippling finger towards him so that every fisherman and riverside walker, pedlar and beggar took particular note of him as the boat went swiftly downstream.

The river flowed fast down to London, and the tide was on the ebb. They did the journey quicker than John had hoped and when the boat nudged against the Whitehall steps and John leaped ashore it was only dusk. He blamed his sense of sickness on the movement of the boat. He did not want to recognise his fear.