‘You’ll know – I’ve heard nothing but wild rumours – is he dead?’

‘Yes.’

The man beamed as if he had been given a priceless gift. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Now the king will see reason.’

John felt his way to his room. ‘I am sick,’ he said. ‘I shall rest.’

‘You’ll not get much rest, I’m afraid!’ his landlord said cheerfully. From the town they could hear the crackle of fireworks and a roar of cheering which was growing louder. ‘The whole town is going mad to celebrate. I’m off!’

He let himself out of his front door and ran down the street to where people were embracing, and dancing on street corners. Soldiers at the quayside were blasting their muskets into the skies and women who had come to kiss their husbands goodbye, expecting never to see them again, were weeping with relief. In a dozen churches the bells tolled as if for a mighty victory.

In all the world it seemed that only Tradescant grieved, only Tradescant and his lord lay still and silent all the long sunny joyous day.

It was not until midnight, lying in his bed, still gripping his hat in his hand, that John realised that he was free from his promise. He had been the duke’s man till death, and now death had come, and he was free.

Free and short of money, with no promise of wages and no job. Buckingham’s widow was sick with grief and the king himself ordered her into hiding in case an assassin struck against her as well.

It was as if the world had gone suddenly mad and no-one knew what might happen next. There was no Lord High Admiral to command the expedition, there was no Lord Treasurer to keep the treasures of the kingdom, there was no chief adviser to make policy, there was no Favourite to rule everything. There was no king either, for when they gave Charles the news that Buckingham was dead he finished his prayers and went in silence to his room and locked himself away for two days and nights in silence, in darkness, and fasting.

Tradescant sometimes thought of that long royal vigil and wondered that he and the king had been together in a long night of mourning, both of them driven down into silence and grief at the loss of the most beautiful man that either of them had known; the most beautiful and the most daring and the most reckless, and the most dangerous. Tradescant knew that Buckingham would have led him to his death, and that he had only escaped through his lord’s assassination. He sometimes wondered if the king felt the same, and if, during the two long days and nights of royal mourning, Charles too knew the same secret, shameful relief.