‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘The prince was like the duke in many ways. But the duke had …’ He broke off.

‘What?’

‘The duke had that shining beauty,’ John said. ‘The prince was a handsome boy, as handsome as any. But the duke was as beautiful as an angel.’

Charles suddenly smiled, his grave face warming. ‘He was, wasn’t he?’ he said. ‘It’s so easy to f … forget. All the portraits I have of him show his beauty, but all p … portraits are beautiful even when the sitters are plain. It’s good to know that you keep a picture of him in your heart, Tradescant.’

‘I do,’ John said simply. ‘I see him night and day. And sometimes I dream of him.’

‘As if he w … w … were alive?’

John nodded. ‘I can never remember in my dreams that he is dead,’ he confessed. ‘And sometimes I wake and think he is calling for me, and I jump from my bed as if I were a young man and in a hurry to go to him.’

‘The queen didn’t l … like him,’ the king said thoughtfully.

Tradescant tactfully said nothing.

‘She was jealous.’

Tradescant gave a little nod. The king glanced at him. ‘Was your wife jealous of your love for your lord?’

Tradescant thought of Elizabeth and her long enmity for the duke and all he stood for: luxury, Popery, waste, and carnal sin.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘But women were always besotted with him or his worst enemy, or both.’

The king laughed shortly. ‘It’s true. He was a l … lamentable man with women.’

The gardener and the king smiled at one another, the king looking into Tradescant’s face for the first time.

‘D’you have any of his things at your Ark?’ the king asked.

‘Some plants from the garden at New Hall, and a couple of rarities from the Ile de Rhé,’ Tradescant replied carefully, conscious of the danger of this conversation. ‘He gave me some things from his own collection of rarities. Anything he did not need, anything he already had. I was collecting for him for many years.’

‘I’ll come and see it,’ the king said. ‘I’ll bring the queen. I have some things you might l … like, some gloves and things.’

Tradescant bowed low. ‘I should be honoured.’

When he rose up the king was looking at him as if they shared a secret. ‘He was a very very great man, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Tradescant agreed, looking at the king’s melancholy face and sparing him the truth, as everyone always did. ‘He was the greatest lord in England and the most fit for his high office.’

The king nodded and turned away without another word. Tradescant, unseen, knelt again as the king strolled off. When the king had gone he got awkwardly to his feet; his bad knee was painful in the cold weather.