It was a loaded question. ‘If I may, I’ll stay the night,’ John said. ‘William can take his saddle and bridle and turn him out to graze.’

She looked away to hide her pleasure. ‘I’ll tell William,’ she said simply. ‘Will you take a glass of ale? Were the roads bad?’

She led the way into the house. The wainscoted parlour was dark and cool after the bright sunshine. She left him for a moment while she fetched a tankard from the brew house. John looked out of the tiny thickly leaded window at the orchard.

The pink and white blossoms of the apple trees were bobbing above the white and pink daisies starring the cropped grass of the orchard. The family had neither the time nor the inclination to make a good garden before the house, though Elizabeth had the care of the kitchen and herb garden in the walled area outside the back door. Six years ago, when John had visited and confirmed his engagement, he had planted a little square of lavender with a bush of rue at each corner in the area before the window; but this was a working farm and no-one had the time to plan or weed an elaborate knot garden. He saw that the rue had gone straggly as if remembrance itself was wearing thin; but the lavender was looking well.

The door behind him opened and George Lance, her stepfather, came in.

‘Good to see you, Tradescant,’ he said.

Elizabeth brought them two mugs of ale and went quietly out of the room.

‘I’m come to ask for the marriage to take place,’ John announced abruptly. ‘I’ve delayed too long.’

‘You’ve not delayed too long for her,’ George said defensively. ‘She’s a virgin still.’

‘Too long for me,’ John said. ‘I’m impatient to start a family. I’ve waited long enough.’

‘Still working for Sir Robert?’

John nodded. ‘He’s an earl now.’

‘Still in favour?’

John nodded again. ‘Never better.’

‘Have you seen the new king?’ George demanded. ‘Is he a great man? I had heard that he is a fine man – a huntsman and a man of God, an educated man and a father of fine children. Just what the kingdom needs!’

John thought for a moment of the slack-mouthed lecher and the parade of pretty men who had come to Theobalds Palace a dozen times, the loud tempestuous Scots followers and the wanton drunken lechery of the new court.

‘He is all kingly virtues, thank God,’ he said carefully. ‘And now the earl is secure in his place, and I in mine. There’s a chance that the earl will have a new house, and I will have the ordering of the garden. I will be paid more, and I will be head gardener in a new garden to make all my own. At last I can offer Elizabeth a proper home.’

‘Your pay?’ George asked directly.