John smiled at her. ‘When you have power over people, it is very easy to forget that they are doing as you order because you order it,’ he said. ‘You can mistake obedience for consent. I say that my household shall be obedient to you. I don’t think that they prefer it that way. But they will be obedient to you because I order it. However, I shall come to prayers only now and then – when I really want to.’

‘I am sure you would find it a comfort …’ Jane began.

John patted her cheek. ‘I think you are wrestling with my soul,’ he said. ‘I want my soul left in peace.’

Jane smiled at him. ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘D’you want to see Baby John?’

‘Yes,’ John said.

Frances brought the baby and placed him carefully in his grandfather’s lap. Baby John put his fists against his grandfather’s chest, reared back and inspected his face.

‘He still doesn’t eat properly,’ Frances said disapprovingly.

‘Why not?’ John asked.

‘He still sucks,’ Frances said. ‘He’s like a little goat.’

John smiled. ‘Don’t you love your little brother?’ he asked.

Frances drew closer to him. ‘He’s all right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t like how everyone makes such a fuss of him. I’m still your favourite, aren’t I, Granddad?’

John kept one hand firmly on Baby John, and with the other drew his granddaughter to him and kissed her smooth warm head, just before the plain white cap which Jane insisted that she wore.

‘It’s not always the best thing to be, the Favourite,’ he said, thinking of his lord and the parliament that impeached him, and the king who mourned for him.

‘Yes it is,’ she said instantly. ‘I was always your favourite and I still am.’

He settled her into the crook of his arm. ‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘You are my precious girl.’

‘And when I am grown I shall be gardener to the king,’ she said firmly. ‘And run the Ark.’

‘Girls cannot be gardeners,’ John said gently.

‘Cook says that girls can be gardeners because women are equal to men at the Day of Judgement,’ Frances volunteered. ‘And that prophesying and preaching comes natural to women who es … es … eschew carnival knowledge.’

‘I think you mean carnal knowledge,’ John said unsteadily.

‘Carnival,’ Frances corrected him. ‘It means you can’t go maypole dancing or buy fairings, or play in the churchyard on feast days.’

‘I suppose it does,’ John said. He was very near to laughter but he managed to turn it into a gruff cough.

‘And I am going to eschew carnival knowledge and be free of sin,’ Frances went on. ‘And then I can be the king’s gardener.’

‘We’ll see,’ John said pacifically.

‘Is Baby John going to be the king’s gardener?’ she demanded.