She nodded gravely, she did not rush to reassure him. ‘Are you feeling worse?’

‘I am feeling old,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t imagine that I will live forever, and I want to make sure that it is all settled here. Will you write it for me?’

She hesitated. ‘If you wish. Or I could send for a clerk to write it. It might be better if it were not written by me.’

He nodded. ‘You are a sensible woman, Hester. That’s sound advice. Get a clerk for me from Lambeth and I will dictate my letter to J and finish my will.’

‘Of course,’ she said and went quietly from the room. At the doorway she paused. ‘I hope you will make it clear to your son that he is not bound to have me. Your son will have to make his own decision when he comes home. I am not part of his inheritance.’

There was a small gleam of mischief in John’s pale face. ‘It never occurred to me,’ he said unconvincingly. He took a difficult breath. ‘But it shall be as you wish. Send for a clerk from Lambeth, and also send for the executors of my will. I want to leave everything straight.’

The clerk came and the executors with him – Elizabeth’s brother, Alexander Norman, and William Ward, Buckingham’s steward, who had served with John all those years ago.

‘I shall be your executor with the greatest of pleasure,’ Alexander assured him, taking a seat at the bedside. ‘But I expect that you shall be mine. This is just a winter rheum. We’ll see you in the garden again this spring.’

John managed a weary smile, leaning back against his pillows. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But I’m a good age now.’

Alexander Norman glanced over the will and set his name to it. He reached towards John and shook his hand. ‘God keep you, John Tradescant,’ he said quietly.

The Duke of Buckingham’s old steward, William Ward, stepped forward, and signed the will which the clerk showed him. He took John’s hand. ‘I shall pray for you,’ he said quietly. ‘You shall be in my prayers every day, along with our lord.’

John turned his head at that. ‘D’you pray for him still?’

The steward nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said gently. ‘They can say what they like about him but we who were in his service remember a master to worship, don’t we, John? He wasn’t a tyrant to us. He paid us freely, he gave us gifts, he laughed at mistakes and he would flare into a rage and then it was all forgotten. They spoke ill of him then and they speak worse of him now; but those of us who knew him have never served a better master.’

John nodded. ‘I loved him,’ he whispered.