Then he thought of his master, another man half-touched with divinity, a step lower than the king but so high in power that he must be, surely, especially favoured by God, and was in any case John’s lord, a role of unique potency. John thought of the word ‘lord’ and had a sense of the holiness of it – Lord Jesus, Lord Cecil, both lords. But Cecil with his special trust in John, Cecil with his engaging child-size body and his cunning wise mind, was easy for John to bless in his prayers. John’s lord, John’s great love. Then his mind slipped at once to the old royal palace of Hatfield. Cecil would build a new house there, undoubtedly it would be a great house, and he would want a beautiful garden set around it. Perhaps an avenue … John had never planted an avenue. He lost the thread of his prayers altogether at the thought of the work of planting an avenue, and his great desire to see a double row of fine trees, limes, he thought longingly. They must be limes, there was nothing like lime for an avenue. ‘God give me the skill to do it,’ John whispered. ‘And grant me, in Your mercy, enough saplings.’

Elizabeth was very close, kneeling beside him, he could feel the warmth of her body, he could hear the soft rhythm of her indrawn and exhaled breath. ‘God bless us both,’ John thought. ‘And let us live in friendship and kindliness together.’

He did not expect more than friendship from Elizabeth, friendship and a lifelong partnership of indissoluble shared interest. Unbidden, the picture of Catherine with her dark eyes and low-cut bodice rose behind his eyelids. A man newly wedded to a girl like Catherine would not spend his bridal night on his knees praying.

John opened his eyes and got into bed. Still Elizabeth kneeled at the bedside, her head bowed, her lips moving. In sudden irritation, John leaned over and blew out his bedside candle. Darkness invaded the room. In the darkness and the quietness he felt, rather than saw, Elizabeth rise from her knees, pull her nightdress over her head, lift the sheets and slip in beside him, naked.

For a moment he was stunned at the frank sensuality of the gesture. That a woman could arise from prayer and strip herself naked confounded his simple division of women into good or bad, saintly or sexual. But she was his newly married wife and she had a right to lie beside him. John’s desire rose at the glimpse of the moonlit body and he was sorry he had no light for the candle that he had blown out in a moment of temper and left himself in the dark.

They lay side by side on their backs.

‘Like effigies on a tomb,’ John thought, awkwardly.