I did not answer. She said, ‘I wish you would seek salvation, Matthew. I feel sure God must call to you.’

‘I do not hear Him, your majesty.’ I hesitated. ‘I have recently become acquainted with another lawyer, a man called Philip. He is what would be called a radical. A good man. Yet in some ways – blinkered.’

‘Is it blinkered to seek faith, to have faith?’

‘Perhaps I am too cross-grained, too contrary, to know faith as you and he would understand it.’ I asked quietly, ‘Does that mean, do you think, that I am damned?’

Taken by surprise, she stood still, her face pale in the candlelight. Then she answered me softly. ‘Only God can answer such questions in the end. But He holds out the joys of true faith, for those who would take them.’

‘Does He?’ I asked. ‘I cannot help but wonder.’

‘Then why are you doing this for me? I ask more and more of you. It puts you and those you care for in great danger. I saw just now how concerned you are for those men who work for you.’

‘I am. But Nicholas is young and adventurous, and Barak – ’ I sighed. ‘Well, he is no longer young, but he is still adventurous, despite himself.’

She looked at me closely. ‘Are you doing all this because it is I who ask?’

‘For you, and the loyalty I owe you,’ I answered quietly. ‘And because I hope that if your side wins people may be allowed some liberty of conscience and belief; that apprentices and young gentlewomen and aged clerics will not be burned alive at the stake for their private beliefs, while men like Rich and Gardiner look on.’

She lowered her gaze. After a moment she whispered, ‘You mean when my husband is dead?’

I answered, the words suddenly rushing from me, ‘The people are sore afraid, your majesty. Afraid that any belief they hold may be approved one month, but the next may send them to the stake. It drives them to a careful, fearful orthodoxy which, whatever it is, is not faith. All fear the prison and the fire,’ I added quietly.

‘I fear it, too,’ she replied. ‘Sometimes these last months I have been so convulsed with terror I have scarce been able to rise from my bed, let alone converse and behave as the Queen must.’ She shuddered.

I would have dearly liked to touch her then, to comfort her, but that I dared not do. We stood in silence for a moment, opposite a great ornate fireplace where carved heraldic beasts sported above the empty grate. A few yards off Mary Odell waited, hands held before her demurely.