‘I prefer it open these summer days,’ he said ruefully. ‘But in this place one never knows who may be listening from the next window.’ Lord Parr sighed. ‘As you have probably realized, the court is a place full of fear and hate; there is no real amity anywhere. Even among families; the Seymours quarrel and scratch like cats. Only the Parr family is united; we are loyal to each other.’ He spoke with pride. ‘It is our strength.’

‘You have been here only since the spring, my Lord?’ I ventured.

‘Yes. For much of the last few years I have delegated my duties and stayed on my estates. I am old now, not always well. No longer the man I was, when I served the King.’ He smiled in reminiscence. ‘As did my brother, the Queen’s father; and the Queen’s mother was lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. The Parrs have been a part of the court for a long time. The Queen’s mother died just before the full storm of the King’s Great Divorce broke. Well, she was spared that.’ He looked up, eyes sharp again under the white brows. ‘I have stood in loco parentis for my niece since then. I will do anything to protect her. When she asked me to come back to court, I did so at once.’

‘I understand.’

‘I should swear you in.’ He took a Testament from a drawer, and I solemnly swore to serve the Queen loyally and honestly. Lord Parr nodded brusquely, returned the Testament to the drawer, and said, ‘Well, what news?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Not good, my Lord.’ I told him that the first of the attacks on Greening had taken place before the Lamentation was stolen, that the authorities had given up on the case, that Greening’s friends seemed to have gone to ground and might even be Anabaptists. Finally I explained how Elias had fled. I had promised to tell only the Queen of anything that might endanger the boy, but Lord Parr had to know of his plight. None of it made good hearing, and I had to mention Nicholas’s careless use of the name Bertano, which had caused such distress to Elias, though I praised his discovery of the scrap of silk. I had brought it with me, and now laid it on the table. Lord Parr examined it.

‘A fine piece of work, expensive,’ he said. ‘The blackwork decoration is distinctive.’ He turned it over. ‘The Queen’s embroiderer, Hal Gullym, has worked all his life at the Queen’s Wardrobe in Baynard’s Castle; he knows all the fine shirt-makers in London. He might be able to find out who made this.’

‘From a mere piece of sleeve?’

‘Of this quality, possibly.’ He frowned. ‘The apprentice was certain that the first attack on Greening happened before the Lamentation vanished?’