I creep to my lord duke’s rooms, walking in the shadows, and I open the door and slip in, in silence. My lord duke is standing by the window, the shutters open to the warm night air, the candles on his desk bobbing their flames in the draught. He looks up and smiles when I enter the room, I could almost think that he is fond of me.

‘Ah, Jane, my niece. The queen is to go to Richmond with a much-reduced court, I want you to go with her.’

‘Richmond?’ I hear the quaver of fear in my own voice and I take a breath. This means house arrest while they inquire into the allegations against her. But why are they sending me in with her? Am I to be charged too?

‘Yes. You will stay with her and keep a careful note of who comes and goes, and anything she says. In particular, you are to be alert for Ambassador Harst. We think he can do nothing, but you would oblige me by seeing that she has no plans to escape, sends no messages, that sort of thing.’

‘Please . . .’ I stop myself, my voice has come out weak. I know this is not the way to deal with him.

‘What?’ He is still smiling but his dark eyes are intent.

‘I cannot prevent her escaping. I am one woman, alone.’

He shakes his head. ‘The ports are closed from tonight. Her ambassador has discovered that there is not a horse to buy or hire in the whole of England. Her own stables are barred. Her rooms closed. She won’t be able to escape or send for help. Everyone in her service is her gaoler. You just have to watch her.’

‘Please let me go and serve Katherine,’ I take a breath to say. ‘She will need advice if she is to be a good queen.’

The duke pauses for thought. ‘She will,’ he says. ‘She is an idiot, that girl. But she can come to no harm with her grandmother.’

He taps his thumbnail against his tooth, considering.

‘She will need to learn to be a queen,’ I say.

He hesitates. We two have known Queens of England who were queens indeed. Little Katherine is not fit to touch their shoes, let alone walk in them, years of training would not make her regal. ‘No she won’t,’ he says. ‘The king doesn’t want a great queen beside him any more. He wants a girl to pet, a little filly, a young brood-mare for his seed. Katherine need be nothing more than obedient.’

‘Then let me say the truth: I don’t want to go to Richmond with Queen Anne. I don’t want to bear witness against this queen.’

His sharp, dark eyes look up quickly at me. ‘Witness of what?’ he demands.

I am too weary to fence. ‘Witness of whatever you want me to see,’ I say. ‘Whatever the king want me to say, I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to bear witness against her.’