“Your mother works hard to plead your cause with the Queen, as does your brother-in-law Sidney,” I repeated, as though our conversation had not been interrupted. “He speaks of travelling to Spain to seek King Philip’s support since it seems he will soon be our King too.”

Robert threw himself back on the bed. He made no response and there was blankness in his eyes. Something had happened to Robert since his brother’s execution, something dark and painful. The young man I had known, with his unshakeable confidence and over-vaulting ambition, had turned inward and become haggard and dead inside. Perhaps it was because Guildford had been the baby of the family and so his sacrifice seemed all the more heinous when the older brothers lived. Perhaps it was the shadow of the raised axe on the wall. None of us knew when it might fall and we lived under its threat each and every day. I told myself this, and tried to forgive him his callousness.

“Robert?” I tried a third time. “Her grace has petitioned the Queen that you and your brothers be permitted to take Mass.”

Robert threw back his head and laughed then. There was a wild quality to it that chilled me.

“My mother seeks to oblige us to take that papist abomination?” He wiped the tears from his eyes.

“She does it to secure your release,” I said and he cast me a look of such contempt I felt whatever love and loyalty I still had towards him wither within me.

“I know that, Amy,” he said, as though explaining to an idiot, “and in truth I would sup with the devil himself if it bought us all our freedom.” He sighed; stretched. “If only I might do the special pleading myself,” he said. “I would win over that dried-up old spinster in a moment.”

I felt a rush of hatred for him then, for his patronising dismissal of me, his contempt for Queen Mary and his arrogant belief in his own attractions. When Robert had been captured and taken to Framlingham Castle, he had thrown himself at Mary’s feet and begged for forgiveness. The fact that he was still alive now, he had attributed to his powers of persuasion. It had not occurred to him that Mary might have made a decision to spare him based upon statecraft.

A silence fell between us. I felt a sense of hopelessness fill me that we had so little to say to one another. The links that bound us were proving too flimsy to survive this pressure.

“Well,” I said tartly, after a moment, “if you have no further use for me, I will leave you to your prayers. Be sure to pay your gaoler to tell the Queen how many hours you spend at your devotions. I am sure that that will impress her.”

Robert stood up with all his former, lithe grace, stretching again. “I shall take your advice, wife,” he said. “But before you leave, I do have one more use for you.”