The man grins. “Says that they won’t argue with a dying woman but that your wife should be ready.” He turns to me and makes the deep bow for a royal. “Says it can’t be long. Nobody would support a Dudley, and nobody will have another Protector. The queen is out of her mind with fever. By naming Robert Dudley, she has given the Privy Council the right to crown who they please. She is beyond reason; they cannot reason with her. Nobody will ever give the crown to him. The queen has denied her own line, she is a traitor to her own throne. Everyone knows it has to be Lady Hertford.” He bows to me again.

Ned nods, thinking fast. “Nothing to be done until the queen has gone, God bless her,” he says. “Any move we make can only be then. We are her loyal subjects as long as she draws breath. We will pray for her recovery.”

“Yes,” the man says. “I’ll get back to Hampton Court and tell my lord that you understand. You’ll hear as soon as there is any more news.”

“We live in extraordinary times,” Ned says, almost to himself. “Times of wonders.”

* * *

Of course we cannot sleep. We don’t even lie on the bed together and kiss. We can’t eat. We are both of us incapable of doing anything but walking fretfully around the two rooms and looking out of the window into the dark garden in case there is a torch bobbing towards us. I change my gown so that I look my best when the lords come with the crown. I put a cloth over the linnets so that they go to sleep and don’t sing. The dogs are quiet in their box and I put Mr. Nozzle into his cage. Without a presence chamber, without a court, we are as dignified as we can be. I sit in the one good chair and Ned stands behind me. We cannot stop ourselves posing, like actors in a masque, playing the part of majesty even while the messenger may be riding towards us to tell us that the script is ready, the playacting has become real.

“I will reward the lieutenant of the Tower,” I remark.

“Not a word,” Ned cautions me. “We are praying for the recovery of the queen, God bless her.”

“Yes,” I agree. I wonder if it is wrong to outwardly pray for someone and secretly hope that she dies. I wish I could ask Jane: it is just the sort of thing she would know. But really, how can I want Elizabeth to live, when she has been such an enemy to me, and to my innocent son?

“I am praying for her,” I tell Ned. I think I will pray that she goes directly to heaven, and that there is no purgatory; for if there were, she would never escape.