“At any rate, you don’t think it is heresy?” She rises from the table and they hold the skirt of her gown to her feet so that she can step in, and they can draw it up and tie it at her waist.

“I could not give an opinion,” I say guardedly. “Your Majesty would be the best judge of that. But I have always heard you speak well of John Dee.”

“I have,” she confirms. “And I am glad he has come back to England with such learning! I shall start to read his book tomorrow. You may join us.”

I curtsey as if I am most grateful. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I shall look forward to learning from you both.”

* * *

John Dee, dark-eyed, dark-gowned like a scholar, is surrounded by papers. Each one scrawled with a symbol, one pointed to the other, each one annotated with a dozen little notes. I see that he draws little hands with an accusing finger towards a paragraph that he wants us to note well. Elizabeth, his book open on her lap, sits among this scholarly storm, her eyes bright with attention. Thomasina, like an exquisitely dressed lapdog, kneels at her feet. I sit on a stool to one side; I will never cringe on the floor while Elizabeth sits.

John Dee speaks of the symbols of the stars: whatever is shown in the heavens is matched by what happens on the earth. “As above, so below,” he says.

“So can you foretell the marriages of princes?” Elizabeth asks.

“With great accuracy, if I had their dates, time, and location of their birth, which would tell me their astral house,” Dee replies.

“Is that not astrology?” I ask him, warningly.

He nods at my caution. “No, for I am not looking to foretell harm,” he says. “It is illegal to foretell the death of a prince, but it is harmless to foresee their happiness.” He turns his bright look on Elizabeth. “May I choose the best day for your marriage, as I did for your coronation?”

Elizabeth laughs affectedly. “Not mine, good philosopher. You know that I am not that way inclined. I have just been forced to disappoint the archduke Ferdinand. I told him I would rather be a spinster milkmaid than a married queen!”

“Celibacy is a calling,” John Dee replies, and I fight to keep my face grave at the thought of Elizabeth as a nun. I don’t dare to look at Thomasina, who keeps her head down.

At a little distance from our charmed circle the ladies sigh with boredom and shift position. The courtiers stand against the walls, talking among themselves, and one or two lean back against the paneling for weariness. Nobody is allowed to sit, though John Dee has been reading from his book for two hours.

Dee takes up another page and shows it to the queen as William Cecil enters the room quietly and bows.