‘Amen.’ It was easily said. I was a Christian Jew, a girl dressed as a boy, a young woman in love with one man and betrothed to another. A girl grieving for her mother and never mentioning her name. I spent all my life in feigned agreement. ‘Amen,’ I said.

The door opened and Jane Dormer beckoned two porters into the room, carrying a frame between them, swathed in linen cloth. ‘Something for you, Your Grace!’ she said with a roguish smile. ‘Something you will like to see.’

The queen was slow to throw off her thoughtful mood. ‘What is it, Jane? I am weary now.’

In answer, Mistress Dormer waited till the men had leaned their burden against the wall, and then took the hem of the cloth and turned to her royal mistress. ‘Are you ready?’

The queen was persuaded into smiling. ‘Is this the portrait of Philip?’ she asked. ‘I won’t be cozened by it. You forget, I am old enough to remember when my father married a portrait but divorced the sitter. He said that it was the worst trick that had ever been played upon a man. A portrait is always handsome. I won’t be taken in by a portrait.’

In answer, Jane Dormer swept the cloth aside. I heard the queen’s indrawn breath, saw her colour come and go in her pale cheeks, and then heard her little girlish giggle. ‘My God, Jane, this is a man!’ she whispered.

Jane Dormer collapsed with laughter, dropped the cloth and dashed across the room to stand back to admire the portrait.

He was indeed a handsome man. He was young, he must have been in his mid-twenties to the queen’s forty years, brown-bearded with dark smiling eyes, a full sensual mouth, a good figure, broad shoulders and slim strong legs. He was wearing dark red with a dark red cap at a rakish angle on his curly brown hair. He looked like a man who would whisper lovemaking in a woman’s ear until she was weak at the knees. He looked like a handsome rogue, but there was a firmness about his mouth and a set to his shoulders which suggested that he might nonetheless be capable of honest dealing.

‘What d’you think, Your Grace?’ Jane demanded.

The queen said nothing. I looked from the portrait back to her face again. She was gazing at him. For a moment I could not think what she reminded me of, then I knew it. It was my own face in the looking glass when I thought of Robert Dudley. It was that same awakening, widening of the eyes, the same unaware dawning of a smile.

‘He’s very . . . pleasing,’ she said.

Jane Dormer met my eyes and smiled at me.

I wanted to smile back but my head was ringing with a strange noise, a tingling noise like little bells.

‘What dark eyes he has,’ Jane pointed out.

‘Yes,’ the queen breathed.

‘He wears his collar very high, that must be the fashion in Spain. He’ll bring the newest fashions to court.’