The noise in my head was getting louder. I put my hands over my ears but the sound echoed louder inside my head, it was a jangling noise now.

‘Yes,’ the queen said.

‘And see? A gold cross on a chain,’ Jane cooed. ‘Thank God, there will be a Catholic Christian prince for England once more.’

It was too much to bear now. It was like being in a bell tower at full peal. I bowed over and twisted round, trying to shake the terrible ringing out of my ears. Then I burst out, ‘Your Grace! Your heart will break!’ and at once the noise was cut off short and there was silence, a silence somehow even louder than the ringing bells had been, and the queen was looking at me, and Jane Dormer was looking at me, and I realised I had spoken out of turn, shouted out as a fool.

‘What did you say?’ Jane Dormer challenged me to repeat my words, defying me to spoil the happy mood of the afternoon, of two women examining a portrait of a handsome man.

‘I said, “Your Grace, your heart will break”,’ I repeated. ‘But I can’t say why.’

‘If you can’t say why, you had better not have spoken at all,’ Jane Dormer flared up, always passionately loyal to her mistress.

‘I know,’ I said numbly. ‘I can’t help it.’

‘Scant wisdom to tell a woman that her heart will break but not how or why!’

‘I know,’ I said again. ‘I am sorry.’

Jane turned to the queen. ‘Your Grace, pay no heed to the fool.’

The queen’s face, which had been so bright and so animated, suddenly turned sulky. ‘You can both leave,’ she said flatly. She hunched her shoulders and turned away. In that quintessential gesture of a stubborn woman I knew that she had made her choice and that no wise words would change her mind. No fool’s words either. ‘You can go,’ she said. Jane made a move to shroud the portrait with its cloth. ‘You can leave that there,’ she said. ‘I might look at it again.’

* * *

While the long negotiations about the marriage went on between the queen’s council, sick with apprehension at the thought of a Spaniard on the throne of England, and the Spanish representatives, eager to add another kingdom to their sprawling empire, I found my way to the home of John Dee’s father. It was a small house near the river in the city. I tapped on the door and for a moment no-one answered. Then a window above the front door opened and someone shouted down: ‘Who is it?’

‘I seek Roland Dee,’ I called up. The little roof over the front door concealed me; he could hear my voice, but not see me.

‘He’s not here,’ John Dee called back.

‘Mr Dee, it is me. Hannah the Fool,’ I called up. ‘I was looking for you.’

‘Hush,’ he said quickly and slammed the casement window shut. I heard his feet echoing on the wooden stairs inside the house and the noise of the bolts being drawn, and then the door opened inward to a dark hall. ‘Come in quickly,’ he said.