‘And why d’you keep her dressed like a boy?’ he asked.

My father shrugged. ‘Oh, my lords, these are troubled times. I had to bring her across Spain and France, and then through the Low Countries without a mother to guard her. I have to send her on errands and have her act as clerk for me. It would have been better for me if she had been a boy. When she is a woman full-grown, I will have to let her have a gown, I suppose, but I won’t know how to manage her. I shall be lost with a girl. But a young lad I can manage, as a lad she can be of use.’

‘She has the Sight,’ the older man breathed. ‘Praise God, I come looking for manuscripts and I find a girl who sees Uriel and knows his holy name.’ He turned to my father. ‘Does she have any knowledge of sacred things? Has she read anything more than the Bible and her catechism? Does she read your books?’

‘Before God, no,’ my father said earnestly, lying with every sign of conviction. ‘I swear to you, my lord, I have brought her up to be a good ignorant girl. She knows nothing, I promise you. Nothing.’

The older man shook his head. ‘Please,’ he said gently to me and then to my father, ‘do not fear me. You can trust me. This girl has the Sight, hasn’t she?’

‘No,’ my father said baldly, denying me for my own safety. ‘She’s nothing more than a fool and the burden of my life. More worry than she is worth. If I had kin to send her to—I would. She’s not worth your attention . . .’

‘Peace,’ the young man said gently. ‘We did not come to distress you. This gentleman is John Dee, my tutor. I am Robert Dudley. You need not fear us.’

At their names my father grew even more anxious, as well he might. The handsome young man was the son of the greatest man in the land: Lord John Dudley, protector of the King of England himself. If they took a liking to my father’s library then we could find ourselves supplying books to the king, a scholarly king, and our fortune would be made. But if they found our books seditious or blasphemous or heretical, too questioning, or too filled with the new knowledge, then we could be thrown into prison or into exile again or to our deaths.

‘You’re very gracious, sir. Shall I bring my books to the palace? The light here is very poor for reading, there is no need to demean yourselves to my little shop . . .’

The older man did not release me. He was still holding my chin and looking into my face.

‘I have studies of the Bible,’ my father went on rapidly. ‘Some very ancient in Latin and Greek and also books in other languages. I have some drawings of Roman temples with their proportions explained, I have a copy of some mathematical tables for numbers which I was given but of course I have not the learning to understand them, I have some drawings of anatomy from the Greek . . .’