‘What d’you want with me?’ I asked, instantly alert.

‘I bring you these to take to Lord Robert,’ he said simply and thrust two books, one a book of prayers, one a testament, into my arms.

‘From who?’

He shook his head. ‘He wants them,’ he said. ‘I was told you would be glad to take them to him.’ Without waiting for my reply he faded away into the darkness, running half-stooped along the shelter of the wall, leaving me with the two books in my arms.

Before I went back into the palace I turned both books upside down, and checked the endpapers for any hidden messages. There was nothing. I could take them to him if I wished. All I did not know was whether or not I wanted to go.

* * *

I chose to go to the Tower in the morning, in broad daylight, as if I had nothing to hide. I showed the guard the books at the door and this time he riffled the pages and looked at the spine as if to make sure that there was nothing hidden. He stared at the print. ‘What’s this?’

‘Greek,’ I said. ‘And the other is Latin.’

He looked me up and down. ‘Show me the inside of your jacket. Turn out your pockets.’

I did as I was bid. ‘Are you a lad or a lass then, or something in between?’

‘I am the queen’s fool,’ I said. ‘And it would be better for you if you let me pass.’

‘God bless her Grace!’ he said with sudden enthusiasm. ‘And whatever oddities she chooses to amuse herself with!’ He led the way to a new building, walking across the green. I followed him, keeping my head turned from the place where they usually built the scaffold.

We went in a handsome double door and up the twisting stone stairs. The guard at the top stood to one side and unlocked the door to let me in.

Lord Robert was standing by the window, breathing the cold air which blew in from the river. He turned his head at the opening of the door and his pleasure at seeing me was obvious. ‘Mistress Boy!’ he said. ‘At last!’

This room was a bigger and better one than he had been in before. It looked out over the dark yard outside, the White Tower glowering against the sky. A big fireplace dominated the room, carved horribly with crests and initials and names of men who had been kept there so long that they had the time to put their names into stone with pocket knives. His own crest was there, carved by his brother and his father, who had worked the stone while waiting for their sentence, and had scratched their names while the scaffold was built outside their window.

The months in prison were starting to leave a mark on him. His skin was pallid, whiter even than winter-pale, he had not been allowed to walk in the garden since the rebellion. His eyes were set deeper in their sockets than when he had been the favoured son of the most powerful man in England. But his linen was clean and his cheeks were shaved and his hair was shiny and silky, and my heart still turned over at the sight of him, even while I hung back and tried to see him for what he was: a traitor and a man condemned to death, waiting for the day of his execution.