‘She would have beheaded you in minutes,’ Jane Dormer said bluntly when the queen rose from her knees and walked to the fireside, leaning her head against the stone chimney breast and looking into the flames. ‘She would have had your head off your shoulders the moment she put the crown on her own. She would not have cared if you were guilty of envy or rebellion. She would have killed you for simply being the heir.’

‘She is my sister,’ Mary replied. ‘I taught her to walk. I held her hands while she stumbled. Am I now to send her to hell?’

Jane Dormer shrugged her disagreement, and picked up her sewing.

‘I shall pray for guidance,’ the queen said quietly. ‘I must find a way to live with Elizabeth.’

* * *

The cold days turned warmer in March and the skies grew pale earlier in the mornings and later at night. The court stayed on tiptoe, watching to see what would happen to the princess. She was examined almost daily by the councillors but the queen would not see her face to face. ‘I cannot,’ she said shortly, and I knew then that she was nerving herself to send Elizabeth to trial, and from there it would be a short walk to the scaffold.

They had enough evidence to hang her three times over but still the queen waited. Just before Easter I was glad to get a letter from my father asking me if I could absent myself from court for a week and come to the shop. He said he was unwell and needed someone to open and close the shutters for him, but I was not to worry, it was just a passing fever and Daniel came every day.

I was a little irritated at the thought of Daniel in constant attendance, but I took the letter to the queen and when she gave me leave, packed a spare pair of breeches and a new clean linen shirt, and made my way to the princess’s apartment.

‘I have been given leave to go to my home, to my father,’ I said as I knelt before her.

There was a clatter from the room above. The royal cousin Lady Margaret Douglas’s kitchen had been moved over Elizabeth’s bedroom, and they had not been asked to work quietly. Judging from the noise, they had been given extra pans just to bang together. Lady Margaret, a sour-faced Tudor, would have a strong claim to the throne if Elizabeth were to die and she had every reason to drive the princess into irritable exhaustion.

Elizabeth flinched at the crash. ‘Going? When will you return?’ she asked.

‘Within the week, your ladyship.’

She nodded and to my surprise I saw that her mouth was working, as if she were about to cry. ‘Do you have to go, Hannah?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘I do,’ I said. ‘He is ill, he has a fever. I have to go to him.’