‘You shall be my fool and wear my livery,’ the young man ruled. ‘Robert, I am grateful to you for finding her for me. I shan’t forget it.’

It was a dismissal. Robert Dudley bowed and snapped his fingers for me, turned on his heel and went from the room. I hesitated, wanting to refuse the king, but there was nothing to do but bow to him and run after Robert Dudley as he crossed the huge presence chamber, negligently brushing off the couple of men who tried to stop him and ask after the health of the king. ‘Not now,’ he said.

He went down a long gallery, towards double doors guarded by more soldiers with pikes, who flung them open as we approached. Dudley passed through to their salute and I went after him at a run, like some pet greyhound scampering at its master’s heels. Finally we came to a great pair of doors where the soldiers wore the Dudley livery and we went in.

‘Father,’ Dudley said and dropped to one knee.

There was a man at the fireplace of the great inner hall, looking down into the flames. He turned and made an unemotional blessing over his son’s head with two fingers. I dropped to my knee too, and stayed down even when I felt Robert Dudley rise up beside me.

‘How’s the king this morning?’

‘Worse,’ Robert said flatly. ‘Cough bad, he brought up some black bile, breathless. Can’t last, Father.’

‘And this is the girl?’

‘This is the bookseller’s daughter, calls herself twelve, I’d guess older, dresses like a lad but certainly a girl. Has the Sight, according to John Dee. I took her into the king as you ordered, begged her for a fool. She told him that she saw the gates of heaven opened for him. He liked it. She is to be his fool.’

‘Good,’ the duke said. ‘And have you told her of her duties?’

‘I brought her straight here.’

‘Stand, fool.’

I rose to my feet and took my first look at Robert Dudley’s father, the Duke of Northumberland, the greatest man in the kingdom. I took him in: a long bony face like a horse, dark eyes, balding head half-hidden by a rich velvet cap with a big silver brooch of his coat of arms: the bear and staff. A Spanish beard and moustache round a full mouth. I looked into his eyes and saw—nothing. This was a man whose face could hide his thoughts, a man whose very thoughts could conspire to hide his thoughts.

‘So?’ he asked of me. ‘What do you see with those big black eyes of yours, my girl-boy fool?’

‘Well, I don’t see any angels behind you,’ I said abruptly and was rewarded by an amused smile from the duke and a crack of laughter from his son.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Well done.’ He turned to me. ‘Listen, fool—what’s your name?’

‘Hannah Green, my lord.’

‘Listen, Hannah the Fool, you have been begged for a fool and the king has accepted you, according to our laws and customs. D’you know what that means?’