I was absolutely certain that she was determined to be rude but there was no point in telling him. Instead I wrapped the cloak a little closer around myself and watched the dark flow of the water as we plodded down the road to the dockside.

I glanced back upriver and then I saw a sight that made me put my hand out to Daniel. ‘Stop!’

He did not tighten the rein. ‘Why? What is it?’

‘Stop, I say!’ I said abruptly. ‘I have seen something on the river.’

He paused then, the horses turned a little as they were pulled up, and I could see the royal barge, but with no standard flying. Queen Mary’s own barge, but not with the queen on board, the drumbeat keeping the rowers in time, a dark figure at the front of the boat, two hooded men, one at the rear, one at the prow, scanning the banks in case of trouble.

‘They must have Elizabeth,’ I guessed.

‘You can’t possibly tell,’ Daniel said. He shot a glance at me. ‘And if they do have her? It’s nothing to do with us. They’d be bound to arrest her now that Wyatt . . .’

‘If they turn into the Tower then they have her on board and they are taking her to her death,’ I said flatly. ‘And Lord Robert will die too.’

He went to flick the reins to make the horse move on, but I clamped my hand on his wrist. ‘Let me see, damn you,’ I spat at him.

He waited for a moment. As we watched the barge turned, struggled against the onrush of the tide and then headed towards the Tower. The dark watergate—a heavy portcullis, which protected the Tower from the river—rolled up; this visit was pre-arranged to be secret and silent. The barge went in, the watergate came down, there was utter silence except the plash of the dark water running by us. It was as if the hushed barge and the two dark watching men at prow and stern had never been.

I slipped down from the wagon and I leaned back against the forewheel, closing my eyes. I could imagine the scene as brightly as if it were noon, Elizabeth arguing and delaying and struggling for every extra minute, all the way from the watergate to the room they would have prepared for her in the Tower. I could see her fighting for every grain of sand in the hour glass, as she always did, as she always would do. I could see her bartering words for every moment. And finally, I could see her in her room, looking down on the green where her mother had her head swept from her body with the sharpest French sword they could find, and I could see her watching them build the scaffold that would be her own death place.

Daniel was by my side. ‘I have to go to her,’ I said. I opened my eyes as if I had wakened from a dream. ‘I have to go. I promised I would go back to her, and now she is near death. I cannot betray a promise to a dying woman.’