On my second visit to court the queen was engaged with the council, but I found Will petting a dog on a bench in the great hall.

‘Are you not asleep?’ I asked.

‘Are you not beheaded?’ he replied.

‘I had to go with her,’ I said shortly. ‘She asked for me.’

‘Let’s hope you’re not her last request,’ he said drily. ‘Happen she’ll eat you for her last meal.’

‘Is she to die?’ I whispered.

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Wyatt denied her guilt from his scaffold, but all the evidence convicts her.’

‘But he cleared her?’ I asked hopefully.

Will laughed. ‘He cleared all of them. Turns out it was a rebellion of one and we must all have imagined the army. He even cleared Courtenay, who had already confessed! I don’t think Wyatt’s voice will make much odds. And we won’t hear it again. He won’t be repeating himself.’

‘Has the queen decided against her?’

‘The evidence has decided against her,’ he said. ‘She can’t hang a hundred men and spare their leader. Elizabeth breeds treason like old meat breeds maggots. Not much point swatting flies and leaving the meat rotting in the open.’

‘Soon?’ I asked, aghast.

‘Ask her yourself—’ He broke off and nodded to the door to the presence chamber. It swung open and the queen came out. She gave a genuine smile of pleasure to see me and I went forward and dropped to my knee before her.

‘Hannah!’

‘Your Grace,’ I said. ‘I am glad to see you again.’

A shadow crossed her face. ‘You have come from the Tower?’

‘As you commanded,’ I said quickly.

She nodded. ‘I do not want to know how she does.’

At the cold look in her face I kept my lips together and bowed my head.

She nodded at my obedience. ‘You can come with me. We are going riding.’

I fell in among her train. There were two or three new faces, ladies and gentlemen, but for a queen’s court they were very soberly dressed, and for young people out on a ride for pleasure, they were very quiet. This had become an uneasy court.

I waited till we were all mounted and riding out of the city to the north, past the beautiful Southampton House and on to the open country, before I brought my horse up alongside the queen.

‘Your Grace, may I stay with Elizabeth until . . .’ I broke off. ‘Until the end?’ I concluded.

‘Do you love her so much?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Are you hers now?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I pity her, as you would if you would only see her.’

‘I won’t see her,’ she said firmly. ‘And I dare not pity her. But yes, you can keep her company. You are a good girl, Hannah, and I don’t forget that we rode into London together on that first day.’ She glanced back. The streets of London were very different now, a gibbet on every corner, with a traitor hanging by the neck, and the carrion crows on every rooftop growing fat on good pickings. The stink in the city was like a plague wind, the smell of English treason. ‘I had great hopes then,’ she said shortly. ‘They will return, I know it.’