The guard cleared his throat. ‘Beg pardon,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘Nothing in code.’

Lord Robert shook his head at the idiocy of the man but curbed his impatience. ‘Well,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘It’s good to know that you think I will not follow my father out there.’ He nodded at the green beyond the window. ‘And I am becoming reconciled to prison life. I have my books, I have my visitors, I am served well enough, I have learned to mourn my father and my brother.’ He reached out to the fireplace and touched their carved crest. ‘I regret their treason, but I pray that they are at peace.’

There was a tap on the door behind us. ‘I can’t go yet!’ I exclaimed, turning, but it was not another guard who stood there, it was a woman. She was a pretty brown-haired woman with a creamy lovely skin and soft brown eyes. She was dressed richly, my quick survey took in the embroidery on her gown and the slashing of velvet and silk on her sleeves. She held the ribbons of her hat casually in one hand, and a basket of fresh salad leaves in the other. She took in the scene, me with my cheeks flushed and my eyes filled with tears, my master Lord Robert smiling in his chair, and then she stepped across the room and he rose to greet her. She kissed him coolly on both cheeks, and turned to me with her hand tucked into his arm as if to say: ‘Who are you?’

‘And who is this?’ she asked. ‘Ah! You must be the queen’s fool.’

There was a moment before I replied. I had never before minded my title. But the way she said it gave me pause. I waited for Lord Robert to say that I was a holy fool, that I saw angels in Fleet Street, that I had been Mr Dee’s scryer, but he said nothing.

‘And you must be Lady Dudley,’ I said bluntly, taking the fool’s prerogative since I had to take the name.

She nodded. ‘You can go,’ she said quietly, and turned to her husband.

He stopped her. ‘I have not yet finished my business with Hannah Green.’ He seated her in his chair at his desk and drew me to the other window, out of earshot.

‘Hannah, I cannot take you back into my service and you are already released from your oath to love me, but I would be glad if you would remember me,’ he said quietly.

‘I always remember you,’ I whispered.

‘And put my case before the queen.’

‘My lord, I do. She will hear nothing of anyone in the Tower but I will try again. I will never stop trying.’

‘And if anything changes between the princess and the queen, if you should chance to meet with our friend John Dee, I should be glad to know of everything.’

I smiled at his touch on my hand, at his words that told me that he was alive and yearning for life again.