‘I am sure she will not . . .’

‘Then why am I not summoned to court?’

I shook my head. The argument was as circular as Elizabeth’s furious pace around the room. Suddenly she stopped, put her hand to her heart.

‘I am ill,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘My heart flutters with anxiety and I have been so sick I cannot get out of bed in the morning. Really, Hannah, even when there is no-one watching. I cannot endure this, I cannot go on like this. Every day I think to have the news that she has decided to have me executed. Every morning I wake thinking that the soldiers will come for me. How long can I live like this, d’you think, Hannah? I am a young woman, I am only twenty! I should be looking forward to a feast at court to celebrate my coming of age, I should have presents and gifts. I should have been betrothed by now! How can I be expected to bear such continuous fear? Nobody knows what it is like.’

I nodded. The only one who could have understood was the queen; for she too had once been the heir that everyone hated. But Elizabeth had thrown away the love of the queen and she would have trouble in finding it again.

‘Sit down,’ I said gently. ‘I will fetch you some small ale.’

‘I don’t want small ale,’ she said crossly, though her legs buckled beneath her. ‘I want my place at court. I want my freedom.’

‘It will come.’ I fetched a jug and a cup from the sideboard and poured her a drink. She sipped it and then looked at me.

‘It’s all right for you,’ she said nastily. ‘You’re not a prisoner. You’re not even my servant. You can come and go as you please. She wants you at her side. You will be able to see all your grand friends again when you meet them at Winchester for the wedding feast. No doubt they will have a new doublet and hose for you—the pet hermaphrodite. No doubt you will be in the queen’s train.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Hannah, you can’t leave me,’ she said flatly.

‘Lady Elizabeth, I have to go, the queen commands me.’

‘She said you were to be my companion.’

‘And now she says I am to leave.’

‘Hannah!’ She broke off, near to tears.

Slowly, I knelt at her feet and looked up into her face. Elizabeth was always such a mixture of raging emotion and calculation that I could rarely take her measure. ‘My lady?’

‘Hannah, I have no-one here but you and Kat and that idiot Sir Henry. I am a young woman, I am at my peak of beauty and wit and I live alone, a prisoner, with no companion but a nursemaid, a fool and an idiot.’

‘Then you will hardly miss the fool,’ I said drily.

I meant to make her laugh but when she looked at me her eyes were filled with tears. ‘I will miss the fool,’ she said. ‘I have no-one to be my friend, I have no-one to talk to. I have no-one to care for me.’