‘You’re among many,’ she said dourly.

‘I’ve seen them,’ I said. ‘Has it been like this since you came from London?’

‘Every day there are more people,’ she said. ‘They must think her soft in the head as well as the heart. If she gave her kingdom away three times over she would not be able to satisfy their demands.’

‘Shall I go in?’

‘She’s praying,’ she said. ‘But she’ll want to see you.’

She rose from the window-seat and I saw that she had positioned herself so that no-one could enter the queen’s narrow doorway without first going past Jane. She opened the door and peeped in, then she waved me through.

The queen had been praying before an exquisite gold and mother-of-pearl icon, but now she was sitting back on her heels, her face calm and shining. She radiated joy as she knelt there, so calm and sweet in her happiness that anyone looking at her would have known her for a bride on her wedding day; a woman preparing herself for love.

When she heard the door close behind me she slowly turned her head and smiled. ‘Ah, Hannah! How glad I am you have come, you are just in time.’

I crossed the room and knelt before her. ‘God bless Your Grace on this most fortunate day.’

She put her hand on my head in blessing in that affectionate familiar gesture. ‘It is a fortunate day, isn’t it?’

I looked up, the glow around her was shining as brightly as sunshine. ‘It is, Your Grace,’ I said. I had no doubt of it at all. ‘I can see that it is a wonderful day for you.’

‘This is the start of my new life,’ she said gently. ‘The start of my life as a married woman, as a queen with a prince at my side, with my country at peace and the greatest nation in Christendom, my mother’s home, as our ally.’

I looked up smiling, I was still on my knees before her.

‘And shall I have a child?’ she asked in a soft whisper. ‘Can you see that for me, Hannah?’

‘I am sure of it,’ I said in a voice as quiet as her own.

Joy leaped into her face. ‘From your heart or from your gift?’ she asked me quickly.

‘From both,’ I said simply. ‘I am sure of it, Your Grace.’

She closed her eyes for a moment and I knew she was thanking God for my certainty and for the promise of a future for England where there would be peace and an end to religious faction.

‘Now I must get ready,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘Ask Jane to send my maids to me, Hannah. I want to get dressed.’

* * *

I could not see much of the actual wedding service. I had a glimpse of Prince Philip as he stepped towards the blaze of gold of the altar of Winchester Cathedral but then the person standing before me, a corpulent squire from Somerset, shifted his position and blocked my view and I could only hear the soaring voices of the queen’s choristers singing the Wedding Mass and then the soft gasp as Bishop Gardiner raised the couple’s clasped hands to show that the wedding was completed and England’s virgin queen was now a married woman.