‘We are Marranos, our family converted years and years ago,’ I whispered. ‘I have been baptised, I am betrothed to marry a young man of my father’s choosing, a Christian Englishman . . .’

‘I wouldn’t go in that direction,’ Robert Dudley warned bluntly. ‘Lead us to that young man and I imagine you lead us to a family of Jews living in the heart of England itself, and from thence to—where did you say? Amsterdam? And then Paris?’

I opened my mouth to deny it, but I could not speak for fear.

‘All forbidden Jews, all pretending to be Christians. All lighting a candle on Friday night, all avoiding pork, all living with the noose around their necks.’

‘Sir!’

‘They all helped and guided you here, didn’t they? All Jews, all practising a forbidden religion in secret, all helping one another. A secret network, just as the most fearful of Christians claim.’

‘My lord!’

‘Do you really want to be the key that leads this most Christian king to seek you out? Don’t you know that the reformed church can light a pyre just as bright as the Papists? Do you want to pile your family on it? And all their friends? Have you ever smelled roasting human flesh?’

I was shaking in terror, my throat so dry that I could say nothing. I just looked at him and I knew my eyes were black with fear and he would see the sheen of sweat on my forehead.

‘I know. You know. Your father knows he cannot keep you safe. But I can. Enough. I won’t say another word.’

He paused. I tried to speak but all I could manage was a little croak of terror. Robert Dudley nodded at the craven depth of my fear. ‘Now, luckily for you, your Sight has won you the safest and highest place that you might dream of. Serve the king well, serve our family well and your father is safe. Fail us in any one thing and he is tossed in a blanket till his eyes fall backwards in his head, and you are married to a red-faced chapel-going Luther-reading pig herder. You can choose.’

There was the briefest of moments. Then the Duke of Northumberland waved me away. He did not even wait for me to make my choice. He did not need the Sight to know what my choice would have to be.

* * *

‘And you are to live at court?’ my father confirmed.

We were eating our dinner, a small pie brought in from the bakehouse at the end of the street. The unfamiliar taste of English pastry stuck at the back of my throat, my father forced down gravy that was flavoured with bacon rinds.

‘I am to sleep with the maidservants,’ I said glumly. ‘And wear the livery of the king’s pages. I am to be his companion.’

‘It’s better than I could have provided for you,’ my father said, trying to be cheerful. ‘We won’t make enough money to pay the rent on this house next quarter, unless Lord Robert orders some more books.’