* * *

Daniel’s second letter promising love to me went the way of the first, into the fire; but not until I had read it half a dozen times. It had to be destroyed, it was filled with heretical notions that would have trapped me into an inquiry if it had been read by anyone else. But I burned this second letter with regret. I thought that in it I heard the true voice of a young man growing into wisdom, of a betrothed man planning his marriage, of a passionate man looking towards his life with a woman of his choice, of a man I could trust.

* * *

It was a long and cold winter and Elizabeth grew no better. The news from the court that the queen was healthy and growing stout did not make her half-sister any merrier as she lay, wrapped in furs, her nose red from cold, looking out of a window of cracked glass over a garden blasted by icy winds and neglect.

We heard that the parliament had restored the Roman Catholic religion and the members had wept for joy to be received once more into the body of the church. There had been a service of thanksgiving that they should once again receive the papal rule that they had once thrown off. On that day Elizabeth looked very bleak as she saw her father’s inheritance and her brother’s greatest pride thrown away in her sister’s victory. From that day on, Elizabeth observed the Mass three times a day with her head obediently bowed. There was no more sliding away from observance. The stakes had gone up.

As the light grew brighter in the morning and the snow melted and drained away into standing puddles of cold water Elizabeth grew a little stronger and started to walk in the garden once more, me running alongside her in my thin-soled riding boots, wrapped against the cold in a blanket, blowing on my icy hands, complaining of the icy wind.

‘It would be colder in Hungary,’ she said shortly.

I did not remark that everyone seemed to know the queen’s private plans for her. ‘You would be an honoured guest in Hungary,’ I replied. ‘There would be a warm fire to come back to.’

‘There is only one fire the queen would build for me,’ Elizabeth said grimly. ‘And if I once went to Hungary you would see it would become such a home for me that I would never be allowed to see England again. I won’t go. I won’t ever leave England. You can tell her that, when she asks you. I will never leave England willingly, and English men and women will never let me be bundled away as a prisoner. I am not without friends even though I am without a sister.’

I nodded and kept diplomatically silent.

‘But if not Hungary, which she has never yet had the courage to propose to me direct, then what?’ she asked aloud. ‘And God—when?’