SPRING 1555

To everyone’s surprise the queen weakened first. As the bitter winter melted into a wet spring, Elizabeth was bidden to court, without having to confess, without even writing a word to her sister, and I was ordered to ride in her train, no explanation offered to me for the change of heart and none expected. For Elizabeth it was not the return she might have wanted; she was brought in almost as a prisoner, we travelled early in the morning and late in the afternoon so that we would not be noticed, there was no smiling and waving at any crowds. We skirted the city, the queen had ordered that Elizabeth should not ride down the great roads of London, but as we went through the little lanes I felt my heart skip a beat in terror and I pulled up my horse in the middle of the lane, and made the princess stop.

‘Go on, fool,’ she said ungraciously. ‘Kick him on.’

‘God help me, God help me,’ I babbled.

‘What is it?’

Sir Henry Bedingfield’s man saw me stock-still, turned his horse and came back. ‘Come on now,’ he said roughly. ‘Orders are to keep moving.’

‘My God,’ I said again, it was all I could say.

‘She’s a holy fool,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Perhaps she is having a vision.’

‘I’ll give her a vision,’ he said, and took the bridle and pulled my horse forward.

Elizabeth came up alongside. ‘Look, she’s white as a sheet and shaking,’ she said. ‘Hannah? What is it?’

I would have fallen from my horse but for her steadying hand on my shoulder. The soldier rode on the other side, dragging my horse onward, his knee pressed against mine, half-holding me in the saddle.

‘Hannah!’ Elizabeth’s voice came again as if from a long way away. ‘Are you ill?’

‘Smoke,’ was all I could say. ‘Fire.’

Elizabeth glanced towards the city, where I pointed. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ she said. ‘Are you giving a warning, Hannah? Is there going to be a fire?’

Dumbly, I shook my head. My sense of horror was so intense that I could say nothing but, as if from somewhere else, I heard a little mewing sound like that of a child crying from a deep unassuageable distress. ‘Fire,’ I said softly. ‘Fire.’

‘Oh, it’s the Smithfield fires,’ the soldier said. ‘That’s upset the lass. It’s that, isn’t it, bairn?’

At Elizabeth’s quick look of inquiry he explained. ‘New laws. Heretics are put to death by burning. They’re burning today in Smithfield. I can’t smell it but your little lass here can. It’s upset her.’ He clapped me on the shoulder with a heavy kindly hand. ‘Not surprising,’ he said. ‘It’s a bad business.’

‘Burning?’ Elizabeth demanded. ‘Burning heretics? You mean Protestants? In London? Today?’ Her eyes were blazing black with anger but she did not impress the soldier. As far as he was concerned we were little more value than each other. One girl dumb with horror, the other enraged.