‘Aye,’ he said briefly. ‘It’s a new world. A new queen on the throne, a new king at her side, and a new law to match. And everyone who was reformed has reformed back again and pretty smartly too. And good thing, I say, and God bless, I say. We’ve had nothing but foul weather and bad luck since King Henry broke with the Pope. But now the Pope’s rule is back and the Holy Father will bless England again and we can have a son and heir and decent weather.’

Elizabeth said not one word. She took her pomander from her belt, put it in my hand and held my hand up to my nose so I could smell the aromatic scent of dried orange and cloves. It did not take away the stink of burning flesh, nothing would ever free me from that memory. I could even hear the cries of those on the stakes, begging their families to fan the flames and to pile on timber so that they might die the quicker and not linger, smelling their own bodies roasting, in a screaming agony of pain.

‘Mother,’ I choked, and then I was silent.

We rode to Hampton Court in an icy silence and we were greeted as prisoners with a guard. They bundled us in the back door as if they were ashamed to greet us. But once the door of her private rooms was locked behind us Elizabeth turned and took my cold hands in hers.

‘I could not smell smoke, nobody could. The soldier only knew that they were burning today, he could not smell it,’ she said.

Still I said nothing.

‘It was your gift, wasn’t it?’ she asked curiously.

I cleared my throat, I remembered that curious thick taste at the back of my tongue, the taste of the smoke of human flesh. I brushed a smut from my face, but my hand came away clean.

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

‘You were sent by God to warn me that this was happening,’ she said. ‘Others might have told me, but you were there; in your face I saw the horror of it.’

I nodded. She could take what she might from it. I knew that it was my own terror she had seen, the horror I had felt as a child when they had dragged my own mother from our house to tie her to a stake and light the fire under her feet on a Sunday afternoon as part of the ritual of every Sunday afternoon, part of the promenade, a pious and pleasurable tradition to everyone else; the death of my mother, the end of my childhood for me.

Princess Elizabeth went to the window, knelt and put her bright head in her hands. ‘Dear God, thank you for sending me this messenger with this vision,’ I heard her say softly. ‘I understand it, I understand my destiny today as I have never done before. Bring me to my throne that I may do my duty for you and for my people. Amen.’