‘Goats?’ I asked, trying to raise my head without hunching up my shoulders.

Will Somers grinned at the laborious unfolding of the jest. ‘Up one minute, down the next,’ he said. ‘Heir one moment, bastard the next. Up the mountain and down again. Princesses and goats, all alike. You must stand like a princess, and dance like a goat.’

‘I have seen the Lady Elizabeth,’ I volunteered.

‘Have you?’

‘Once, when I was a little girl. My father brought me on a visit to London and I had to deliver some books to Admiral Lord Seymour.’

Will put a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ he advised quietly. Then he slapped his forehead and gave me his merry smile. ‘Here am I, telling a woman to mind her tongue! Fool that I am!’

The lesson went on. He showed me the swordsman’s stance, hand on my hip for balance, how to slide forward with my leading foot always on the floor so that I should not trip or fall, how to move behind the sword and to let it retreat to me. Then we started on the feints and passes.

Will first commanded me to stab at him. I hesitated. ‘What if I hit you?’

‘Then I shall take a splinter, not a deadly cut,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s only wood, Hannah.’

‘Get ready then,’ I said nervously and lunged forward.

To my amazement Will sidestepped me and was at my side, his wooden sword to my throat. ‘You’re dead,’ he said. ‘Not so good at foresight after all.’

I giggled. ‘I’m no good at this,’ I admitted. ‘Try again.’

This time I lunged with a good deal more energy and caught the hem of his coat as he flicked to one side.

‘Excellent,’ he said breathlessly. ‘And again.’

We practised until I could make a convincing stab at him and then he started to lunge at me and teach me to drop to one side or the other. Then he rolled out a thick carpet on the floor and showed me how to turn head over heels.

‘Comical,’ he announced, sitting upright, his legs entwined like a child seated to read a book.

‘Not very,’ I said.

‘Ah, you’re a holy fool, not a jester,’ he said. ‘You have no sense of the laughable.’

‘I have,’ I said, stung. ‘It’s just that you are not funny.’

‘I have been the most comical man in England for nearly twenty years,’ he insisted. ‘I came to court when Henry loved Anne Boleyn and once boxed my ears for jesting against her. But the joke was on her, later. I was the funniest man in England before you were born.’

‘Why, how old are you?’ I asked, looking into his face. The laughter lines were deeply engraved on either side of his mouth, crow’s feet by his eyes. But he was lithe and lanky as a boy.

‘As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth,’ he said.