‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’

‘D’you remember nothing?’ he asked curiously.

I shook my head. ‘I just watched the flame and then fell asleep.’

‘You spoke,’ he said quietly. ‘You spoke in a language I could not understand, but I think it was the language of angels. God be praised, I think you spoke to them in their language. I copied it down as best I could, I will try to translate it . . . if it is the key to speaking to God!’ He broke off.

‘Did I say nothing that you could understand now?’ I asked, still bemused.

‘I questioned you in English and you answered in Spanish,’ he said. He saw the alarm in my face. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Whatever secrets you have, they are safe. You said nothing that could not be heard by anyone. But you told me about the queen and the princess.’

‘What did I say?’ I demanded.

He hesitated. ‘Child, if the angel who guides you wanted you to know what words were spoken then he would have let you speak them in your waking state.’

I nodded.

‘He did not. Perhaps it is better that you do not know.’

‘But what am I to tell Lord Robert when I see him?’ I demanded. ‘And what can I say to the queen about her baby?’

‘You can tell Lord Robert that he will be free within two years,’ John Dee said firmly. ‘And there will be a moment when he thinks everything is lost, once more, at the very moment everything is just starting for him. He must not despair then. And you must bid the queen to hope. If any woman in the world could be granted a baby because she would be a good mother, because she loved the father, and because she desired a child, it would be this queen. But whether she will have a son in her womb as well as her heart, I cannot tell you. Whether she will have a child from this birth or not, I cannot tell you.’

I got to my feet. ‘I shall go then,’ I said. ‘I have to take the horse back. But, Mr Dee—’

‘Yes?’

‘What about the Princess Elizabeth? Will she inherit the throne as her own?’

He smiled at me. ‘Do you remember what we saw when we first scried?’

I nodded.

‘You said that there will be a child but no child, I think that is the queen’s first baby which should have been born but still has not come. You said that there will be a king, but no king—I think that is this Philip of Spain whom we call king but who is not and never will be king of England. Then you said there will be a virgin queen all-forgotten, and a queen but no virgin.’

‘Is that Queen Jane, who was a virgin queen and now everyone has forgotten her, and now Mary who called herself a virgin and is now a married queen?’ I asked.