I turned with the play-sword still in my hand. ‘But we’re all ready!’

‘He’s sick,’ the Master said dourly.

‘And is the Lady Mary still coming to court?’ Will asked, pulling on his jerkin against the cold draught of air whistling in through the open door.

‘Said to be,’ the Master said. ‘She’ll get better rooms and a better cut of the meat this time, don’t you think, Will?’

He shut the door before Will could reply, and so I turned and asked, ‘What does he mean?’

Will’s face was grave. ‘He means that those of the court who move towards the heir and away from the king will be making their move now.’

‘Because?’

‘Because flies swarm to the hottest dung heap. Plop, plop, buzz.’

‘Will? What d’you mean?’

‘Ah, child. Lady Mary is the heir. She will be queen if we lose the king, God bless him, poor lad.’

‘But she’s a heret—’

‘Of the Catholic faith,’ he corrected me smoothly.

‘And King Edward . . .’

‘His heart will break to leave the kingdom to a Catholic heir but he can do nothing about it. It’s how King Henry left it. God bless him, he must be rolling in his shroud to see it come to this. He thought that King Edward would grow to be a strong and merry man and have half a dozen little princes in the nursery. It makes you think, doesn’t it? Is England ever to get any peace? Two young lusty kings: Henry’s father, Henry himself, handsome as the sun, each of them, lecherous as sparrows, and they leave us with nothing but a lad as weak as a girl, and an old maid to come after him?’

He looked at me and I saw him rub his face, as if to brush off some wetness round his eyes. ‘Means nothing to you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Newly come from Spain, damned black-eyed girl. But if you were English, you’d be a worried man now; if you were a man, and if you were a sensible man instead of being a girl and a fool at that.’

He swung open the door and set off into the great hall on his long legs, nodding at the soldiers who shouted a good-natured greeting to him.

‘And what will happen to us?’ I demanded in a hissed whisper, trotting after him. ‘If the young king dies and his sister takes the throne?’

Will threw me a sideways grin. ‘Then we shall be Queen Mary’s fools,’ he said simply. ‘And if I can make her laugh it will be a novelty indeed.’

* * *

My father came to the side gate that night and he brought someone with him, a young man dressed in a cape of dark worsted, dark ringlets of hair falling almost to his collar, dark eyes, and a shy boyish smile. It took me a moment to recognise him; he was Daniel Carpenter, my betrothed. It was only the second time I had ever seen him, and I was embarrassed that I failed to recognise him and then utterly shamed to be seen by him in my pageboy livery in golden yellow, the colour of the holy fool. I pulled my cape around me, to hide my breeches, and made him an awkward little bow.