There was not a word spoken between them that the queen could not have heard, there was no caress that anyone could see. The simple proximity of day-to-day life was enough to set them both aflame, his hands on her waist, her hands on his shoulder in a dance, the moment when they stood close, eyes locked. There was no doubt that this woman would escape any punishment while this king was ruling the country. He could barely let her out of his sight, he was not likely to send her to the Tower.

The queen had to watch all this. The queen, worn thin to gauntness, with a flat belly, had to watch her younger sister summon the king by merely raising her plucked eyebrow. The queen had to watch the man she still passionately loved at another woman’s beck and call, and that woman, Elizabeth, the unwanted sister who had stolen Mary’s father, was now seducing her husband.

Queen Mary never showed a flicker of emotion. Not when she leaned from her chair and made a smiling remark to Philip and then realised that he had not even heard her, he was so absorbed in watching Elizabeth dance. Not when Elizabeth brought him a book she was reading and composed a Latin motto for the dedication, extempore before the whole court. Not when Elizabeth sang him a tune which she had written for him, not when Elizabeth challenged him to a race while out hunting, and the two of them outstripped the court and were missing for half an hour. Mary had all the dignity of her mother, Katherine of Aragon, who had seen her own husband besotted by another woman for six long years and for the first three of them had sat on her throne and smiled at them both. Just as her mother had done, Mary smiled at Philip with love and understanding, and smiled at Elizabeth with courtesy; and only I, and the few people who really loved her, would have known that her heart was breaking.

* * *

I had a letter from my father in August, asking me when I would join them at Calais. Indeed, I was anxious to go. I could not sleep in England now, the place that I had sought as my home was no longer a haven. I wanted to be with my own people, I wanted to be with my father. I wanted to be far from Bishop Bonner and the smoke of Smithfield.

I went to Elizabeth first. ‘Princess, my father asks me to join him in Calais, do I have your permission to go?’

Her pretty face scowled at once. Elizabeth was a great collector of servants, she never liked anyone to leave. ‘Hannah, I have need of you.’

‘God bless you, Princess, but I think you are well served,’ I said with a smile. ‘And you did not give me a very warm welcome when I came to you at Woodstock.’

‘I was ill then,’ she said irritably. ‘And you were Mary’s spy.’