‘God must be appeased. Only when this sin is rooted out of the country will I be able to conceive a child and be able to give birth. No holy prince could come to a country such as this. The wrong that my father started, which my brother continued, has to be reversed. It all has to be turned back.’

She broke off, panting. I said nothing, I was stunned by her passion.

‘You know, sometimes I don’t think I have the strength to do it,’ she went on. ‘But God gives me the strength. He gives me the resolution to order these dreadful judgements, to say that they shall continue. God gives me the strength to do His work, to send sinners to the fires so that the land may be cleansed. And then you—who I have trusted!—you come here to me when I am praying, to tempt me to error, into weakness, asking me to deny God and my holy work for Him.’

‘Your Grace . . .’ My voice caught in my throat. She rose to her feet and I jumped up. I had cramp in my right leg from kneeling for so long and it gave way beneath me so I sprawled down. I was half on the floor looking up at her and she looked at me as if God himself had struck me down.

‘Hannah, my child, you are halfway to mortal sin yourself to ask this of me. Don’t take one step further, or I shall send for the priests to wrestle with your soul.’

I could smell the smoke, I tried to tell myself it was from the fire in the grate, but I knew it was the smoke of my mother burning, the smoke of the other English men and women burning in the market places up and down the countryside, and soon they would take out Bishop Latimer and Bishop Ridley and the crowd would watch them as Dr Ridley would tell his friend to be of good heart as they would light such a candle in England that would never be put out. I scrabbled at the queen’s feet like a cripple and she pulled her skirts away from me as if she could not bear me to touch her, and she went from the room without another word, leaving me on the floor, smelling smoke and crying for sheer terror.

WINTER 1555

Christmas was celebrated at court with much weighty ceremony but no joy, just as Elizabeth had predicted. Everyone remembered that last year Queen Mary had swirled around the court with her stomacher unlaced and her big belly carried proudly before her. Last year we had been waiting for our prince. This year we knew that there could not be one, for the king had left the queen’s bed and her red eyes and thin body attested to the fact that she was sterile and alone. All autumn there had been rumours of plots and counter-plots, it was said that the English people could not tolerate to be ruled by a Spanish king. Philip’s father was going to hand over the empire to his son and then most of Christendom would be under his command. People muttered that England was an outlying island to him, that he would rule it through the barren queen who did not cease to adore him though everyone knew he had taken a mistress and would never come home to her again.