‘This is not being a Jew, this is being a girl,’ he said. ‘Whether you married a Christian or a Jew, you would be his servant. What else can a woman be? Would you deny your sex as well as your religion?’

I said nothing.

‘You are not a faithful woman,’ he said slowly. ‘You would betray yourself.’

‘That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ I whispered.

‘But true,’ he maintained. ‘You are a Jew and you are a young woman and you are my betrothed, and all these things you would deny. Who do you work for in the court? The king? The Dudleys? Are you faithful to them?’

I thought of how I had been pledged as a vassal, begged as a fool and appointed as a spy. ‘I just want to be free,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be anybody’s anything.’

‘In fool’s livery?’

I saw my father looking towards us. He could sense that we were far from courtship. I saw him make a little tentative move as if to interrupt us, but then he waited.

‘Shall I tell them that we cannot agree and ask you to release me from our betrothal?’ Daniel asked tightly.

Wilfully, I was about to agree, but his stillness, his silence, his patient waiting for my reply made me look at this young man, this Daniel Carpenter, more closely. The light was going from the sky and in the half-darkness I could see the man he would become. He would be handsome, he would have a dark mobile face, a quick observing eye, a sensitive mouth, a strong straight nose like mine, thick black hair like mine. And he would be a wise man, he was a wise youth, he had seen me and understood me and contradicted my very core, and yet still he stood waiting. He would give me a chance. He would be a generous husband. He would want to be kind.

‘Leave me now,’ I said feebly. ‘I can’t say now. I have said too much already. I am sorry for speaking out. I am sorry if I angered you.’

But his anger had left him as quickly as it had come, and that was another thing that I liked in him.

‘Shall I come again?’

‘All right.’

‘Are we still betrothed?’

I shrugged. There was too much riding on my answer. ‘I haven’t broken it,’ I said, finding the easiest way out. ‘It’s not broken yet.’

He nodded. ‘I shall need to know,’ he warned me. ‘If I am not to marry you, then I could marry another. I shall want to marry within two years; you, or another girl.’

‘You have so many to choose from?’ I taunted him, knowing that he had not.

‘There are many girls in London,’ he returned. ‘I could marry outside our kin, well enough.’

‘I can see them allowing that!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’ll have to marry a Jew, there’s no escape from that. They will send you a fat Parisian or a girl with skin the colour of mud from Turkey.’