‘I would try to be a good husband even to a fat Parisian or to a young girl from Turkey,’ he said steadily. ‘And it is more important to love and cherish the wife that God gives you than to run after some silly maid who does not know her own mind.’

‘Would that be me?’ I asked sharply.

I expected his colour to rise but this time he did not blush. He met my eyes frankly and it was I who looked away first. ‘I think you are a silly maid if you turn from the love and protection of a man who would be a good husband, to a life of deceit at court.’

My father came up beside Daniel before I could reply, and put a hand on his shoulder.

‘And so you two are getting acquainted,’ he said hopefully. ‘What d’you make of your wife-to-be, Daniel?’

I expected Daniel to complain of me to my father. Most young men would have been all a-prickle with their pride stinging, but he gave me a small rueful smile. ‘I think we are coming to know each other,’ he said gently. ‘We have overleaped being polite strangers and reached disagreement very quickly, don’t you think, Hannah?’

‘Commendably quick,’ I said, and was rewarded by the warmth of his smile.

* * *

Lady Mary came to London for the Candlemas feast, as had been planned; it seemed that no-one had told her that her brother was too sick to rise from his bed. She rode in through the palace gate of Whitehall with a great train behind her, and was greeted at the very threshold of the palace by the duke, with his sons, including Lord Robert, at his side, and the council of England bowing low before her. Seated high on her horse, her small determined face looking down at the sea of humbly bowing heads, I thought I saw a smile of pure amusement cross her lips before she put down her hand to be kissed.

I had heard so much about her, the beloved daughter of the king who had been put aside on the word of Anne Boleyn, the whore. The princess who had been humbled to dust, the mourning girl who had been forbidden to see her dying mother. I had expected a figure of tragedy: she had endured a life which would have broken most women; but what I saw was a stocky little fighter with enough wit about her to smile at the court, knocking their noses on their knees because, suddenly, she was the heir with formidable prospects.

The duke treated her as if she were queen already. She was helped from her horse and led in to the banquet. The king was in his chamber, coughing and retching in his little bed; but they had the banquet anyway, and I saw the Lady Mary look round at the beaming faces as if to note that when the heir was in the ascendant, a king could lie sick and alone, and no-one mind at all.