His gauntleted hand lifted the false face of metal, but the shadow of the helmet left his face in darkness and still I could not see him. The horse shifted, held in powerful control by his other hand. His head was turned towards me, I could feel his eyes on me, sharp under the sharp points of the helmet.

‘Mistress Boy?’

It was his voice, coming from the mouth of this great man-god, this great man of metal. But it was his voice, as intimate and warm and familiar as if he had come from dancing at King Edward’s summer feast.

The horse sidled, I stepped back on a doorstep, it raised me up four inches, nothing more. ‘My lord, it is me!’

‘Mistress Boy, what the devil are you doing here?’

‘I live here,’ I said, half-laughing and half-crying at seeing him again. ‘What of you?’

‘Released, fighting, winning—perhaps losing at the moment. Are you safe here?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said honestly. ‘Can we hold the town?’

He pulled the gauntlet from his right hand, twisted a ring from his finger, threw it towards me, careless if I caught it or not. ‘Take this to the Windflight,’ he said. ‘My ship. I will see you aboard if we need to sail. Go now, get aboard. We are to make a charge.’

‘Fort Risban is lost!’ I shouted above the noise. ‘You can’t sail away, they will turn the guns on the harbour.’

Robert Dudley laughed aloud as if death itself were a joke. ‘Mistress Boy, I don’t expect to survive this charge! But you might be lucky and slip away. Go now.’

‘My lord . . .’

‘It’s an order!’ he shouted at me. ‘Go!’

I gasped, pushing the ring on my finger. It had been on his little finger, it fitted my third, just above my wedding ring: Dudley’s ring on my finger.

‘My lord!’ I cried out again. ‘Come back safe.’

The bugle played so loud that no-one could be heard. They were about to charge. He dropped his visor over his face, pulled his gauntlet back on his hand, lifted his lance from its place, tipped it to his helmet in a salute to me, and wheeled his horse around to face his company.

‘A Dudley!’ he shouted. ‘For God and the queen!’

‘For God and the queen!’ they roared back at him. ‘For God and the queen! Dudley! Dudley!’

They moved towards the city walls, out of the square, and like a camp follower, disobedient to his order, I moved after them. To my left were the lanes running down to the harbour but I was drawn by the jingle of the bits and the deafening clatter of the metalled hooves on the cobbles. The roar of the siege grew louder as they got near to the gate, and at the sound of French rage I hesitated, shrank back, looked behind for the way to the harbour.

Then I saw her. Daniel’s woman, bedraggled with her pretty dress half-dragged from her shoulder, exposing her breast. Her child was on her hip, clinging to her, his dark eyes wide, her hair was tumbling down, her eye blacked, her face anguished, running like a hunted deer, skipping and stumbling on the cobbles of the street.