I bowed low. ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘Speak Spanish,’ Lord Robert commanded me, and I bowed again and told her in Spanish that I was glad to be at court.

When I looked up I saw the delight in her face at hearing her mother’s language. ‘What part of Spain?’ she asked eagerly in English.

‘Castile, Your Grace,’ I lied at once. I did not want any inquiries made of us and of my family’s destruction in our home of Aragon.

‘And why did you come to England?’

I was prepared for the question. My father and I had discussed the dangers of every answer and settled on the safest. ‘My father is a great scholar,’ I said. ‘He wanted to print books from his library of manuscripts, and he wanted to work in London, which is such a centre of learning.’

At once the smile left her, and her face grew harder. ‘I suppose he turns out copies of the Bible to mislead people who cannot begin to understand it,’ she said crossly.

My gaze slid to Robert Dudley, who had bought one of my father’s Bibles newly translated into English.

‘In the Latin only,’ he said smoothly. ‘A very pure translation, Lady Mary, and with very few errors. I daresay Hannah will bring you one, if you would like.’

‘My father would be honoured,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘And you are my brother’s holy fool,’ she said. ‘D’you have any words of wisdom for me?’

I shook my head helplessly. ‘I wish I could see at will, Your Grace. I am much less wise than you, I should think.’

‘She told my tutor John Dee that she could see an angel walking with us,’ Robert put in.

The Lady Mary looked at me with more respect.

‘But then she told my father that she saw no angels behind him.’

Her face at once creased into laughter. ‘No! Did she? And what said your father? Was he sorry not to have an angel at his side?’

‘I don’t think he was very surprised,’ Robert said, smiling too. ‘But this is a good little maid, and I think she does have a true gift. She has been a great comfort to your brother in his illness. She has a gift of seeing the truth and speaking true, and he likes that.’

‘That alone is a rare gift to find at court,’ the Lady Mary said. She nodded kindly to me and I stepped back and the music started up again. I kept my eye on Robert Dudley as he led out one young lady and then another to dance before the Lady Mary, and I was rewarded when after some minutes he glanced over to me and gave me a hidden approving smile.

* * *

The Lady Mary did not see the king that night but the chambermaids’ gossip was that when she went into his room the next day she came out again, white as a winding sheet. She had not known till then that her little brother was so near to his death.