She broke from his grasp and struck at him, her hands clenched into fists, pounding against his chest. ‘She is a whore and he is a dealer in black arts!’ she cried. ‘And you are a false deceiver who has broken my heart too many times to count!’

Robert caught her hands. ‘She is a good servant of mine and a respectable married woman,’ he said quietly. ‘And Dr Dee is chaplain to one of the most important churchmen in the land. Madam, I beg you to compose yourself.’

‘I will see him hanged for this!’ she shouted into his face. ‘I will name him as a dealer with the devil, and she is nothing more than a witch and a whore.’

‘You will do nothing but make yourself a laughing stock,’ he said steadily. ‘Amy, you know what you are like. Be calm.’

‘How can I be calm when you shame me before your own friends?’

‘You are not shamed . . .’ he started.

‘I hate you!’ she suddenly screamed.

John Dee and I shrank back against the wall and glanced longingly at the door, wishing to be away from this uproar.

With a wail she tore herself from his grip and threw herself face down on the bed. She was screaming with grief, quite beside herself. John Dee and my lord exchanged an aghast look. There was a little tearing noise and I realised she had bitten the counterpane and was ripping it with her teeth.

‘Oh, for the sake of God!’ Robert took her shoulders and pulled her up from the bed. At once she went for his face with her nails, her hands clenched like a cat’s unsheathed claws. Robert grabbed her hands and bore her down till she fell on the floor, kneeling at his feet, her wrists in his grip.

‘I know you!’ she swore up at him. ‘If it is not her, then it is another. There is nothing about you but pride and lust.’

His face, suffused with temper, slowly calmed, but he kept a tight hold of her hands. ‘I am a sinner indeed,’ he said. ‘But thank God, I at least am not crazed.’

Her mouth trembled and then she let out a wail, looking up into his flinty face, the tears pouring from her eyes, her mouth drooling sobs. ‘I am not crazed, I am ill, Robert,’ she said despairingly. ‘I am sick of grief.’

He met my eyes over her head. ‘Fetch Mrs Oddingsell,’ he said briefly. ‘She knows what to do.’

I was transfixed for the moment, watching Amy Dudley grinding her teeth, scrabbling at her husband’s feet. ‘What?’

‘Get Mrs Oddingsell.’

I nodded and went from the room. Half the household was busy on the landing outside the chamber. ‘Go to your work!’ I said abruptly, and then I ran down the long gallery to find Mrs Oddingsell seated before a mean fire at the cold end of the chamber.

‘Her ladyship is crying, and his lordship sent for you,’ I said baldly.