Amy Dudley let out a little shriek of rage and then clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘You call what she does “work”?’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘As I say. And I will send for her. And I will come to visit you again.’ He lowered his voice and his tone was gentle. ‘And I shall pray, for your sake and for mine, that when I see you again you are composed. This is no way for us, Amy. You must not behave like a mad woman.’

‘I am not mad,’ she hissed at him. ‘I am angry. I am angry with you.’

He nodded, he would not argue with her, and clearly it mattered to him very little one way or the other what she chose to call it. ‘Then I shall pray for you to recover your temper rather than your wits,’ he said. He turned for the front door where his horse was waiting.

Lady Dudley completely ignored John Dee as he went past, though he paused and bowed, as calm as ever. When they were both gone she suddenly seemed to realise that in a moment she would be too late and she hurried out after them to the top of the steps. She flung open the big double doors and the wintry sunshine poured into the dark hall. I was dazzled and half-closed my eyes, seeing her as a shadow at the top of the steps. For a moment it seemed to me that she was not on a broad stone step but on a very knife edge of life and death, and I stepped forward and put out my hand to steady her. At my touch she whirled around and she would have fallen down the stone steps if John Dee had not caught her arm and held her.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she spat at me. ‘Don’t you dare to touch me!’

‘I thought I saw . . .’

John Dee released her and looked carefully at me. ‘What did you see, Hannah?’

I shook my head. Even when he drew me quickly to one side, almost out of earshot, I did not speak. ‘It is too vague,’ I said. ‘I am sorry. It was as if she was balanced on the very edge of something, and she might fall, and then she nearly did fall. It is nothing.’

He nodded. ‘When you come to court we will try again,’ he said. ‘I think you still have your gift, Hannah. I think the angels are still speaking to you. It is just our dull mortal senses that cannot hear them.’

‘You are delaying my lord,’ Lady Dudley said sharply to him.

John Dee looked down the steps to where Lord Robert was swinging into his saddle. ‘He will forgive me,’ he said. He took her hand and was going to bow over it, but she pulled it away from him.

‘Thank you for my visit,’ he said.

‘Any friend of my lord’s is always welcome,’ she said through lips that hardly moved. ‘Whatever sorts of company he chooses to keep.’