I nodded. ‘Do you think I can see the queen?’

He smiled. ‘She won’t recognise you. You have become a beautiful woman, Hannah. Is it just the gown? You should pay your dressmaker well. Was it her that transformed you?’

I shook my head. ‘Love, I think.’

‘For your husband? You found him, did you?’

‘I found him, and then I lost him almost at once, Will, because I was a fool, filled with pride and jealousy. But I have his son, and he has taught me to love without thinking of myself. I love him more than I thought possible. More than I knew I could love anyone. This is my son, Danny. And if we ever see his father again I will be able to tell him that I am a woman grown at last, and ready for love.’

Will smiled at Danny, who shyly dipped his head and then looked into Will’s kindly creased face and smiled back.

‘Can you hold him for me, while I ask at her door if I may see the queen?’

Will held out his arms and Danny went to him with the easy trust that Will inspired in everyone. I went up the sweep of stairs to the queen’s presence chamber and then to the closed door of her private rooms. My name got me as far as her privy chamber and then I saw Jane Dormer standing at the closed door.

‘Jane, it is me,’ I said. ‘Hannah.’

It was a sign of the depth of the queen’s grief and Jane’s despair that she did not remark on my unexpected return, nor on my new costume.

‘Perhaps she’ll speak to you,’ she said very quietly, alert for eavesdroppers. ‘Be careful what you say. Don’t mention the king, nor the baby.’

I felt my courage evaporate. ‘Jane, I don’t know that she would want to see me, can you ask?’

Her hands were in the small of my back pushing me forward. ‘And don’t mention Calais,’ she said. ‘Nor the burnings. Nor the cardinal.’

‘Why not the cardinal?’ I demanded, trying to wriggle away. ‘D’you mean Cardinal Pole?’

‘He is sick,’ she said. ‘And disgraced. He’s recalled to Rome. If he dies or if he goes to Rome for punishment, she will be utterly alone.’

‘Jane, I can’t go in there and comfort her. There is nothing I can say to comfort her. She has lost everything.’

‘There is nothing anyone can say,’ she said brutally. ‘She is as low down as a woman can be driven, and yet she has to rise up. She is still queen. She has to rise up and rule this country, or Elizabeth will push her off the throne within a week. If she does not sit on her throne, Elizabeth will push her into her grave.’

Jane opened the door for me with one hand and thrust me into the room with the other. I stumbled in and dropped to a curtsey and heard the door close softly behind me.