She shook her head. ‘You have no sense of what is right and wrong, Hannah. You are faithless.’

‘I don’t think faith can be measured in what you eat,’ I said, thinking of the bacon and shellfish I had eaten contrary to my people’s law. ‘I think faith is in your heart. And I love the queen and I admire the princess, and as for the rest, these false men and women, they will have to find their own ways to their own truths. You go and eat in the kitchen if it pleases you. I am going in to dine.’

I could have laughed at her astounded face. I lifted Danny up on to my hip and, braced against his weight, I walked into the dining hall at Hatfield.

Elizabeth had the trappings of queenship already, as if she were an actor practising a part in the full costume. She had a gold canopy over a wooden chair so thickly carved and heavy that it might almost have been a throne. On her right hand she had the Spanish ambassador, as if to flaunt that connection; on her left hand was seated the most favoured lord at this court, my Lord Robert. Beside him was the right-hand man of the Grand Inquisitor of London, the scourge of Protestantism, Dr John Dee, on the other side of the Spanish ambassador was the princess’s cousin, who had once arrested her, now dearly beloved to his kin. Beyond him was a quietly ambitious man, a staunch Protestant: William Cecil. I looked at Elizabeth’s table and smiled. Nobody would be able to guess which way this cat might jump judging by those honoured with seats beside her. She had put Spanish and English, Catholic and Protestant advisors side by side, who could deduce what was in her mind?

John Dee, looking down the hall, caught my smile and raised his hand to me in greeting. Lord Robert followed the direction of his gaze, saw me, and beckoned me forward. I threaded my way through the court and dropped a curtsey to the princess, who shot me a gleaming smile from her eyes like a jet arrow.

‘Ah, it is the girl who was so afraid of being a woman that she first became a fool, and then became a widow,’ she said acidly.

‘Princess Elizabeth,’ I said, curtseying as the words hit home.

‘Have you come to see me?’

‘Yes, Princess.’

‘Have you a message for me from the queen?’

‘Yes, Princess.’

There was a little ripple of attention all along the table.

‘Is Her Majesty in good health?’ The Spanish ambassador, Count Feria, leaned forward, taking the heat from the exchange.

‘You would surely know better than I,’ I said with a sourness which came easily to me, seeing him at Elizabeth’s table. ‘Since she writes intimately to only one person, since she loves one man in all the world, and he is your master.’

Elizabeth and my lord exchanged a hidden smile at my rudeness. The count turned his head away.