Elizabeth raised her hand. ‘I swear, on my immortal soul, that I shall keep this country in the true faith,’ she said. Her hand trembled slightly. She brought it down and clasped her hands together before her, and turned to Jane Dormer.

‘Did she ask for anything more?’

‘No more,’ Jane said, her voice very thin.

‘So you can tell her I have done it?’

Jane’s eyes slid towards me, and the princess was on to her at once.

‘Ah, so that is what you are here for.’ She rounded on me. ‘My little seer-spy. You are to make a window into my soul and see into my heart and tell the queen what you think you know, what you imagine you saw.’

I said nothing.

‘You will tell her that I raised my hand and I swore her oath,’ she commanded me. ‘You will tell her that I am her true heir.’

I rose to my feet, Danny’s little head lolled sleepily against my shoulder. ‘If we may, we will stay here tonight, and return to the queen tomorrow,’ I said, avoiding answering.

‘There was one other thing,’ Jane Dormer said. ‘Her Grace requires you to pay her debts and take care of her trusted servants.’

Elizabeth nodded. ‘Of course. Assure my sister that I will honour her wishes as any true heir would do.’

I think only I could have heard the ripple of Elizabeth’s joy under her grave voice. I did not condemn her for it. Like Mary she had waited all her life for the moment when she might hear the news that she was queen, and now she thought that it would come to her, without dissent, tomorrow, or the day after.

‘We will leave at dawn,’ I said, thinking of the frailty of the queen’s health. I knew she would be hanging on to hear that England was safe within the true faith, that whatever else was lost, she had restored England into grace.

‘Then I will bid you goodnight and God speed now,’ Elizabeth said sweetly.

She let us get to the door and Jane Dormer to go through ahead of me, before she said, so quietly that only I, listening for her summons, could have heard it: ‘Hannah.’

I turned.

‘I know you are her loyal friend as well as mine,’ she said gently. ‘Do this last service for your mistress and take my word as true, and let her go to her God with some comfort. Give her peace, and give peace to our country.’

I bowed to her and went out.

* * *

I thought we would leave Hatfield without another farewell but when I went for my horse on a frosty cold morning with the sun burning red like an ember on the white horizon, there was Lord Robert looking handsome and smiling, wrapped in a dark red velvet cloak with John Dee at his side.

‘Is your boy warm enough for the journey?’ he asked me. ‘It’s been a hard frost and the air is bitter.’