‘He is mine?’ he asked wonderingly. He looked at the child for the first time and saw, as anyone would have to see, the dark eyes which were his own, and the brave little smile.

‘He is mine too,’ I said jealously. ‘He knows that he is my boy.’

Daniel gave a little half-laugh, almost a sob, and put his arms out. Danny reached for his father and went confidingly to him, put his plump little arms around his neck, looked him in the face and leaned back so he could scrutinise him. Then he thumped his little fist on his own chest and said, by way of introduction: ‘Dan’l.’

Daniel nodded, and pointed to his own chest. ‘Father,’ he said. Danny’s little half-moon eyebrows raised in interest.

‘Your father,’ Daniel said.

He took my hand and tucked it firmly under his arm, as he held his son tightly with the other. He walked to the dispatching officer and gave his name and was ticked off their list. Then together we walked towards the open portcullis.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, although I did not care. As long as I was with him and Danny, we could go anywhere in the world, be it flat or round, be it the centre of the heavens or wildly circling around the sun.

‘We are going to make a home,’ he said firmly. ‘For you and me and Daniel. We are going to live as the People, you are going to be my wife, and his mother, and one of the Children of Israel.’

‘I agree,’ I said, surprising him again.

He stopped in his tracks. ‘You agree?’ he repeated comically.

I nodded.

‘And Daniel is to be brought up as one of the People?’ he confirmed.

I nodded. ‘He is one already,’ I said. ‘I had him circumcised. You must instruct him, and when he is older he will learn from my father’s Hebrew Bible.’

He drew a breath. ‘Hannah, in all my dreams, I did not dream of this.’

I pressed against his side. ‘Daniel, I did not know what I wanted when I was a girl. And then I was a fool in every sense of the word. And now that I am a woman grown, I know that I love you and I want this son of yours, and our other children who will come. I have seen a woman break her heart for love: my Queen Mary. I have seen another break her soul to avoid it: my Princess Elizabeth. I don’t want to be Mary or Elizabeth, I want to be me: Hannah Carpenter.’

‘And we shall live somewhere that we can follow our beliefs without danger,’ he insisted.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘in the England that Elizabeth will make.’

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The characters of Hannah and her family are invented, but there were Jewish families concealing their faith in London as elsewhere in Europe, throughout this period. I am indebted to Cecil Roth’s moving history and to the broadcaster and film-maker Naomi Gryn for giving me a small insight into these courageous lives. Most of the other characters in this novel are real, created by me in this fiction to match the historical record as I understand it. Below is a list of some of my sources, and for the history of Calais I am also indebted to the French historian Georges Fauquet who was generous with his time and his knowledge.