‘They will have to put you in gowns soon,’ my father remarked. ‘You are half a woman already. What news of the court?’

‘None,’ I said. ‘Everyone says that the king is growing stronger with the warmer weather.’ I did not add that everyone was speaking a lie.

‘God bless him and keep him,’ my father said piously. He looked at me, as if he would know more. ‘And Lord Robert. Do you see him?’

I felt myself colour. ‘Now and then.’ I could have told him to the very hour and the minute when I had last seen Lord Robert. He had not spoken to me, perhaps he had not even seen me. He had been mounted on his horse, about to go hawking for herons along the mudflats of the river shore. He was wearing a black cape and a black hat with a dark feather pinned to the ribbon with a jet brooch. He had a beautiful hooded falcon on his wrist and he rode with one hand outstretched to keep the bird steady and his other hand holding the curvetting horse, which was pawing the ground in its eagerness. He looked like a prince in a story book, he was laughing. I had watched him as I might have watched a seagull riding the wind blowing up the Thames: as a thing so beautiful that it illuminated my day. I watched him, not a woman desiring a man; but a girl worshipping an icon, something far beyond reach but perfection in every way.

‘There is to be a great wedding,’ I said to fill the pause. ‘Lord Robert’s father has arranged it.’

‘Who is to marry?’ my father asked with a gossip’s curiosity.

I ticked off the three couples on my fingers. ‘Lady Katherine Dudley is to marry Lord Henry Hastings, and the two Grey sisters are to marry Lord Guilford Dudley and Lord Henry Herbert.’

‘And you know them all!’ my father boasted, proud as any parent.

I shook my head. ‘Only the Dudleys,’ I said. ‘And not one of them would know me out of livery. I am a very lowly servant at court, Father.’

He cut a slice of bread for me and one for himself. It was stale bread, yesterday’s loaf. He had a small piece of cheese on one plate. On the other side of the room was a piece of meat, which we would eat later, in defiance of the English way of doing things which was to set all of the dinner, meats, breads, puddings as well, on the table at the same time. I thought however much we might pretend, anyone who strolled into the room now would see that we were trying to eat the right way: dairy and meat separate. Anyone looking at my father’s vellum skin and my dark eyes would know us for Jews. We might say that we were converted, we might attend church as enthusiastically as Lady Elizabeth herself was loudly praised for doing, but anyone would know us for Jews, and if they wanted an excuse to rob or denounce us, they would have it to their hand.