She nodded. ‘And he? My brother? Is he better at all?’

I thought of the quiet disappearance of the physicians who came so full of promises and then left after they had done nothing more than torture him with some new cure. On the morning that I had left Greenwich, the duke had brought in an old woman to nurse the king: an old crone of a midwife, skilled only in the birthing of children and the laying out of the dead. Clearly, he was not going to get any better.

‘I don’t think so, my lady,’ I said. ‘They were hoping that the summer would ease his chest but he seems to be as bad as ever.’

She leaned towards me. ‘Tell me, child, tell me the truth. Is my little brother dying?’

I hesitated, unsure of whether it was treason to tell of the death of the king.

She took my hand and I looked into her square determined face. Her eyes, dark and honest, met mine. She looked like a woman you could trust, a mistress you could love. ‘You can tell me, I can keep a secret,’ she said. ‘I have kept many many secrets.’

‘Since you ask it, I will tell you: I am certain that he is dying,’ I admitted quietly. ‘But the duke denies it.’

She nodded. ‘And this wedding?’

I hesitated. ‘What wedding?’

She tutted in brief irritation. ‘Of Lady Jane Grey to the duke’s son, of course. What do they say about it at court?’

‘That she was unwilling, and he not much better.’

‘And why did the duke insist?’ she asked.

‘It was time that Guilford was married?’ I hazarded.

She looked at me, as bright as a knife blade. ‘They say no more than that?’

I shrugged. ‘Not in my hearing, my lady.’

‘And what of you?’ she asked, apparently abandoning interest in Lady Jane. ‘Did you ask to come to this exile? From the royal court at Greenwich? And away from your father?’ Her wry smile indicated to me that she did not think it likely.

‘Lord Robert told me to come,’ I confessed. ‘And his father, the duke.’

‘Did they tell you why?’

I wanted to bite my lips to hold in the secret. ‘No, my lady. Just to keep you company.’

She gave me a look that I had never seen from a woman before. Women in Spain tended to glance sideways, a modest woman always looked away. Women in England kept their eyes on the ground before their feet. One of the many reasons why I was glad of my pageboy clothes was that masquerading as a boy I could hold my head up, and look around. But Lady Mary had the bold look of her father’s portrait, the swaggering portrait, fists on hips, the look of someone who has been bred to think that he might rule the world. She had his gaze: a straight look that a man might have, scanning my face, reading my eyes, showing me her own open face and her own clear eyes.