Her weariness was gone, the colour had flamed into her cheeks. She looked around the small walled garden as if she could see the whole kingdom, the great prosperity which could be restored, and the changes she would make when she held the throne. The monasteries she would restore, the abbeys she would found, the life she could breathe back into it. ‘It is mine,’ she said. ‘And I am an English queen-to-be. No-one can put me aside.’

Her face was illuminated with her sense of destiny. ‘It is the purpose of my life,’ she said. ‘Nobody will pity me ever again. They will see that I have dedicated my life to being the bride of this country. I will be a virgin queen, I shall have no children but the people of this country, I shall be their mother. There shall be no-one to distract me, there shall be no-one to command me. I shall live for them. It is my holy calling. I shall give myself up for them.’

She turned from me and strode back to the house and I followed her at a distance. The morning sun burning off the mist made a lightness in the air all around her, and I had a moment’s dizziness as I realised that this woman would be a great queen for England, a queen who had a real vision for this country, who would bring back the richness and beauty and charity that her father had stripped out from the churches and from the daily life. The sun was so bright around her yellow silk hood that it was like a crown, and I stumbled on a tussock of grass and fell.

She turned and saw me on my knees. ‘Hannah?’

‘You will be queen,’ I said simply, the Sight speaking in my voice. ‘The king will die within a month. Long live the queen. Poor boy, the poor boy.’

In a second she was by my side, holding me up. ‘What did you say?’

‘You will be queen,’ I said. ‘He is sinking fast now.’

I lost my senses for a moment and then I opened my eyes again and she was looking down at me, still holding me closely.

‘Can you tell me any more?’ she asked me gently.

I shook my head. ‘I am sorry, Lady Mary, I barely know what I said. It was not said knowingly.’

She nodded. ‘It is the Holy Spirit which moves you to speak, especially to speak such news to me. Will you swear to keep it secret between us?’

For a moment I hesitated, thinking of the complicated webs of loyalties that were interwoven around me: my duty to Lord Robert, my honour for my father and mother and our kin, my promise to Daniel Carpenter, and now this troubled woman asking me to keep a secret for her. I nodded. It was no disloyalty not to tell Lord Robert something he must already know. ‘Yes, Lady Mary.’

I tried to rise but I dropped back to my knees with dizziness.