I chose my time carefully, just after Mass when the Lady Mary walked back from her chapel at Richmond in a mood of quiet exaltation. The raising of the Host was not an empty piece of theatre to her, it was the presence of the risen God, you could see it in her eyes and in the serenity of her smile. She was uplifted by it in a way I had only ever seen before in those who held to a religious life for conviction. She was more abbess than queen when she walked back from Mass, and it was then that I fell into step beside her.

‘Your Grace?’

‘Yes, Hannah?’ she smiled at me. ‘Do you have any words of wisdom for me?’

‘I am a most irregular fool,’ I said. ‘I see that I pronounce very rarely.’

‘You told me I would be queen, and I held that to my heart in the days when I was afraid,’ she said. ‘I can wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit to move you.’

‘It was that I wanted to speak to you about,’ I said awkwardly. ‘I have just been paid by the keeper of your household . . .’

She waited. ‘Has he underpaid you?’ she asked politely.

‘No! Not at all! That is not what I meant!’ I exclaimed desperately. ‘No, Your Grace. This is the first time that you have paid me. I was paid by the king before. But I came into his service when I was begged as a fool to him by the Duke of Northumberland, who then sent me as a companion to you. I was merely going to say that you, er, you don’t have to have me.’

As I spoke, we turned into her private apartments and it was as well, for she gave a most unqueenly gurgle of laughter. ‘You are not, as it were, compulsory?’

I found I was smiling too. ‘Please, Your Grace. I was taken from my father on the whim of the duke and then begged as a fool to the king. Since then I have been in your household without you ever asking for my company. I just wanted to say that you can release me, I know you never asked for me.’

She sobered at once. ‘Do you want to go home, Hannah?’

‘Not especially, Your Grace,’ I said tentatively. ‘I love my father very well but at home I am his clerk and printer. It is more enjoyable and more interesting at court, of course.’ I did not add the proviso—if I can be safe here—but that question always dominated me.

‘You have a betrothed, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, disposing of him promptly. ‘But we are not to marry for years yet.’

She smiled at the childishness of my reply. ‘Hannah, would you like to stay with me?’ she asked sweetly.

I knelt at her feet, and spoke from my heart. ‘I would,’ I said. I trusted her, I thought I might be safe with her. ‘But I cannot promise to have the Sight.’