His son shook his head. ‘What I’d rather do, more than anything else, would be to collect new plants, to go with you to the Americas, the West Indies, travel, find things, bring them home and grow them. The rarities – well, they just sit there, don’t they? Once they’re in place there is nothing more to do with them except keep them dusted. But plants grow and blossom and fruit and seed and then there’s next year to plant them again. I like how they change.’

John nodded. ‘I see.’

He was about to remark that the rarities played their part in the Tradescant family fortune when he heard hoofbeats on the drive. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘Could it be the king?’

‘Could be.’

John turned and ran towards the silkworm house, cast down his tools, grabbed his coat and turned to run back to the palace. Johnnie danced on the spot. ‘Can I come? Can I come?’

‘Yes. But remember what I said about keeping silent.’

Johnnie fell into line behind his father, mirrored his father’s long stride, composed his face to a scowl of what he hoped was dignified discretion, and spoiled the effect only slightly by a great bounce at every fourth step as his excitement proved too much for him.

They ran round to the stable yard and there, in the dirty stall, was the king’s Arab, and a dozen other horses of his escort.

‘The king here?’ John asked a trooper.

‘Just arrived,’ the man said, easing the girth of his horse. ‘We had to stop at every village for him to touch people.’

‘Touch people?’

‘They turned out in dozens,’ the man said abruptly. ‘With all sorts of illnesses and sores and God knows what. And again and again he stopped and touched them, so that they would be cured. And they all went off, back to their hovels, back to their porridge of nothing and water, thinking that he had done them a great favour and that we were some kind of beast to imprison him.’

John nodded.

‘Who are you?’ the man asked. ‘If you want a favour of him, he’ll do it. He’s the most charming, generous, agreeable man to ever take a country into disaster and death and four years of war.’

‘I’m the gardener,’ John replied.

‘Then you’ll see him,’ the man said. ‘He went out to sit in the garden with his companions, while someone cooks his dinner, and sweeps his chamber, and makes everything ready for him so that he can dine in comfort and sleep in comfort. While I and my men do without.’

John turned on his heel and went round to the royal court.