'Mistress…'

The astronomical clock across the square was striking eight. She turned to see the serving-maid framed in the doorway, strangling a lace handkerchief in her hands. She looked as though she had been weeping. From outside in the corridor came the sound of the Queen's voice and from below the lowing of an ox, then Sir Ambrose's angered curse.

'Come,' the girl was whispering. 'A coach has been prepared.'

It was another hour before the convoy began its march through the streets of the Old Town, led by a troop of horse. A winding river of horse-carts, baggage-wagons, carriages, pack-mules with baskets and panniers: it was as if the entire contents of Prague Castle had been decanted into the ramshackle caravan. One by one the vehicles inched forward, two abreast, into the narrow streets, moving eastward, the axles ploughing through the snow and the oxen baulking in protest as if headed for the shambles. Thin panes of ice crunched under their hoofs as they were whipped along the street, their traces stiff with frost. Progress was slow and disorderly. For minutes at a stretch the caravan stood at a standstill as the horsemen struggled to clear snow from their path with their boots and the butts of muskets. Then the snow began to melt and the streets became a quagmire and passage even more difficult. In thirty minutes the front of the procession had rolled barely halfway down Celetná Street.

Emilia was squeezed inside one of the smaller coaches at the back of the caravan, riding bodkin between two of the other ladies-in-waiting. She was shivering inside a stable blanket, flexing her fingers, blowing on to them, rubbing her palms together, clapping her hands and then thrusting them deep into her covering of sheepskin in a series of frenetic but futile rituals. She also kept twisting round in the seat to peer through the quarter-light at the square and then up at the castle, not looking for the pursuing Cossacks, like the others, or even for the three black-clad horsemen. But it was too late, she realised, as they rolled past the untidy jumble of empty wooden stalls strung along the walls of the Hussite church. They were leaving Prague. Vilém would not find her now, even if he was still alive.

She clutched the sheepskin more tightly about her knees and turned to see the bleary sun hoisting itself above the steep roof of the Powder Tower, into whose shadow the head of the caravan had crept. Their chariot stuck fast in the mire and had to be jemmied free. The horsemen cursed the delays. Then the tower's gates yawned wide, swung open by soldiers, giving on to snow-covered fields through which the trackway was muddier still, the water in the ruts deeper. But the caravan serpentined forward, shunting and sliding more swiftly over the undulations as if even the mules and oxen knew they were beyond the walls and therefore exposed to enemy guns. Drumfire still sounding from the direction of the castle, enfilades that grew fainter and more irregular as the procession drifted away and the last of the Bohemian rebels were captured or killed.

For the rest of the day the caravan followed the muddy road, passing through a succession of walled towns that looked to Emilia like shrunken versions of Prague, with their spired watch-towers, plague columns, small squares with town halls surmounted by weather-vanes and enormous clocks. Soldiers lurked in the gatehouses above which coats of arms had been inscribed in stone. The procession wound through the streets under the eyes of silent groups of townsfolk, then lurched through another gatehouse at the opposite end. After a few more hours the towns grew wider apart. Forests appeared, then thickened, and the snow on the roadsides deepened. Signs of human infringement disappeared except for a scattering of half-buried waymarks and a few distant castles crouched in valleys or outlined on hilltops against the sky.

Where was the caravan fleeing? All day rumours about their destination flew up and down its meandering length. Some claimed they were heading for Bautzen, though soon afterwards a rider appeared with the glum news that the Elector of Saxony-a boar-hunting drunkard, a Lutheran who hated Calvinists even more than Catholics-had overrun Lusatia and laid siege to the town. A rumour then arose that it would make its way to Brünn… until another rumour claimed that the Moravian Estates had withdrawn from the Bohemian confederacy. Another claimed that letters had been despatched to the Queen's cousin, the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, at one time her suitor, in which permission was asked for refuge in his dominions. But the Duke was dithering ungallantly in his reply, explaining how he must first consult his mother, who unfortunately was absent from Wolfenbüttel. So speculation seized on the cities of the Hansa League, although it was soon recalled how Frederick had borrowed from merchants in Lübeck and Bremen large sums of money, money that he had, alas, neglected to repay. A return to Heidelberg was rumoured next-a desperate choice, because the Palatinate, as everyone knew, was occupied by Spanish troops. Equally implausible was Transylvania, since although its Prince, Bethlen Gábor, was a good Calvinist, the country was perilously close to the lands of the Great Turk, whose janissaries were said to be buckling on their swords at that very minute. So finally Brandenburg reached the top of this shrinking list of possibilities, for Brandenburg's Elector, George William of Hohenzollern, was not only a good Calvinist but also the Queen's brother-in-law, a man who therefore could not possibly refuse her. But Brandenburg lay almost two hundred miles distant on the far side of the Giant Mountains.

At nightfall the caravan straggled into a small, multi-steepled town barely a dozen miles beyond the gates of Prague. It was divided by a river that flowed under fortified walls, then along the backs of a soldier-straight row of merchants' houses, its banks hedged by snow and its shallows paned with ice and covered in white spits. The Elbe, someone said. The procession lumbered as far as a deserted square, where it crowded to a halt, the animals exhausted and lame. Emilia caught sight of the Queen's carriage in the poor light, a massive affair, curtained and upholstered, that had been slung on sets of leather braces. Six powerful horses were required to haul it. The Queen sat inside, swaddled in a fur-lined lap robe and surrounded by bales of clothing and, it appeared, dozens of books. She, like Emilia, never embarked on even the shortest journey without an enormous supply of reading material. But she had almost embarked from Prague without one of the princes, the youngest, Rupert. He had been discovered at the last minute by the King's chamberlain, it was said, and thrust into a carriage. Now the three princes were riding behind their mother, Prince Rupert in the arms of his wet-nurse. As her chariot turned into the square Emilia could also see Sir Ambrose. He was mounted on a big Percheron, from whose back he patrolled the length of the procession like an overlord, barking commands in English and Bohemian as his mount threw up divots of mud and snow.

After much confusion, the ladies-in-waiting were ordered by the demoiselle d'honneur to a forlorn-looking inn, the Golden Unicorn, that stood in a bystreet and overlooked a Calvinist church. It was, they agreed, a sad decline from the days when travel with the Queen involved banquets and triumphal arches in every town, audiences with nobles, troops of burghers appearing to doff their hats and bend their knees.

Emilia was placed in a tiny room whose bare floor was littered with rat droppings. She shivered for a long time on the narrow pallet, exhausted but unable to sleep. Someone was weeping next door, a low, choking sound, spasmodic and laborious. From outside in the street came the occasional erratic chime of the church bell and the crunching of feet in the snow. After an hour she rose from the bed, swaddled in blankets, and sat before the begrimed casement. The sky had blown clear and a fat moon arisen. The unpacking of the convoy was not yet finished. She could see Sir Ambrose in the middle of the square, leaning on a riding-stick and giving orders to the soldiers as they distributed fodder among the horses and oxen. She narrowed her eyes and studied his broad form. The man was a riddle. He had not spoken so much as a word to her since leaving Prague. He had offered no explanations either for his presence in the library or for their perilous flight through the streets of the Old Town. There was no sign that anything had passed between them, or even that he remembered her. She wondered if she ought to be offended or relieved.