“My lord,” I whispered earnestly. “You cannot die. Your tutor and I looked in the mirror and saw your fortune. There was no doubt about it, it cannot end here. He said that you are to die safe in your bed, and that you will have a great love, the love of a queen.”

For a moment he frowned as he heard the words, then he gave a little sigh, as a man tempted by false hope. “A few days ago I would have begged to hear more. But it is too late now. The guard will come. You have to go. Hear this. I release you from your loyalty to me and to my cause. Your work for me is finished. You can earn a good living at court and then marry your young man. You can be the queen’s fool in very truth and forget me.”

I stepped a little closer. “My lord, I will never be able to forget you.”

Lord Robert smiled. “I thank you for that, and I will be glad of whatever prayers you offer up at the hour of my death. Unlike most of my countrymen, I don’t really mind what prayers they are. And I know that they will come from the heart, and yours is a loving heart.”

“Shall I carry any message from you?” I asked eagerly. “To Mr. Dee? Or to the Lady Elizabeth?”

He shook his head. “No messages. It is over. I think that I will see all my fellows in heaven very soon. Or not, depending on which of us is right about the nature of God.”

“You can’t die,” I cried, anguished.

“I don’t think they will leave me much choice,” he said.

I could hardly bear his bitterness. “Lord Robert,” I whispered. “Can I do nothing for you? Nothing at all?”

“Yes,” he said. “See if you can persuade the queen to forgive Jane and Elizabeth. Jane because she is innocent of everything, and Elizabeth because she is a woman who should live. A woman like her was not born to die young. If I thought I could leave you with that commission and you could succeed, I could die in some peace.”

“And for you?” I asked.

He put his hand under my chin again, bent his dark head and kissed me gently on the lips. “For me, nothing,” he said softly. “I am a dead man. And that kiss, Mistress Boy, my dear little vassal, that kiss was the last I will ever give you. That was good-bye.”

He turned away from me and faced the window and shouted: “Guard!” for the man to unlock the door. Then there was nothing for me to do but to leave him, in that cold room, looking out into the darkness, waiting for the news that his scaffold was built, the axeman was waiting, and that his life was over.

I went back to court in a dazed silence and when we went to Mass four times a day I dropped down to my knees and prayed in earnest that the God who had saved Mary should save my Lord Robert too.

My mood of exhausted pessimism suited the queen. We did not live like a victorious court in a victorious city. It was a court hanging on a thread of its own indecision, sick with worry. Every day, after Mass and breakfast, Queen Mary walked by the side of the river, her cold hands dug deep in her muff, her steps hastened by the cold wind blowing her skirts forward. I walked behind her with my black cape wrapped tightly around my shoulders and my face tucked into the collar. I was glad of the thick hose of my fool’s livery and glad of my warm jacket. I would not have dressed as a woman in those wintry days for all the Spanish princes in the empire.

I knew she was troubled and so I kept silent. I dogged her footsteps two steps behind her because I knew she liked the comfort of a companion’s tread on the frozen gravel at her back. She had spent so many years alone, she had taken so many lonely walks, that she liked to know that someone was keeping vigil with her.

The wind coming off the river was too cold for her to walk for long, even with a thick cape and a fur collar at her neck. She turned on her heel and I nearly bumped into her as I ploughed forward, my head down.

“I beg pardon, Your Grace,” I said, ducking a little bow and stepping out of her way.

“You can walk beside me,” she said.

I fell into step, saying nothing, but waiting for her to speak. She was silent till we came to the small garden door where the guard swung it open before her. Inside a maid was waiting to take her cloak and to offer her a pair of dry shoes. I swung my cloak over my arm and stamped my feet on the rushes to warm them.

“Come with me,” the queen said over her shoulder and led the way up the winding stone stairs to her apartments. I knew why she had chosen the garden stairs. If we had gone through the main building we would have found the hall, the stairs, and the presence chamber filled with petitioners, half of them come to beg for sons or brothers who were due to follow Tom Wyatt to a death sentence. Queen Mary had to pass through crowds of tearstained women every time she went to Mass, every time she went to dine. They held out their hands to her, palms clasped, they called out her name. Endlessly they begged her for mercy, constantly she had to refuse. No wonder that she preferred to walk alone in the garden and slip up the secret stairs.

The stairs emerged into a little lobby room, which led to the queen’s private chamber. Jane Dormer was sewing in the window seat, half a dozen women working alongside her; one of the queen’s ladies was reading from the Book of Psalms. I saw the queen run her eye over the room like a schoolmistress observing an obedient class and give a little nod of pleasure. Philip of Spain, when he finally came, would find a sober and devout court.

“Come, Hannah,” she said, taking a seat at the fireside and gesturing to me to sit on a stool nearby.

I dropped down, folded my knees under my chin and looked up at her.

“I want you to do me a service,” she said abruptly.

“Of course, Your Grace,” I said. I was about to rise to my feet in case she was sending me on an errand but she put her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m not sending you to run a message,” she said. “I am sending you to look at something for me.”

“Look at something?”

“Look with your gift, with your inner eye.”

I hesitated. “Your Grace, I will try, but you know it is not at my command.”

“No, but you have seen the future twice with me; once you spoke of my becoming queen and once you spoke to warn me of heartbreak. Now I want you to warn me again.”

“Warn you against what?” My voice was as low as hers. No one in the room could have heard us over the crackle of the logs in the fireplace.

“Against Elizabeth,” she breathed.

For a moment I said nothing, my gaze on the red ember caverns under the big applewood logs.

“Your Grace, there are wiser heads than mine to advise you,” I said with difficulty. In the brightness of the fire I could almost see the flame of the princess’s hair, the dazzle of her confident smile.

“None I trust more. None who comes with your gift.”

I hesitated. “Is she coming to court?”

Mary shook her head. “She won’t come. She says she is ill. She says she is near death with sickness, a swelling of the belly and of her limbs. She is too ill to get out of bed. Too ill to be moved. It is an old illness of hers, a real one, I believe. But it always comes on at certain times.”

“Certain times?”

“When she is very afraid,” Mary said quietly, “and when she has been caught out. The first time she was sick like this was when they executed Thomas Seymour. Now I think she fears being accused of another plot. I am sending my doctors to see her, and I want you to go too.”

“Of course.” I did not know what else I could say.

“Sit with her, read to her, be her companion as you have been mine. If she is well enough to come to court, you can travel with her and keep her spirits up on the journey. If she is dying you can comfort her, send for a priest and try to turn her thoughts to her salvation. It is not too late for her to be forgiven by God. Pray with her.”