“A man with temptations we cannot imagine,” I said smartly. Then I thought of the Edward Courtenay I knew: a weak mouth and a flushed complexion. A boy pretending to be a man, and not even a pleasant boy. A braggart hoping to leap higher by courting Queen Mary or Lady Elizabeth, or anyone who would help him rise.

“Forgive me,” I said to my betrothed. “You are right. He is neither a good subject nor a good friend, he’s not even much of a boy.”

His smile warmed his face, and warmed me. I took a piece of bread and felt a sense of ease. “How is your mother?” I asked politely.

“She has been ill in this cold wet weather, but she is well now.”

“And your sisters?”

“They are well. When you come back from Ashridge I should like you to come to my house to meet them.”

I nodded. I could not imagine meeting Daniel’s sisters.

“There will soon come a time when we all live together,” he said. “It would be better if you meet now, so that you can all become accustomed.”

I said nothing. We had not parted as a betrothed couple but clearly Daniel wanted to ignore that quarrel, as he had overlooked others. Our betrothal was still unbroken, then. I smiled at him. I could not imagine living in his house with his mother ordering things as they had always been done and his sisters fluttering around him as the favored child: the son.

“Do you think they will admire my breeches?” I asked provocatively.

I saw him flush. “No, not particularly,” he said shortly. He leaned back on the counter and took a sip of wine. He looked toward my father. “I think I’ll finish that page now,” he said. He stepped down from the stool and reached for his printer’s apron.

“Shall I bring your syllabub out later?” I asked.

He looked at me, his eyes dark and hard. “No,” he said. “I have no taste for things that are sweet and sour at the same time.”

Will Somers was in the stable yard while they were saddling up the horses for our journey, cracking jokes with the men.

“Will, are you coming with us?” I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Not I! Too cold for me! I’d have thought it no job for you either, Hannah Green.”

I made a face. “The queen asked it of me. She asked me to look into Elizabeth’s heart.”

“Into her heart?” he repeated comically. “First find it!”

“What else could I do?” I demanded.

“Nothing but obey.”

“And what should I do now?”

“The same.”

I drew a little closer. “Will, d’you think she was really plotting to throw down the queen and put herself on the throne?”

He smiled his little world-weary smile. “Fool, there is not a doubt of it. And you a fool even to question it.”

“Then if I say she is pretending to be ill, if I report that she is a liar, I bring her to her death.”

He nodded.

“Will, I cannot do that to a woman such as the princess. It would be like shooting a lark.”

“Then miss your aim,” he said.

“I should lie to the queen and say that the princess is innocent?”

“You have a gift of Sight, don’t you?” he demanded.

“I wish I did not.”

“It is time to cultivate the gift of blindness. If you have no opinion, you cannot be asked to account for it. You are an innocent fool, be more innocent than fool.”

I nodded, a little cheered. One of the men brought my horse out of the stable and Will cupped his hand to throw me up into the saddle.

“Up you go,” he said. “Higher and higher. Fool and now councillor. It must be a lonely queen indeed who turns to a fool for counsel.”

It took us three days to travel the thirty miles to Ashridge, struggling, heads bowed through a storm of sleet, always freezing cold. The councillors led by Lady Elizabeth’s own cousin, Lord William Howard, were afraid of rebels on the roads and we had to go at the marching pace of our guards while the wind whipped down the rutted track which was all there was of a road, and the sun peeped, a pale wintry yellow, through dark clouds.

We reached the house by noon and we were glad to see the curl of smoke from the tall chimneys. We clattered round to the stable yard and found no grooms to take the horses, no one ready to serve us. Lady Elizabeth kept only a small staff, one Master of Horse and half a dozen lads, and none of them was ready to greet a train such as ours. We left the soldiers to make themselves as comfortable as they could be, and trooped round to the front door of the house.

The princess’s own cousin hammered on the door and tried the handle. It was bolted and barred from the inside. He stepped back and looked around for the captain of the guard. It was at that moment that I realized his orders were very different from mine. I was here to look into her heart, to restore her to the affection of her sister. He was here to bring her to London, alive or dead.

“Knock again,” he said grimly. “And then break it down.”

At once the door yielded, swung open to our knock by an unenthusiastic pair of menservants who looked anxiously at the great men, the doctors in their furred coats and the men at arms behind them.

We marched into the great hall like enemies, without invitation. The place was in silence, extra rushes on the floor to muffle the sound of the servants’ feet, a strong smell of mint purifying the air. A redoubtable woman, Mrs. Kat Ashley, Elizabeth’s best servant and protector, was at the head of the hall, her hands clasped together under a solid bosom, her hair scraped back under an imposing hood. She looked the royal train up and down as if we were a pack of pirates.

The councillors delivered their letters of introduction, the physicians theirs. She took them without looking at them.

“I shall tell my lady that you are here but she is too sick to see anyone,” she said flatly. “I will see that you are served such dinner as we can lay before you; but we have not the rooms to accommodate such a great company as yourselves.”

“We will stay at Hillham Hall, Mrs. Ashley,” Sir Thomas Cornwallis said helpfully.

She raised her eyebrow as if she did not think much of his choice and turned to the door at the head of the hall. I fell into step behind her. At once she rounded on me.

“And where d’you think you’re going?”

I looked up at her, my face innocent. “With you, Mrs. Ashley. To the Lady Elizabeth.”

“She’ll see no one,” the woman ruled. “She is too ill.”

“Then let me pray at the foot of her bed,” I said quietly.

“If she is so very ill she will want the fool’s prayers,” someone said from the hall. “That child can see angels.”

Kat Ashley, caught out by her own story, nodded briefly and let me follow her out of the door, through the presence chamber and into Elizabeth’s private rooms.

There was a heavy damask curtain over the door to shut out the noise from the presence chamber. There were matching curtains at the window, drawn tight against light and air. Only candles illuminated the room with their flickering light and showed the princess, red hair spread like a hemorrhage on the pillow, her face white.

At once I could see she was ill indeed. Her belly was as swollen as if she were pregnant but her hands as they lay on the embroidered coverlet were swollen too, the fingers fat and thick as if she were a gross old lady and not a girl of twenty. Her lovely face was puffy, even her neck was thick.

“What is the matter with her?” I demanded.

“Dropsy,” Mrs. Ashley replied. “Worse than she has ever had it before. She needs rest and peace.”

“My lady,” I breathed.

She raised her head and peered at me from under swollen eyelids. “Who?”

“The queen’s fool,” I said. “Hannah.”

She veiled her eyes. “A message?” she asked, her voice a thread.

“No,” I said quickly. “I am come to you from Queen Mary. She has sent me to be your companion.”