Besides, I had no time to think about Daniel, or about my future. The messenger from London had brought papers for Elizabeth as well as me. When I entered her rooms I found her wound up to breaking pitch at the prospect of her sister’s marriage, and her own disinheritance. She was stalking the room like a furious cat. She had received a cold message from the queen’s chamberlain that Philip of Spain had left his country and was sailing for his new home of England, that the court would meet him at Winchester – but Elizabeth herself was not invited. And – as if to add insult to Elizabeth’s hurt pride – she was to send me to join the queen and the court at once, on receipt of these orders. The fool was valued more than the princess. My service to Elizabeth was to be put aside, I imagined that it would be forgotten as Elizabeth was currently forgotten.

“This is to insult me,” she spat.

“It will not be the queen’s doing,” I said, soothingly. “It will just be the gathering of her court.”

“I am part of her court!”

I said nothing, diplomatically silent about the numbers of times that Elizabeth had refused to join the court, feigning ill health or demanding a delay, because she had her own reasons to stay at her home.

“She does not dare to meet Philip of Spain with me at her side!” she said crudely. “She knows he will look from the old queen to the young princess and prefer me!”

I did not correct her. No one would have looked at Elizabeth with desire at the moment, she was bloated with her illness again, and her eyes were raw and red. Only anger was keeping her on her feet.

“He is betrothed to her,” I said quietly. “It’s not a matter of desire.”

“She cannot leave me here to rot my life away! I will die here, Hannah! I have been sick near to death and there is no one to care for me, she won’t send me doctors, she is hoping I will die!”

“I am sure she will not…”

“Then why am I not summoned to court?”

I shook my head. The argument was as circular as Elizabeth’s furious pace around the room. Suddenly she stopped, put her hand to her heart.

“I am ill,” she said, her voice very low. “My heart flutters with anxiety and I have been so sick I cannot get out of bed in the morning. Really, Hannah, even when there is no one watching. I cannot endure this, I cannot go on like this. Every day I think to have the news that she has decided to have me executed. Every morning I wake thinking that the soldiers will come for me. How long can I live like this, d’you think, Hannah? I am a young woman, I am only twenty! I should be looking forward to a feast at court to celebrate my coming of age, I should have presents and gifts. I should have been betrothed by now! How can I be expected to bear such continuous fear? Nobody knows what it is like.”

I nodded. The only one who could have understood was the queen; for she too had once been the heir that everyone hated. But Elizabeth had thrown away the love of the queen and she would have trouble in finding it again.

“Sit down,” I said gently. “I will fetch you some small ale.”

“I don’t want small ale,” she said crossly, though her legs buckled beneath her. “I want my place at court. I want my freedom.”

“It will come.” I fetched a jug and a cup from the sideboard and poured her a drink. She sipped it and then looked at me.

“It’s all right for you,” she said nastily. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re not even my servant. You can come and go as you please. She wants you at her side. You will be able to see all your grand friends again when you meet them at Winchester for the wedding feast. No doubt they will have a new doublet and hose for you – the pet hermaphrodite. No doubt you will be in the queen’s train.”

“Perhaps.”

“Hannah, you can’t leave me,” she said flatly.

“Lady Elizabeth, I have to go, the queen commands me.”

“She said you were to be my companion.”

“And now she says I am to leave.”

“Hannah!” She broke off, near to tears.

Slowly, I knelt at her feet and looked up into her face. Elizabeth was always such a mixture of raging emotion and calculation that I could rarely take her measure. “My lady?”

“Hannah, I have no one here but you and Kat and that idiot Sir Henry. I am a young woman, I am at my peak of beauty and wit and I live alone, a prisoner, with no companion but a nursemaid, a fool and an idiot.”

“Then you will hardly miss the fool,” I said dryly.

I meant to make her laugh but when she looked at me her eyes were filled with tears. “I will miss the fool,” she said. “I have no one to be my friend, I have no one to talk to. I have no one to care for me.”

She rose to her feet. “Walk with me,” she commanded.

We went through the ramshackle palace and through the door which hung, half off its hinges, into the garden. She leaned on me and I felt her weakness. The grass was sprawled over the path, there were nettles thrusting up in all the ditches. Elizabeth and I made our way through the ruin of the garden like two old women, clinging to each other. For a moment I thought that her fears were true: that this imprisonment would be the death of her, even if the queen did not send for the executioner and his ax. We went through the swinging gate and into the orchard. The petals from the blossom were spilled over the grass like snow, the boughs leaned down with their creamy weight. Elizabeth looked around the orchard before she put her hand in my arm and drew me to her.

“I am ruined,” she said softly. “If she bears a son to him, I am ruined.” She turned from me and walked across the grass, her shabby black gown brushing the damp petals which clung to the hem. “A son,” she muttered, cautious even in her chagrin to keep her voice low. “A damned Spanish son. A damned Catholic Spanish son. And England an outpost of the Spanish empire, England, my England, a cat’s-paw of Spanish policy. And the priests back, and the burnings beginning, and my father’s faith and my father’s legacy torn out of English earth before it has time to flower. Damn her. Damn her to hell and her misconceived child with her.”

“Lady Elizabeth!” I exclaimed. “Don’t say that!”

She rounded on me, her hands up, her fists clenched. If I had been closer, she would have hit me. She was in such a passion she was beyond knowing what she was doing. “Damn her, and damn you too for standing her friend.”

“You must have thought it might happen,” I started. “The marriage was agreed, he would not delay for ever…”

“Why would I think that she would marry?” she snapped. “Who would have her? Old and plain, named as a bastard for half her life, half the princes of Europe have refused her already. If it was not for her damned Spanish blood, Philip would never have had her. He must have begged to be excused. He must have gone down on his knees and prayed for any fate rather than to be forced to stick it up that old dried-up virgin.”

“Elizabeth!” I exclaimed, I was genuinely shocked.

“What?” Her eyes were blazing with temper. For a moment I believed that she did not know what she was saying. “What’s wrong with telling the truth? He is a young handsome man who will inherit half of Europe, she is a woman old before her time and old enough anyway. It is disgusting to think of them rutting together like a young piglet on an old sow. It is an abomination. And if she is like her mother she will bear nothing but dead babies.”

I put my hands over my ears. “You are offensive,” I said frankly.

Elizabeth whirled on me. “And you are unfaithful!” she shouted. “You should be my friend, and stand my friend whatever else happens, whatever I say. You were begged to me as a fool, you should be mine. And I say nothing but the truth. I would be ashamed to chase after a young man like her. I would rather die than court a man young enough to be my son. I would rather die now than get to her age and be an unwanted old maid, good for nothing, pleasing to nobody, useless!”