The steward looked bleakly at him. “It is his word against the duke’s.”

“I would have wagered my life on his honesty,” Tradescant said uncertainly.

The steward shook his head. “It was those two who spoke against our lord, and are imprisoned for it. And now the king has them in the Tower and they’re not to be released.”

“But what are the charges?”

“None. There are no charges – except that they spoke against the duke.”

John took a swift stride to the window and looked out at the terraces below: the golden terrace with the goldfish, the silver beneath, and the dappled trout ponds at the lowest level.

“They are men you could trust with anything,” he said softly. “If it was any other cause I would be with them.”

The steward said nothing.

When Tradescant turned back his face was very grave. “This is a bad business. No one can call Sir Dudley a liar. But no one can say that my duke did – all these things that they say he did.”

The steward looked at him closely. “You were there. At the king’s death. You must have seen.”

“I saw nothing,” John answered swiftly. “I saw nothing but my lord watching and waking with his master. The prince was there; do they say he killed his own father? The Bishop of Lincoln was there. Do they say he did it too?”

“The Villiers mother was there,” William Ward remarked. “And the doctors were dismissed.”

John looked at him, baffled. “We have to trust him,” he said stoutly, but it sounded more like an appeal. “He’s our master. We are sworn to be his men. We have to trust him until we have absolute evidence that he has gone against the king or against the word of God itself. We can’t give ourselves as his men and then take ourselves back again when his star is coming down. I am his man through good and bad times. I have eaten his bread.”

William Ward nodded. “At least the duke is to come home for a few days. He writes me that he will stay and then go on to the New Forest for hunting with the king.”

Tradescant nodded. “They’re going hunting? But what about the parliament? The king only just called it.”

“Dissolved,” Mr. Ward said shortly. “It’s only the king’s second parliament and it’s broken up with no agreement at all. No money voted, no policy decided. The king will rule with the duke alone, but without Parliament. But how is he to raise money to pay for anything? What will the country think of him?”

“What will they do?” Tradescant wondered. “How will they manage? They are both such young men – and they have such enemies ranged against them abroad and…”

The steward shrugged slightly. “It is a dangerous road that they tread,” he said. “God save them both.”

That summer there was a meteor clearly seen for night after night, which burned very low and bright in the sky. You could see it most easily after sunset when the sky was still pearly before the stars shone out. It stood alone then, and its hair burned yellow with fire. Everyone knew that it was a sign, and most thought it was a warning. The plague had not eased, the new French queen was proving barren, and besides there were whispers that she could not tolerate the king. There had been fierce quarrels and shouting behind closed doors. The duke had been everywhere in the marriage, intervening, advising, even reprimanding Her Majesty. Now, it was said, she could not bear the sight of him, and she was never admitted to see her husband without the duke present.

The meteor was visible from New Hall, and in the village of Chorley they thought it was a sign of sins seeking the sinner out. The golden trail behind the meteor was said to be a certain sign of poison, poison somewhere in the land. John Tradescant, who had a hatred of superstition, snapped at J, and said that the meteor was a star fallen out of its place and that it meant nothing – it meant nothing to men of any sense. But he never saw it without crossing his fingers in his pocket, and whispering to himself: “God save the king! God save the duke!”

In July matters came to a head in the royal marriage. The king ordered the queen’s French attendants out of his house and out of the country, and forcibly installed Buckingham’s wife and sister in her household to take their place as the first ladies of the English court. John, watching the massive new fountains being installed at New Hall, found J by his side.

“Father, why can the king not live happily with his wife?” he asked him. “In the kitchen they are saying that he attacked her and that she screamed from the window for her priests and her ladies, and that the duke, our duke, threatened her that she could be beheaded for treason.”

John took J firmly by the shoulder and marched him away from the workmen. “That’s tittle tattle,” he said sharply. “Women’s gossip. D’you want to be an old beldame at the fireside?”

“I just want to understand,” J said quickly. His father’s face was dark with anger; he saw that he had gone too far.

“Understand what?”

J hesitated. “I want to know why you follow the duke above all else,” he said in a sudden rush. “Why you leave me, and leave Mother, and sometimes we don’t see you for months. I want to know what hold he has over you. What hold he has over the king?”

John was thoughtful for a moment; then he turned his son and walked beside him, his arm laid heavily on the young slim shoulders. “I love him as a master,” he said. “Set above me by God to guide me and command me. I am his vassal, d’you see? He asked me to be his man and I consented. That means that I am bound to him till death, or until he releases me. I didn’t go down on my knees and swear vassalship as I would have done in the old days but the thing is still the same. I am his man and he is my lord. That’s the bond between us.”

J nodded unwillingly.

“And I love him because of his beauty,” John said simply. “Whether he’s in white silk and showered with diamonds, or whether he’s dressed in brown for hunting, he is as lithe as a willow and as lovely” – he looked around the garden – “as one of my chestnut trees in blossom. He’s a rare rare thing, J. I have never seen his equal. He is as lovely as a woman and as brave as a knight in a story. He moves like a dancer and he rides like a devil, and he makes me laugh when we are together, and he grieves me every day we are apart. He is my lord. There is none like him.”

“D’you love him more than us?” J asked, going to the heart of the question.

“I love him differently.” John avoided the truth. “I love you and your mother as my own dear kin. I love my lord as I love the angels above him and my God above them.”

“Do you never wonder,” J asked spitefully from the depths of his hurt, “do you never wonder that your love might be misplaced? That your lord, just below the angels, might be what they call him in the marketplace? A false friend, a thief, a spy, a papist, a murderer… a sodomite?”

John whirled and smacked his son, a ringing blow which sent the youth sprawling, and then stood over him with his fists clenched, ready to hit him again should he come up fighting. “How dare you!”

J struggled backward, away from his furious father. “I…”

“How dare you insult the man whose bread you eat? Who has put food on our table? How dare you repeat the dirt of the streets in his very garden? I should whip you for this, John. You are a graceless, dirty boy. Your learning was wasted on you if it has taught you wicked thoughts.”

J struggled to his feet and faced his father, his cheek blazing with John’s handprint. “I want to think for myself!” he cried out. “I don’t want a lord to follow, I don’t want to have to shut my ears to the things that everyone is saying. I want to find my own way.”

“You will find your own way to hell,” John said bitterly. And he turned on his heel and left his son without another word.