"To discover who else is in the plot?"

"To get him to name the Princess Elizabeth."

Lord Robert pushed his fists on either side of the window frame, as if he would stretch the stone wide and fly free. "They have evidence against her?"

"Enough," I said acerbically. "The queen is on her knees right now, praying for guidance. If she decides that it is G.o.d's will that she should sacrifice Elizabeth, she has more than enough evidence."

"And Jane?"

"The queen is fighting to save her. She has asked Jane to be taught the true faith. She is hoping that she will recant and then she can be forgiven."

He laughed shortly. "The true faith is it, Mistress Boy?"

I flushed scarlet. "My lord, it's only how everyone talks at court now."

"And you with them, my little conversa, my nueva cristiana?"

"Yes, my lord," I said steadily, meeting his eyes.

"What a bargain to put before a sixteen-year-old girl," he said. "Poor Jane. Her faith or death. Does the queen want to make a martyr of her cousin?"

"She wants to make converts," I said. "She wants to save Jane from death and from d.a.m.nation."

"And me?" he asked quietly. "Am I to be saved, or am I a brand for the burning, d'you think?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, my lord. But if Queen Mary follows the advice she is given, then every man whose loyalty is questionable will be hanged. Already the soldiers who fought in the rebellion are on the scaffolds at every corner."

"Then I had better read these books quickly," he said dryly. "Perhaps a light will dawn for me. What d'you think, Mistress Boy? Did a light dawn for you? You and the true faith, as you call it?"

There was a hammering on the door and the guard swung the door open. "Is the fool to leave?"

"In a moment," Lord Robert said hastily. "I haven't paid him yet. Give me a moment."

The guard glared at us both suspiciously, shut the door and locked it again. There was a brief painful second of silence.

"My lord," I burst out, "do not torment me. I am as I always was. I am yours."

He took a breath. Then he managed to smile. "Mistress Boy, I am a dead man," he said simply. "You should mourn me and then forget me. Thank G.o.d you are not the poorer for knowing me. I have placed you as a favorite in the court of the winning side. I have done you a favor, my little lad. I am glad I did it."

"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 G.o.d."

"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 va.s.sal, 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 Ma.s.s four times a day I dropped down to my knees and prayed in earnest that the G.o.d 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 Ma.s.s and breakfast, Queen Mary walked by the side of the river, her cold hands dug deep in her m.u.f.f, 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 b.u.mped 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 pet.i.tioners, 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 pa.s.s through crowds of tearstained women every time she went to Ma.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 G.o.d. Pray with her."

"Anything else?" My voice was a thread of sound. The queen had to lean forward to hear me.

"Spy on her," she said flatly. "Everything she does, everyone she sees, everyone in that household of hers who are all heretics and liars, every one. Every name you hear mentioned, every friend they hold dear. Write to me every day and tell me what you have learned. I have to know if she is plotting against me. I have to have evidence."

I clasped my hands tight around my knees and felt the tremble in my legs and the quiver in my fingers. "I cannot be a spy," I breathed. "I cannot betray a young woman to her death."

"You have no other master now," she reminded me gently. "Northumberland is dead and Robert Dudley in the Tower. What else can you do but my bidding?"

"I am a fool, not a spy," I said. "I am your fool, not your spy."

"You are my fool and you shall give me the gift of your counsel," she ordered. "And I say, go to Elizabeth, serve her as you serve me, and report to me everything you see and hear, but more importantly wait for your gift to speak. I think you will see through her lies and be able to tell me what is in her heart."

"But if she is sick and dying..."

For a moment the hard lines around her mouth and eyes softened. "If she dies then I will have lost my only sister," she said bleakly. "I will have sent inquisitors to her when I should have gone myself and held her in my arms. I don't forget that she was a baby when I first cared for her, I don't forget that she learned to walk holding on to my fingers." She paused for a moment, smiling at the thought of those fat little hands clutching at her for support, and then she shook her head, as if she would dismiss the love she had for that little red-headed toddler.

"It comes too pat," she said simply. "Tom Wyatt is arrested, his army fails, and Elizabeth takes to her bed too ill to write, too ill to reply to me, too ill to come to London. She is as ill as she was when Jane was put on the throne and I wanted her at my side. She is always ill when there is danger. She has been plotting against me and she has suffered nothing but a reverse; not a change of heart. I have to know if she and I can live together as queen and heir, as sisters; or that the worst has come to me and she is my enemy and will stop at nothing till my death." She turned her dark honest gaze back to me. "You can tell me that," she said. "It is no dishonor to warn me if she hates me and would have me dead. You can bring her to London, or write to me that she is indeed ill. You shall be my eyes and ears at her bedside and G.o.d will guide you."

I surrendered to her conviction. "When do I leave?"

"Tomorrow at dawn," the queen said. "You can visit your father tonight if you wish, you need not come to dinner."

I rose to my feet and gave her a little bow. She put out her hand to me. "Hannah," she said quietly.

"Yes, Your Grace?"

"I wish you could see into her heart and see that she is able to love me, and able to turn to the true faith."

"I hope I see that too," I said fervently.

Her mouth was working, holding back tears. "But if she is faithless, you must tell me, even though it will break my heart."

"I will."

"If she can be saved then we could rule together. She could be my sister at my side, the first of my subjects, the girl who is to come after me."

"Please G.o.d." "Amen," she said quietly. "I miss her. I want her safe with me. Amen."

I sent a message to tell my father that I would come to visit him, and that I would bring our dinner. As I tapped on the door I saw that he was working late, the illuminated printing room was bright at the rear of the dark shop. The light poured into the shop when he opened the press room door and came out, holding his candle high.

"Hannah! Mi querida!"

In a moment he had the bolt shot aside and I tumbled in, setting down my basket of food to hug him and then kneeling before him for his blessing.

"I brought you dinner from the palace," I said.

He chuckled. "A treat! I shall eat like a queen."

"She eats very badly," I said. "She's not a good doer at all. You should eat like a councillor if you want to grow fat."

He pushed the door shut behind me, turned his head and shouted toward the print room. "Daniel! She is here!"

"Is Daniel here?" I asked nervously.

"He came to help me set some text for a medical book, and when I said that you were coming, he stayed on," my father said happily.

"There isn't enough for him," I said ungraciously. I had not forgotten that we had parted on a quarrel.

My father smiled at my petulance but said nothing as the door of the print room opened and Daniel came out, wearing an ap.r.o.n over his black breeches, the front bib stained with black ink, his hands dirty.

"Good evening," I said, unsmiling.

"Good evening," he replied.

"Now!" my father said in pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of his dinner. He drew three high stools up to the counter as Daniel went out to the yard to wash his hands. I unpacked the basket. A venison pasty, a loaf of manchet bread still warm from the oven, a couple of slices of beef carved from the spit and wrapped in muslin, and half a dozen slender roasted chops of lamb. Two bottles of good red wine had gone into my basket from the queen's own cellar. I had brought no vegetables; but from the sweet kitchen I had stolen a bowl of syllabub. We put the syllabub with cream to one side to eat later, and spread the rest of the feast on the table. My father opened the wine as I fetched three tankards from the cupboard under the counter and a couple of horn-handled knives.

"So, what news?" my father asked as we started to eat.

"I am to go to Princess Elizabeth. She is said to be sick. The queen wants me to be her companion."

Daniel looked up, but said nothing.

"Where is she?" my father asked.

"At her house at Ashridge."