I said nothing but she understood the rise of color in my cheeks. “I don’t know how he can bear it,” she said, her voice low, weaving a spell around me. “Poor Robert, waiting and waiting in the Tower and never knowing what the future will bring. If he knew that Mary would be on the throne for the next twenty years and her son after her, don’t you think he would sue for his freedom and set himself at liberty again? His lands want him, his people need him, he’s a man that needs the earth under his boots and the wind in his face. He’s not a man to be mewed up like a hooded hawk for half of his life.”

“If he knew for certain that the queen would have a son, would he be able to get free?”

“If a prince was born to her she would release most of them in the Tower for she would know that she was safe on the throne. We would all give up.”

I hesitated no longer. “I’ll do it,” I said.

Elizabeth nodded calmly. “You need an inner room, don’t you?” she asked John Dee.

“Lit with candles,” he said. “And a mirror, and a table covered with a linen cloth. There should be more, but we’ll do what we can.”

Elizabeth went into her privy chamber beyond the audience room and we heard her drawing the curtains and pulling a table before the fireplace. John Dee set out his astronomical charts on her desk; when she came back he had drawn a line through the queen’s date of birth and the date of birth of the king.

“Their marriage was in Libra,” he said. “It is a partnership of deep love.”

I looked quickly at Elizabeth’s face but she was not scoffing, thinking of her triumph over her sister in her flirtation with Philip, she was too serious for her petty triumphs now.

“Will it be fruitful?” she asked.

He drew a line across the thin columns of dizzying numbers. He drew another downward, and where the lines intersected he leaned forward to read the number.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But I can’t be sure. There will be two pregnancies.”

Elizabeth drew a little gasp like the hiss of a cat. “Two? Live births?”

John Dee consulted the number again and then another set of numbers at the foot of the scroll. “It is very obscure.”

Elizabeth held herself very still, there was no outward sign of her desperation to know.

“So who will inherit the throne?” she asked tightly.

John Dee drew another line, this time horizontally, across the columns. “It should be you,” he said.

“Yes, I know it should be me,” Elizabeth said, reining in her impatience. “I am the heir now, if I am not overthrown. But will it be me?”

He leaned back, away from the pages. “I am sorry, Princess. It is too unclear. The love that she bears him and her desire for a child obscures everything. I have never seen a woman love a man more, I have never seen a woman long more intensely for a child. Her desire is in every symbol of the table, it is almost as if she could wish a child into being.”

Elizabeth, her face like a beautiful mask, nodded. “I see. Would you be able to see more if Hannah would scry for you?”

John Dee turned to me. “Will you try, Hannah? And see what we can learn? It is God’s work, remember, we will be seeking the advice of angels.”

“I’ll try,” I said. I was not very eager to enter the darkened room, and look in the shadowy mirror. But the thought of bringing Lord Robert the news that might release him, of bringing the queen the news that might give her the greatest joy since her coming to the throne, was a great temptation for me.

I went into the room. The candle flames were bobbing either side of a golden mirror. The table was covered with a white linen cloth. As I watched, John Dee drew a five-sided star on the linen with a dark spluttery pen, and then symbols of power at each corner.

“Keep the door shut,” he said to Elizabeth. “I don’t know how long we will be.”

“Can’t I be inside?” she said. “I won’t speak.”

He shook his head. “Princess, you don’t have to speak, you have all the presence of a queen. This has to be just Hannah and me, and the angels if they will come to us.”

“But you will tell me everything,” she urged him. “Not just the things you think I should know. You will tell me all that there is?”

He nodded and shut the door on her eager face and then turned back to me. He pulled a stool before the mirror and seated me gently, looking over my head to my reflection in the mirror. “You are willing?” he confirmed.

“I am,” I said seriously.

“It is a great gift that you have,” he said quietly. “I would give all my learning to be able to do it.”

“I just wish there could be a resolution,” I said. “I wish Elizabeth might have her throne and yet the queen keep it. I wish the queen might have her son and Elizabeth not be disinherited. I wish with all my heart that Lord Robert might be free and yet not plot against the queen. I wish I could be here and yet be with my father.”

He smiled. “You and I are the most unhelpful of conspirators,” he said gently. “For I don’t mind which queen is on the throne as long as she will allow the people to follow their faith. And I want the libraries restored and learning allowed, and for this country to explore the seas and spread outward and outward to the new lands to the west.”

“But how will this work bring it about?” I asked.

“We will know what the angels advise,” he said quietly. “There could be no better guide for us.”

John Dee stepped back from the mirror and I heard his quiet voice pray in Latin that we should do the work of God and that the angels would come to us. I said “Amen,” heartfelt, and then waited.

It seemed to take a very long time. I saw the candles reflected in the mirror, the darkness around them became darker and they seemed to grow more bright. Then I saw that at the core of every candle there was a halo of darkness, and inside the halo of darkness there was the black wick of the candle and a little haze around it. I grew so fascinated with this anatomy of flame that I could not remember what I should be doing, I just stared and stared into the moving lights until I felt that I had fallen asleep, and then John Dee’s hand was gentle on my shoulder and I heard his voice in my ear saying: “Drink this, child.”

It was a cup of warm ale and I sat back on my stool and sipped it, conscious of a heaviness behind my eyes and weariness, as if I were ill.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“D’you remember nothing?” he asked curiously.

I shook my head. “I just watched the flame and then fell asleep.”

“You spoke,” he said quietly. “You spoke in a language I could not understand, but I think it was the language of angels. God be praised, I think you spoke to them in their language. I copied it down as best I could, I will try to translate it… if it is the key to speaking to God!” He broke off.

“Did I say nothing that you could understand now?” I asked, still bemused.

“I questioned you in English and you answered in Spanish,” he said. He saw the alarm in my face. “It’s all right,” he said. “Whatever secrets you have, they are safe. You said nothing that could not be heard by anyone. But you told me about the queen and the princess.”

“What did I say?” I demanded.

He hesitated. “Child, if the angel who guides you wanted you to know what words were spoken then he would have let you speak them in your waking state.”

I nodded.

“He did not. Perhaps it is better that you do not know.”

“But what am I to tell Lord Robert when I see him?” I demanded. “And what can I say to the queen about her baby?”

“You can tell Lord Robert that he will be free within two years,” John Dee said firmly. “And there will be a moment when he thinks everything is lost, once more, at the very moment everything is just starting for him. He must not despair then. And you must bid the queen to hope. If any woman in the world could be granted a baby because she would be a good mother, because she loved the father, and because she desired a child, it would be this queen. But whether she will have a son in her womb as well as her heart, I cannot tell you. Whether she will have a child from this birth or not, I cannot tell you.”

I got to my feet. “I shall go then,” I said. “I have to take the horse back. But, Mr. Dee-”

“Yes?”

“What about the Princess Elizabeth? Will she inherit the throne as her own?”

He smiled at me. “Do you remember what we saw when we first scried?”

I nodded.

“You said that there will be a child but no child, I think that is the queen’s first baby which should have been born but still has not come. You said that there will be a king, but no king – I think that is this Philip of Spain whom we call king but who is not and never will be king of England. Then you said there will be a virgin queen all-forgotten, and a queen but no virgin.”

“Is that Queen Jane, who was a virgin queen and now everyone has forgotten her, and now Mary who called herself a virgin and is now a married queen?” I asked.

He nodded. “Perhaps. I think the princess’s hour will come. There was more, but I cannot reveal it to you. Go now.”

I nodded and went from the room. As I closed the door behind me I saw his dark absorbed face in the mirror as he leaned forward to blow out the candles and I wondered what else he had heard me say when I had been in my tranced sleep.

“What did you see?” Elizabeth demanded impatiently the moment I closed the door.

“Nothing!” I said. I could almost have laughed at the expression on her face. “You will have to ask Mr. Dee. I saw nothing, it was just like falling asleep.”

“But did you speak, or did he see anything?”

“Princess, I cannot tell,” I said, moving toward the door and pausing only to drop her a little bow. “I have to take my horse back to the stable or they will miss her, and start to look for me.”