While the long negotiations about the marriage went on between the queen’s council, sick with apprehension at the thought of a Spaniard on the throne of England, and the Spanish representatives, eager to add another kingdom to their sprawling empire, I found my way to the home of John Dee’s father. It was a small house near the river in the city. I tapped on the door and for a moment no-one answered. Then a window above the front door opened and someone shouted down: ‘Who is it?’

      ‘I seek Roland Dee,’ I called up. The little roof over the front door concealed me; he could hear my voice, but not see me.

      ‘He’s not here,’ John Dee called back.

      ‘Mr Dee, it is me. Hannah the Fool,’ I called up. ‘I was looking for you.’

      ‘Hush,’ he said quickly and slammed the casement window shut. I heard his feet echoing on the wooden stairs inside the house and the noise of the bolts being drawn, and then the door opened inward to a dark hall. ‘Come in quickly,’ he said.

      I squeezed through the gap and he slammed the door shut and bolted it. We stood face to face inside the dark hallway in silence. I was about to speak but he put a hand on my arm to caution me to be silent. At once I froze. Outside I could hear the normal noises of the London street, people walking by, a few tradesmen calling out, street sellers offering their wares, the distant shout from someone unloading at the river.

      ‘Did anyone follow you? Did you tell anyone you were looking for me?’

      My heart thudded at the question. I felt my hand go to my cheek as if to rub off a smut. ‘Why? What has happened?’

      ‘Could anyone have followed you?’

      I tried to think, but I was aware only of the thudding of my frightened heart. ‘No, sir. I don’t think so.’

      John Dee nodded, and then he turned and went upstairs without a word to me. I hesitated, and then I followed him. For a groat I would have slipped out of the back door and run to my father’s house and never seen him again.

      At the top of the stairs the door was open and he beckoned me into his room. At the window was his desk with a beautiful strange brass instrument in pride of place. To the side was a big scrubbed oak table, spread with his papers, rulers, pencils, pens, ink pots and scrolls of paper covered with minute writing and many numbers.

      I could not satisfy my curiosity until I knew that I was safe. ‘Are you a wanted man, Mr Dee? Should I go?’

      He smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m over-cautious,’ he said frankly. ‘My father was taken up for questioning but he is a known member of a reading group – Protestant thinkers. No-one has anything against me. I was just startled when I saw you.’

      ‘You are sure?’ I pressed him.

      He gave a little laugh. ‘Hannah, you are like a young doe on the edge of flight. Be calm. You are safe here.’

      I steadied myself and started to look around. He saw my gaze go back to the instrument at the window.

      ‘What d’you think that is?’ he asked.

      I shook my head. It was a beautiful thing, not an instrument I could recognise. It was made in brass, a ball as big as a pigeon’s egg in the centre on a stalk, around it a brass ring cunningly supported by two other stalks which meant it could swing and move, a ball sliding around on it. Outside there was another ring and another ball, outside that, another. They were a series of rings and balls and the furthest from the centre was the smallest.

      ‘This,’ he said softly, ‘is a model of the world. This is how the creator, the great master carpenter of the heavens, made the world and then set it in motion. This holds the secret of how God’s mind works.’ He leaned forward and gently touched the first ring. As if by magic they all started to move slowly, each going at its own pace, each following its own orbit, sometimes passing, sometimes overtaking each other. Only the little gold egg in the centre did not move, everything else swung around it.

      ‘Where is our world?’ I asked.

      He smiled at me. ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to the golden egg at the very centre of all the others. He pointed to the next ring with the slowly circling ball. ‘This the moon.’ He pointed to the next. ‘This the sun.’ He pointed to the next few. ‘These are the planets, and beyond them, these are the stars, and this –’ he gestured to a ring that was unlike all the others, a ring made of silver, which had moved at his first touch and made all the others move in time. ‘This is the primum mobile. It is God’s touch on the world symbolised by this ring that started the movement of everything, that made the world begin. This is the Word. This is the manifestation of “Let there be light”.’

      ‘Light,’ I repeated softly.

      He nodded. ‘“Let there be light”. If I knew what made this move, I would know the secret of all the movement of the heavens,’ he said. ‘In this model I can play the part of God. But in the real heavens, what is the force that makes the planets swing around, that makes the sun circle the earth?’

      He was waiting for me to answer, knowing that I could not, since nobody knew the answer. I shook my head, dizzied by the movement of the golden balls on their golden rings.

      He put a hand on it to steady it and I watched it slow and stop. ‘My friend, Gerard Mercator, made this for me when we were both students together. He will be a great map-maker one day, I know it. And I –’ He broke off. ‘I shall follow my path,’ he said. ‘Wherever it leads me. I have to be clear in my head and free from ambition and live in a country which is clear and free. I have to walk a clear path.’

      He paused for a moment and then, as if he suddenly remembered me, ‘And you? What did you come here for?’ he asked in quite a different tone of voice. ‘Why did you call for my father?’

      ‘I didn’t want him. I was looking for you. I only wanted to ask him where you were,’ I said. ‘They told me at the court that you had gone home to your father. I was seeking you. I have a message.’

      He was suddenly alight with eagerness. ‘A message? From who?’

      ‘From Lord Robert.’

      His face fell. ‘For a moment I thought an angel might have come to you with a message for me. What does Lord Robert want?’

      ‘He wants to know what will come to pass. He gave me two tasks. One, to tell Lady Elizabeth to seek you out and ask you to be her tutor, and the other to tell you