“What are you doing?”

“Forcing it,” John said abruptly.

Beside the tub was a big half-barrel of daffodils that had been lifted from the orchard, their green shoots only just showing above the damp earth.

“We need an orangery,” John said. “We should have built one years ago.”

“We do,” J agreed. “But for delicate plants from abroad; not for daffodils and chestnut saplings. What are you doing with them?”

“I want to get them in flower,” John said. “As soon as I can force them.”

“Why?”

“To please your mother,” John said, telling only half the story.

Every night John banked in the fire so the plants were warm all night, every day he sprinkled them – three, four times a day – with warm water. In the evening he set candles around them to give them extra light and warmth. J would have laughed but there was something about his father’s intensity which puzzled him.

“Why d’you want them to bloom early?”

“I have my reasons,” John said.

John achieved his goal. When Elizabeth died in March, her room was filled with the golden light of dozens of daffodils, and the sweet scent of them perfumed her room. The very last thing she saw as her eyes wearily closed was John coming in the door, his face warm with a smile, and his hands filled with the exquisite pink and white pyramid blossoms of his chestnut trees.

“For you,” he said and bent and kissed her.

Elizabeth tried to say, “Thank you. I love you, John,” but the darkness was creeping in; and in any case, he knew.

After the funeral John moved back to the silk house at Oatlands for the rest of the season. He did not feel that he wanted to be at his home, without Elizabeth. At night he could not sleep; but he liked the warmth of the pretty wooden house, and there was something strangely comforting about the thought of the thousands of silkworms, sleeping in their little cocoons, next door, dreaming whatever dreams silkworms spin.

The queen had authorized the building of a coalhouse and a new and beautiful orangery, and John supervised the building in the short hours of springtime daylight. It was another light-timbered fanciful building like a little wooden palace. It went up quickly and John wrote to J, telling him to bring some citrus whips when he next came.

Apart from the building, there was little to do in the gardens in the cold spring days, but John liked to walk around and see that the streams and fountains were clear of leaves, and that the little green snouts of bulbs were pushing their way defiantly through the cold earth. When it was warmer he would plant a new bowling green for Their Majesties, and he watched the men digging, rolling and harrowing the earth until every smallest stone was gone and the ground was ready for the seed. They grumbled when he made them dig in the old rotted dung from the stables and then water it till it froze and melted and froze again, but John insisted that the ground be rich and smooth before the seed was scattered.

When the snowdrops were thick as ice under the trees, snow-white and green, John thought of his lord Buckingham, who had loved to see the first snowdrops at New Hall. But when the daffodils came through he thought of Elizabeth, who had died with their golden color all around her. There could be no doubt that Elizabeth had gone straight to heaven, he thought. She had lived a life which was as blameless as any woman’s, and she had died surrounded by that golden blaze of glory. At least he had been able to give her that.

As for the duke, it was impossible that there could be a God who loved beauty who could resist him. The king himself loved him and prayed for his soul every day. John felt that the two people in the world that he had truly loved were at peace, and he found he could bear the short cold days and the long cold nights.

He was thinking of the two loves of his life – his passion for the duke and his steady reliable affection for Elizabeth – and watching the water in the fountain of the great court when a shadow fell on the basin of the fountain and he looked around. It was the king. John pulled his hat from his head and dropped to his knee on the cold stone.

“How many years is it now, since your master died?” the king asked abruptly. He did not look at John, but kept his gaze on the cold water in the marble basin.

“Five years and seven months,” John said instantly. “He died toward the end of summer.”

“You can get up,” the king said. He turned from the fountain and started to walk down the path, a small gesture that commanded John to follow him.

“I don’t think a man like that can ever be r… r… replaced,” the king said, half to himself. “Not in a king’s council, not in the heart.”

John felt the usual dull ache at the thought of Buckingham.

“And a woman’s love is not the same,” the king remarked. “To please a woman you have to try and keep trying, and women are changeable: first one thing pleases them, then another. But a man’s love is easier, s… steadier. When George and I were young men we spent whole days thinking of nothing but hunting and play. The king used to call us his dear l… l… lads.”

John nodded. The king paused and abruptly turned to him. “Did you ever see my brother Henry?”

“Yes,” John said. “I was gardener at Theobalds, and then for my lord Cecil at Hatfield. I saw Prince Henry and King James often; I remember you too, Your Majesty.”

“Do you think he was like the D… Duke of Buckingham? My brother? In his ways?”

John thought. They had the same arrogance, the same easy smile. They had the same sense that the world was half in love with them and that all they had to do was to accept homage.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “The prince was like the duke in many ways. But the duke had…” He broke off.

“What?”

“The duke had that shining beauty,” John said. “The prince was a handsome boy, as handsome as any. But the duke was as beautiful as an angel.”

Charles suddenly smiled, his grave face warming. “He was, wasn’t he?” he said. “It’s so easy to f… forget. All the portraits I have of him show his beauty, but all p… portraits are beautiful even when the sitters are plain. It’s good to know that you keep a picture of him in your heart, Tradescant.”

“I do,” John said simply. “I see him night and day. And sometimes I dream of him.”

“As if he w… w… were alive?”

John nodded. “I can never remember in my dreams that he is dead,” he confessed. “And sometimes I wake and think he is calling for me, and I jump from my bed as if I were a young man and in a hurry to go to him.”

“The queen didn’t l… like him,” the king said thoughtfully.

Tradescant tactfully said nothing.

“She was jealous.”

Tradescant gave a little nod. The king glanced at him. “Was your wife jealous of your love for your lord?”

Tradescant thought of Elizabeth and her long enmity for the duke and all he stood for: luxury, popery, waste and carnal sin.

“Oh, yes,” he said with a smile. “But women were always besotted with him or his worst enemy, or both.”

The king laughed shortly. “It’s true. He was a l… lamentable man with women.”

The gardener and the king smiled at one another, the king looking into Tradescant’s face for the first time.

“D’you have any of his things at your Ark?” the king asked.

“Some plants from the garden at New Hall, and a couple of rarities from the Ile de Rhé,” Tradescant replied carefully, conscious of the danger of this conversation. “He gave me some things from his own collection of rarities. Anything he did not need, anything he already had. I was collecting for him for many years.”

“I’ll come and see it,” the king said. “I’ll bring the queen. I have some things you might l… like, some gloves and things.”