And a dozen laden carts, all gathered under a whelk-shell sky in the field beyond London Bridge. Seemed at first like an advance guard for the Queen, and it was only when I left the wherry that I marked the absence of flags, music or any hint of merriment. And saw that the shabby-clad man approaching me was Dudley. ‘Dr Dee.’ He shook my hand with formality. ‘Master Roberts. Remember me?’ First I’d seen of him since that night in my workroom. When I’d taken up his offer for me to lie at his house in Kew until our departure for Wales, he’d been absent the whole time. A bedchamber had been prepared for me and my meals made daily by the servants, while I spent long hours in solitary book-study. No one in the house appeared to know where Dudley had gone. Master Roberts? The name he’d been known by on our mission to Glastonbury at the end of the winter. An indication that discretion was to be exercised on this journey, for him if not for me, and yet… …Jesu.
