My master pushed me up the grassy knoll on which the manor house stood. 'What is it?' I asked.

Benjamin pointed along the dusty trackway which led down to the main gates. 'Riders, Roger. And I think they are from dear Uncle.'

I shaded my eyes with my hand and saw the puffs of white dust, a small pennant snapping in the breeze, the bright jerkins of the horsemen and the rider in front clothed all in black. My heart sank. Dear Uncle was making his hand felt. If he was sending his personal secretary and adviser, the magician Doctor Agrippa, some bloody business was afoot.

We met the visitors in our large hall, freshly painted and wood-panelled with shields bearing the arms of Shallot and Daunbey along the wall. The riders, a group of Wolsey's mercenaries, dressed in the scarlet livery of the Cardinal, were taken off to the buttery to quench their thirst and ogle the maids.

Doctor Agrippa, dressed from head to toe in black leather, tapped his broad-brimmed hat against his leg, waiting for the servants to serve chilled white wine and sweetmeats. All the time he smiled and indulged in tittle-tattle, studying me with those cold, colourless eyes.

A strange man, Agrippa. I have mentioned him before. He was always cold and, whatever the heat, I never saw him perspire. He was a true magus. Yet, superficially, he looked like some benevolent village parson with his round cheery face sweet as a cherub's, neatly cut black hair, and that smile which failed to reach his eyes. He never grew old and, after Wolsey died, had the gift of appearing in the strangest places.

Raleigh once told me – yes, that freebooter is still at sea, financed by my gold – that he had seen Agrippa near Jamestown in Virginia. How he got to the New World God only knows! A spy reported he was in Madrid and, years later, when I was fleeing from Suleiman's stranglers. I caught a glimpse of his face in the crowd as I was being pursued through the filthy streets and alleys of Constantinople. I saw him at court once and, only fifteen years ago, he turned up at Burpham looking as young and fresh as he had in my youth. I asked him what the matter was. He only smiled and gave me warning that Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned at Fotheringay, was plotting Elizabeth's death. Then he disappeared.