“I am entirely at a loss,” I said, my faith in Weston cracking along with my own façade of self-assurance. I had not known what to expect, but certainly not this immediate attack from Lord Coke. “Richard Weston told me that Sir Thomas Overbury sent him out for beer at about six o’clock on the morning he died. Weston was not half an hour gone, but Overbury was dead when he returned,” I said with conviction, for this was indeed how my former servant had described it to me. “Weston believed that Sir Thomas had succumbed to illness, emetics, physick, or a combination of the three.”

“This matter is of the greatest urgency because it involves those close to the King.”

“It does? I have told you all I know,” I said.

Coke stared at me without blinking and water gathered in my mouth and down my throat, a prelude to vomiting. I would not swallow; he would know my guilt if I did. I calmly held his gaze, willing my eyes to speak of honesty. Not until my mouth near overflowed did he look away to nod at the alderman, who led me from the room to a small, wintry cell that smelt strongly of rust and wet stone. There was nothing in it but a truckle with a thin straw mattress, the barest of blankets and a bucket. The narrow window was unglazed and rain puddled on the floor below it.

“What are you doing? I cannot be here, what of my children? They have lost their father and will be mighty afraid, not knowing where I am. The Countess of Somerset awaits me…” The alderman ignored my mounting hysteria and left me, without candle or fire, closing the door behind him. When I heard the key turn in the lock, I sat for fear I would collapse.

I have been kept close prisoner ever since, over six weeks, seeing no one but the Lord Chief Justice and Alderman Smith. Enforced isolation can turn you somewhat mad; loneliness folds me in upon myself. The voices in my head grow so vile that I welcome even the company of my accusers.

That first day, I moved the hard truckle away from the rain that blew in with each gust. Outside there is a drop of thirty feet to the river and the echo of boatmen’s calls and shimmering reflections on bright days are the only life in the cell.