The sun is hot but the clearing is shaded by the fresh green leaves of the oak and beech trees, and the birds sing incessantly, as if they are a choir in harmony with the musicians who are hidden in the branches. The smell of woodsmoke and roasted meat mingles with the lush scent of crushed grass and herbs where the servants have spread carpets and rugs and cushions, so that we can sprawl at our leisure, and drink wine and tell stories and poems. Sometimes we sing together, old country songs, and sometimes Ned reads his poetry, but never “She stood in black,” which is for me, and is mine alone.

We are a court of young, beautiful people. The older wiser ones have no patience with all-day picnics when we do not get home until dusk, riding side by side, whispering promises. They are full of warnings about the careful work that William Cecil is doing in Edinburgh, and how it will all come to nothing if Elizabeth does not give England an heir to inherit the peace. But Elizabeth’s relief at the end of war with Scotland makes her giddy with joy. She is triumphant; she thinks winning the war makes her invulnerable. She is indiscreet; she thinks that the world is well lost for love. Even when the Privy Council warns that they have to slit the tongues of men and women up and down the country to stop them saying that she is Robert Dudley’s whore, she still leans from her bedroom window in the morning, half naked, and calls to Robert Dudley to come to her at once.

Everyone at court knows that they have adjoining bedrooms with only a door between them. They may go to their own rooms at night, but everyone believes that Robert Dudley’s valet stands outside his door all the night, because the Queen of England has crept through the hidden door and is inside. Even the country people, who should know nothing of the court, say that Elizabeth is besotted with her handsome master of horse, and many people think that they are married in secret already and that his poor wife, whatever her name is, will be put aside by order of the queen, just as her father, King Henry, put his wives aside to marry another.