I can hardly bring myself to say it. “We have to take Queen Mary back to Tutbury. The queen’s orders. She thinks we cannot be trusted to keep her here. She says that we are unreliable. She suspects me.” The words hurt me even to say them. “Suspects me. Me.”

“What of?”

Her words are like a knife. I don’t even correct her speech: I am beyond improving her. “Cecil writes that they know the Northern lords met her. They know that they came and dined with us and stayed overnight. Their visit was not authorized and now he tells me that we should not have let them in. He says I am guilty of negligence, if not worse. He dares to say such a thing to me. He says that he knows I passed Norfolk’s letters to her and hers to him. He says I should not have done so. He all but accuses me of being hand in glove with Norfolk; he all but accuses me of plotting with him and with the Northern lords to set her free. He calls them traitors, condemned to death, and says I am in league with them.”

Bess gives a little hiss, like a snake.

“He all but says I am guilty of treason.” The terrible word drops between us like a falling axe.

She shakes her head. “No. He cannot say that we did not serve him. He was told. He knew everything that passed. We never gave her a letter that he didn’t see. She never spoke with anyone but we reported it to him.”

I am in such a hurry to confess my faults that I do not hear what she is telling me. “But Bess, you don’t know. There was a conspiracy. There is a conspiracy. Not against the queen, God forbid. But against Cecil. Norfolk and the rest of us lords joined together against Cecil.” I am so distraught I can hear my voice tremble and I can’t make it steady. “It was nothing to do with the Scots queen. It was about bringing Cecil down. They came to me, and I swore to act with them. I said I would join with them to bring down Cecil. Westmorland and Northumberland invited me to join with them. I agreed. I said that Cecil should be humbled.”

Her sharp dark eyes fasten accusingly on my face. “You plotted against Cecil!” she exclaims. “You didn’t tell me...”

“You know that I am no friend of his...”

“You can love him or you can hate him but don’t tell me you joined a plot against him!”

“You don’t understand.” I sound weak, even to my own ears.

“I know that one man rules England, one man advises the queen, and that man is Cecil. I know that my safety and your safety is that he must never doubt our loyalty to the queen and to him.”