I swallow on a dry mouth. I feel like retching. “Us old lords—”

“Cocks on a dunghill,” she says, foulmouthed as the farmer’s daughter that she is. “Old cocks on an old dunghill.”

“Us old lords, the true lords of England, feel that Cecil is overreaching himself. We should advise the queen.”

“By putting the North into arms against her? By raising the east led by Norfolk? By calling out a rebellion of Papists? By overthrowing the safety and peace of the kingdom?”

“No, no,” I say hastily. “That was never the plan. They never spoke to me of anything about that. We wanted to put Cecil into the place where he should be: steward to the queen, not her chief advisor, not chief counselor to the throne. She should listen to her cousin; she should listen to us; she should be guided by us lords, the peers of the realm, the natural God-given leaders, the men that God has appointed to rule—”

Bess stamps her foot in temper. “You have ruined us with this folly,” she spits at me, shrill as a shrew. “I swear to God, my lord, you have judged most badly. You have overreached yourself. You may be able to tell the difference between supporting Howard and attacking Cecil, but Cecil will not. He will weave these single strands up into one thick rope of a plot and hang you all with it together.”

“You cannot know that.”

Her head rears up. “Of course I know it. Anyone of any sense would know it! I know him. I know how he thinks. He is the only man who knows what England can be, who plans for this country. He is the only one who thinks not of the old days but of what will be, who looks forward and not back. The queen is guided by him night and day. Who could ever be such a fool as to think that the queen would ever go against him? She never has done! She has never gone against his advice! She is his creature. It is Cecil who rules. She sits on the throne but the power is with Cecil.”

“Exactly!” I chime in. “He is overmighty.”

“Hear yourself! Yes! Think! You say it yourself! He is overmighty. So he is too mighty for you and those fools to pull down. Even acting together. And if he thinks you are against him he will destroy you. He will spin the queen a long yarn and hang the Northern lords for the treason of planning an uprising, punish Norfolk for the treason of this betrothal, and throw you into the Tower forever for being a part of both.”

“I knew nothing of either. All I joined with was a wish to see Cecil reduced. All I said was that I was with them to bring Cecil down.”