They arrive at midday, the two lords who will take her from me, rattling into the courtyard, preceded by their own guards. I find a bitter smile. They will learn how expensive these guards are to keep: fed and watered and watched against bribery. They will learn how she cannot be guarded, whatever they pay. What man could resist her? What man could refuse her the right to ride out once a day? What man could stop her smiling at her guardian? What power could stop a young soldier’s heart turning over in his chest when she greets him?

I go to meet them, shamed by their presence, and ashamed of the dirty little courtyard, and then I recoil, recognizing their standards and seeing the men that Cecil has chosen to replace me to guard this young woman. Dear God, whatever it costs me, I cannot release her to them. I must refuse.

“My lords,” I stammer, horror making me slow of speech. Cecil has sent Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon, and Walter Devereux, the Earl of Hereford, as her kidnappers. He might as well have sent a pair of Italian assassins with poisoned gloves.

“I am sorry for this, Talbot,” Huntingdon says bluntly as he swings down from his saddle with a grunt of discomfort. “All hell is on in London. There is no telling what will happen.”

“All hell?” I repeat. I am thinking quickly if I can say that she is ill or if I dare send her back in secret to Wingfield. How can I protect her from them?

“The queen has moved to Windsor for safety and has armed the castle for siege. She is calling all the lords of England to court, all of them suspected of ill-doing. You too. I am sorry. You are to attend at once, after you have helped us move your prisoner to Leicestershire.”

“Prisoner?” I look at Hastings’ hard face. “To your house?”

“She is no longer a guest,” Devereux says coldly. “She is a prisoner. She is suspected of plotting treason with the Duke of Norfolk. We want her somewhere that we can keep her confined. A prison.”

I look around at the cramped courtyard, at the one gate with the portcullis, at the moat and the one road leading up the hill. “More confined than this?”

Devereux laughs shortly and says, almost to himself, “Preferably a bottomless pit.”

“Your household has proved itself unreliable,” Hastings says flatly. “Even if you are not. Nothing proven. Nothing stated against you, at any rate not yet. Talbot, I am sorry. We don’t know how far the rot has gone. We can’t tell who are the traitors. We have to be on guard.”