“Read this,” I say, thrusting it at him and climbing on the bed.

He takes the letter and breaks the seal. “What’s happening?”

“The messenger says that the lords of the North have their army and are on the march,” I say briefly. “They have declared war. They are coming here for her.”

He shoots a quick look at me and spreads the letter. “This is from Cecil. He says we are to get away south immediately. We have to take her to the castle at Coventry at once for safekeeping. He will command us from there. We have to get south before they rescue her. We must go at once.” He jumps from the bed. “Sound the alarm,” he says. “I shall have to rouse the guard and take her at once. And you go to her and tell her she has to make ready to leave at once.”

I pause at the doorway, struck by a bitter thought. “I wager she knows all about it,” I say suddenly. “They will have told her when they visited. When you let her talk with them in private. She will be in their confidence. She will have had secret letters. She has probably been waiting for them all this last week.”

“Just get her ready to leave.”

“What if she won’t go?”

“Then I will have to tie her to her horse,” he says. “An army of fifty could take this place in an hour. And half our servants would free her for love, and open the gates for her. If they set a siege we are lost.”

I am so glad to hear of his planned brutality to her that I am halfway out the door before the thought strikes me. “But wait, my lord. Wait! What if they win?”

He checks in his rapid dressing, the laces for his riding trousers in his hands. “If they win?”

“What if the army of the North takes and holds the North? What if Westmorland and Northumberland are victorious and march on London? What if the Spanish arrive to support them? What if Howard brings in the east of the country and the Cornish get up for the old religion, the Welsh too? What if they defeat Elizabeth, and we are imprisoning the future queen? What if you are tying the next Queen of England to her horse? Then we are traitors and will die in the Tower.”

My husband shakes his head, baffled. “I serve the queen,” he says flatly. “I have given my word as a Talbot. I have to do as my king commands. I don’t serve the side that I guess might win. I serve the king. Whatever it costs me. If Mary Queen of Scots is victorious and becomes Mary Queen of England, then I will serve her. But till then, I serve the crowned queen, Elizabeth.”