The queen is housed in the best house in town and that is not good enough for her. Bess and I are quartered next door, goods piled up in the rooms, servants sleeping on benches. The grooms are sleeping in the stables with the horses, Hastings’ men pushed into the houses of poor people all around the town. The market has run out of food and the stink of the streets and the drains is unbearable. We will have to move on, whatever the danger, or illness will break out in these cramped quarters. Hastings has written to Cecil but the reply comes to me in our poor quarters, carried by yet another of his young nameless men. That I am now his chosen correspondent and Hastings is ignored tells me everything at once. Cecil must be in despair. Cecil has brought his queen to the brink of defeat and now he needs me to negotiate with the other queen.