“She is queen,” I say simply. “It cannot be denied. Queen born and ordained. It must be God’s will that she sits on her throne. And surely, it is safer for us if she can bring the Scots to peace than if they are fighting against each other. The border raids in the North have been worse since she was thrown down. The border raiders fear no one, now that Bothwell is far away in prison. Any rule is better than none. Better the queen should rule than no rule at all. And surely, the French or the Spanish will restore her if we do not? And if they put her back on the throne we will have a foreign army on our doorstep, and she will be grateful to them, and that must be far worse for us.”

“Aye,” she says firmly, as if she has made a decision. “So think I.”

“Perhaps you can swear an alliance with her,” I suggest. “Better to deal with a queen, you two queens together, than be forced to haggle with a usurper, a new false power in Scotland. And her half brother is clearly guilty of murder and worse.”

I could not have said anything that pleased her more. She nods and puts her hand up to caress her pearls. She has a magnificent triple rope of black pearls, thick as a ruff, around her throat.

“He laid hands on her,” I prompt her. “She is an ordained queen and he seized her against her will and imprisoned her. That’s a sin against the law and against heaven. You cannot want to deal with such an impious man as that. How should he prosper if he can attack his own queen?”

“I will not deal with traitors,” she declares. Elizabeth has a horror of anyone who would challenge a monarch. Her own hold on her own throne was unsteady in the early years, and even now her claim is actually not as good as that of the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth was registered as Henry’s bastard and she never revoked the act of parliament. But Mary Queen of Scots is the granddaughter of Henry’s sister. Her line is true, legitimate, and strong.

“I will never deal with traitors,” she repeats. She smiles, and at once I see again the pretty young woman who came to the throne with no objection at all to dealing with traitors. She had been the center of all the rebellions against her sister, Mary Tudor, but was always too clever to be caught. “I want to be a just kinswoman to the Scots queen,” she says. “She may be young and foolish and she has made mistakes that are shocking beyond words—but she is my kinswoman and she is a queen. She must be well treated, and she must be restored. I am ready to love her as a good kinswoman and see her rule her country as she should.”