“I thank you,” I say. I bow low and walk backwards towards the door. There is no point in mentioning the huge debt she owes me for the queen’s keep. There is no point in telling her that Bess will never forgive me for the loss of this fortune. No point in repining that we cannot start married life all over again, it is spoiled, perhaps forever. I should be glad just to get out of here without an escort of guards to take me to the Tower, where my friends wait for the death sentence.

At the door, I hesitate. “Has Your Grace decided what is to become of her?”

The queen shoots me a hard, suspicious look. “Why would you care?”

“Bess will ask me,” I say feebly.

“She will be held as a prisoner until we can judge what to do,” she says. “She cannot be tried for treason: she is no subject of mine, so she cannot be accused of treason. She cannot be returned to Scotland now; clearly she cannot be trusted. She has made my life impossible. She has made her own life impossible. She is a fool. I don’t want to keep her imprisoned forever, but I don’t see what else I can do with her. It is that or her death, and clearly I cannot kill a fellow queen and my cousin. She is a fool to force this dilemma upon me. She has raised the stakes to victory or death and I can give her neither.”

“She would make a peace agreement with you, I think,” I say cautiously. “She would hold to a peace treaty with you. She always speaks of you with the deepest of respect. This uprising was none of her making and she was preparing to return to Scotland as an ally of yours.”

“Cecil says she cannot be trusted,” she says shortly. “And she herself has taught me not to trust her. And hear this, Talbot: I would take Cecil’s opinion before that of a man who permitted her to court, betroth herself, and plan a rebellion under his very roof. At the very least you were too trusting with her, Shrewsbury. I pray to God it is nothing worse. She has fooled you; I hope she has not seduced you.”

“I swear she has not,” I say.

She nods, unimpressed. “You can go back to your wife.”

I bow. “I am always loyal,” I say from the doorway.

“I know what you do,” she says bluntly. “I know every single thing that you do, trust Cecil for that. But I don’t know what you think anymore. I used to know what you all thought, but now you are grown mysterious, all of you. You have all lost your fidelity. I don’t know what you all want. You are opaque to me now, where once you were all so clear.”