There is no need for Cecil to reproach me. I warned my lord that the inquiry was a sham and a show, as close to life as are the mummers dressed in motley at Christmas. I told him that if he chose to become a player in this scene of Cecil’s devising then he must follow the playscript word by word. He was not invited there to improvise. He should have found the verdict that Cecil wanted. But he would not. If you hire an honorable man to do dirty work you will find the work honorably done. Cecil chose the wrong lord when he chose my husband to supervise the disgrace of the Scots queen. And so Cecil has no scandal, and no dishonored queen, and I have no husband at home, and I have to clean and rebuild a derelict castle in the middle of winter.

Cecil says, “I am sorry that you have to house this Athalia, but I hope it will not be for long, for certainty, she will follow the destiny of her namesake.”

This obviously means something to Cecil, who has the benefit of a man’s education, but for a woman such as me, the daughter of a farmer, it is as opaque as a code. Fortunately, my darling son Henry is staying with me, on a brief holiday from his place at court. His father, my second husband, Cavendish, left me with instructions and an income to get him educated like a gentleman, and I sent him, and then his two brothers, to school at Eton.

“Who is Athalia?” I ask him.

“Obscure,” he replies.

“So obscure that you don’t know the answer?”

He smiles lazily at me. He is a handsome boy and he knows that I dote on him.

“So, my Mama-Countess. What is the information worth to you? We live in a world where all intelligence is for sale. You pay me well enough to report the gossip from court. I am your spy in the house of your friend Robert Dudley. Everyone has an informant and I am merely one of many of yours, I know. What will you pay me for the fruits of my education?”

“I have paid for it once already in your tutors’ fees,” I reply. “And they were dear enough. Besides, I think you don’t say because you don’t know. You are an ignoramus and my money was wasted on your education. I hoped to buy myself a scholar and all I have is an idiot.”