I wager you do, I think miserably; there are more spies than shepherds in England these days. The disloyalty of the people has become so intense that everyone keeps a servant to watch every other. “Perhaps you could sell to another buyer. But you are my man and serve me only. Go back to this Rolleston and tell him that you need to know who is in the plot. Say that it isn’t safe to go ahead without knowing who is engaged. Tell him you will do it, and ask him for a keepsake to show to the queen. Then come back to me.”

“Lead them on?”

I nod.

“And you will entrap them?”

“If we have to. Perhaps they mean nothing. Perhaps it will all come to nothing.”

CHATSWORTH: MARY

JUNE, 1570

Husband Bothwell,

I will be safe. Cecil himself is coming here to Chatsworth to make the agreement with me. I am to be restored to my throne in Scotland. I will ensure your release the moment I am back, and then they shall see what a neighbor they have. They will reap the whirlwind and we two shall be the storm that breaks on them.

Marie

I spend my afternoons in the Chatsworth gardens, in a moated stone tower that stands alone, surrounded by a lake stocked with golden carp and dappled by overhanging willows. The stone steps lead down from my tower to the little stone bridge which reflects in the water beneath it, a dark green arch looking up at gray stone walls. Dragonflies hover over the water like blue arrowheads and swallows dip and drink.

Shrewsbury calls it my bower and says that it is my own kingdom till I have another. He has promised I shall spend my days here, quite undisturbed. He leaves a guard on the shore side of the bridge, not to keep me in, but to make sure no one troubles me in the afternoons when I laze on a day bed in the shade of an arch where the white Tudor roses are just in bud, slowly unfurling white petals.

I lie on my silk cushions, listening to my lute player who sings me the dreamy songs of the Languedoc, songs of love and longing, impossible romantic stories of poor men adoring cruel mistresses, the birds singing with him. There are skylarks in the parkland; I hear them caroling with each wingbeat as they climb their way heavenwards. I would not even know that they were named skylark but for Shrewsbury. He showed me them in flight, pointed out the little bird on the ground, and then taught me to listen for their aspiring, soaring song. He told me that they sing as they fly upwards, each wingbeat bringing out another glorious burst of melody, and then they close their wings in silence and plummet to their nest.