But why does the queen want her taken to Tutbury Castle?” I ask William Cecil, who of all men in England always knows everything; he is a tradesman of secrets. He is the very monopolist of secrecy. “Chatsworth would be more fitting. Surely the queen wants us to house her at Chatsworth? To be honest, I have not been to Tutbury myself in years, but you know that Bess bought Chatsworth with her previous husband and brought it as her dowry to me, and she has made it very lovely.”

“The Scots queen won’t be with you for long,” Cecil says mildly. “And I would rather have her in a house with a single entrance by a guardhouse, which can be well guarded, than have her gazing out of fifty windows over beautiful parkland and slipping out of half a dozen doors into the gardens.”

“You don’t think we might be attacked?” I am shocked at the very thought of it. Only later do I realize that he seems to know the grounds of Tutbury Castle, which is odd, since he has never visited. He sounds as if he knows it better than I do myself, and how could that be?

“Who knows what might happen, or what a woman like her will take into her head to do, or what support she can attract? Who would have thought that a score of educated noblemen, clearly instructed and advised, with well-trained witnesses and perfect evidence, would sit down to inquire into her behavior, see the most scandalous material ever written, and then rise up, having decided nothing? Who would have thought that I would convene a tribunal three times over, and still be unable to get a conviction? Are you all so besotted with her?”

“A conviction?” I repeat. “You make it sound like a trial. I thought it was a conference. You told me it was an inquiry.”

“I fear our queen has been ill-served in this.”

“But how?” I ask. “I thought we did what she wanted. She stopped the inquiry herself, saying that it was unjust to the Queen of Scots. Surely she has cleared the Scots queen of any wrongdoing. Surely you should be glad. Surely our queen is glad that we held a thorough inquiry but could find nothing against her cousin. And that being so, why should our queen not invite Queen Mary to live with her at court? Why should she come to us at all? Why should they not live as cousins in harmony, queen and heir? Now that her name is cleared.”