The hawk bates off my wrist and tries to fly in terror at the noise, and there is a moment of flapping wings and confusion and me hollering for the falconer, as if the world is ending. He comes at the run and hoods the frightened bird, scoops her into his steady hands, and takes her from me as I unwind the leash and hand her over to him, and all the time the terrible bell is tolling and tolling, loud enough to wake the dead, too loud for the living.

“God save us, what is it?” he demands of me. “Have the Spanish landed? Is it the North up again?”

“I don’t know. Get the bird safe. I have to go,” I say, and I set off at a run for the front of the house.

I am not strong enough for these alarms. I cannot run, even though my heart is pounding in terror. I drop to a walk, cursing my lungs and my legs, and when I get to the front of the house I see Bess there, white as a sheet, and a man collapsed on the ground before her, with his head between his knees, having fainted from exhaustion.

She hands me the letter he has brought, without a word. It is Cecil’s handwriting, but scrawled as if he has lost his mind. My heart sinks as I see it is addressed to me, but on the outside he has written, “5th of September, 1571, at 9 of the night. Haste, post haste. Haste, haste, for life, life, life, life.”

“Open it! Open it! Where have you been?” Bess screams at me.

I break the seal. The man on the ground whoops for his breath and begs for water. No one attends to him.

“What is it?” Bess demands. “Is it the queen? Never say she is dead!”

“The Spanish are coming,” I say. I can hear my own voice tight and cold with fear. “Cecil writes that the Spanish are to land an army of six thousand men. Six thousand. Six thousand. They are coming here to free her.”

“What are we to do? Are we to go to Tutbury?”

The man raises his head. “No use,” he croaks.

Bess looks blankly at me. “Are we to ride south?”

“Are you in Cecil’s confidence?” I ask him.

He gives me a wry smile as if to say that no one is in that position. “It’s too late to get her away. I have my orders,” he says. “I am to discover all that she knows and get back to my lord. You are to stay here and wait for the invasion. You can’t outrun them.”

“Dear God,” Bess says. “What are we to do when they come?”

He says nothing, but I know the answer is “Kill her.”

“Is the queen safe?” I demand. “Our queen, Elizabeth?”