I nod. I think I know what is happening, and I am certain who is doing it. Who else would slur my name but him? “Do you think perhaps, Bess, that the men sent out to spy in the alehouses and markets for your queen can talk as well as listen? When they listen for any threat against her, do you think that they also supply scandal about me? About all her enemies? Do you not think that as they listen at keyholes, they also drip fear and poison into the minds of ordinary people? Do you not think that they abuse me, that they spread fear of strangers, terror of war, accusations about Jews and Papists? Do you not think that this whole country is loyal to Elizabeth because she makes them terrified of anything else? That she has agents whose job is to go around spreading terror to keep her people loyal?”

“Well, yes,” Bess agrees, a child of Elizabeth’s England where truth is a thing for sale in the market and scandal is priced to sell. “But why would anyone tell old scandals about you? And why now?”

“That is the very question,” I say simply. “Why now? At this particular, useful moment? Just before Norfolk comes to trial? Could it be that he has refused to say anything against me? Could they fear that they will take him to the very steps of the scaffold and he will not accuse me of treason? Because he knows he is innocent of a rebellion against Elizabeth and I am innocent too. All we wanted was to be married and for me to be released to my country. All we conspired to do was to free me. But they want to hang Norfolk and destroy me. Don’t you know that’s true?”

Bess’s needle is still above her tapestry. She knows I am right and she knows my enemy. She knows how he works and she knows how he succeeds. “But why traduce you with an old scandal?”

“I am a woman,” I say quietly. “If you hate a woman, the first thing you destroy is her reputation. They will name me as a woman of shame, unfit to rule, unfit to marry. If they ruin my reputation, then they make Norfolk’s crime seem even worse. They make him look like a man who was ready to marry an adulteress and a murderess. They make him look insane with ambition and me lower than a whore. Who would follow Norfolk or serve me? No loyal Scotsman or even Englishman would ever want me on the throne. They would think I was guilty of treason against Elizabeth because they believe I am a whore and a murderess.”

Bess nods reluctantly. “To dishonor you both equally,” she says. “Even if they cannot get you both to trial.”