“Then it is no law at all,” I maintain. After all I am the wife of the Lord High Steward of England. “The law must defend the high and the low, the innocent, and even the guilty until they are shown to be criminal.”

Sadler laughs, a rough loud laugh. “That may have been so in Camelot,” he says crudely. “But it is a different world now. We will use the laws against our enemies, we will find evidence against our enemies, and if there is neither law nor evidence, then we will make it fresh, specially for them.”

“Then you are no better than they,” I say quietly, but aloud I turn to my server of the ewery and say, “More wine for Sir Ralph.”

SHEFFIELD CASTLE: MARY

JANUARY, 1572

My betrothed is fighting for his life in a courtroom, judged by men as fearful as he. My son is far from me. The only man who could save me now is far, far away, himself imprisoned, and I don’t expect ever to see him again. My worst enemy is my new keeper, and even Bess, the falsest friend a woman ever had, is repelled by his harshness towards me.

I am starting to feel afraid. I would not have believed that Elizabeth could put me in the charge of such a man. It is to dishonor me, to make such a man my custodian. She would know this: she has been a captive herself. She would know how a harsh jailer destroys a prisoner’s life. He will not let me walk in the park, not even in the frozen snow in the morning, he will not let me ride out, he will allow me no more than ten minutes’ walk in the cold yard, and he has been talking to Bess about reducing my household once more. He says I cannot have my luxuries from London, I may not have letters from Paris. He says I should not have so many dishes for dinner, nor fine wines. He wants to take down the cloth of estate which marks my royal status. He wants me to have an ordinary chair, not a throne, and he sits without invitation, in my presence.