Then she laughs in my face some evenings, feckless as the girl she is. “I am a great trial to you,” she says, speaking French. “Don’t deny it! I know it and I am sorry for it. I am a great trouble to you, Lord Shrewsbury.”

She cannot pronounce my name at all. She speaks like a Frenchwoman; you would never know that her father was a Scot. She can say “the earl” well enough. She can manage “Talbot,” but “Shrewsbury” utterly defeats her. She puckers up her mouth into a kissing pout to attempt it. It comes out “Chowsbewwy” and it is so funny that it almost makes me laugh. She is charming, but I remember that I am married to a woman of great worth and I serve a queen of solid merit.

“Not at all,” I say coldly, and I see her girl’s smile falter.

ON THE JOURNEY FROM BOLTON CASTLE TO TUTBURY CASTLE: MARY

JANUARY, 1569

Bothwell,

They are moving me to a new castle, Tutbury, near Burton-on-Trent. I shall be the guest of the Earl of Shrewsbury but I am not free to leave. Come as soon as you can get free.

Marie

I keep my head down and I ride like a nun on her way to Mass but everywhere I go, I am taking in everything. I ride as Bothwell the tactician taught me to ride: constantly on the lookout for ambush, for opportunity, for danger, mapping the land in my mind as he would. This England is my kingdom, my inheritance, and these Northern lands will be my especial stronghold. I don’t need secret letters from my ambassador, the good Bishop John Lesley of Ross, to tell me that half the country is mine already, longing to be rid of the tyranny of the usurper, my cousin Elizabeth, for everywhere I go, I see that the common people want to go back to the old ways, the good ways; they want the church restored and a queen that they can trust on the throne.