I have been told nothing of this visit, and Cecil has not told me what to do if I have noble visitors. I hesitate, but these have been my friends and my kin for all my life; I can hardly make them strangers at my very door. The habit of hospitality is too strong in me to do anything but greet them with pleasure. My family have been Northern lords for generations; all of us always keep open house and a good table for strangers as well as friends. To do anything else would be to behave like a penny-pinching merchant, like a man too mean to have a great house and a great entourage. Besides, I like Percy, I am delighted to see him.

“Of course,” I say. “You are welcome as ever.” I turn to the queen and ask her permission to present them. She greets them coolly with a small reserved smile and I think that perhaps she was enjoying our ride and does not want our time together interrupted.

“If you will forgive us, we will ride on,” I say, trying to do whatever she wants. “Bess will make you welcome at home. But we won’t turn back just yet. Her Grace values her ride and we have just come out.”

“Please, don’t change your plans for us. May we ride with you?” Westmorland asks her, bowing.

She nods. “If you wish. And you may tell me all the news from London.”

He falls in beside her and I hear him chattering to entertain her, and occasionally the ripple of her laughter. Percy brings his horse alongside mine and we all trot briskly along.

“Great news. She is to be freed next week,” he says to me, a broad smile spread across his face. “Thank God, eh, Shrewsbury? This has been an awful time.”

“So soon? The queen is going to free her so soon? I heard from Cecil only that it would be this summer.”

“Next week,” he confirms. “Thank God. They will send her back to Scotland next week.”

I nearly cross myself, I am so thankful at this happy ending for her, but I cut short the gesture and instead put my hand out to him and we shake hands, beaming. “I have been so concerned for her... Percy, you have no idea how she has suffered. I have felt like a brute to keep her so confined.”

“I don’t think a faithful man in England has slept well since that first damned inquiry,” he says shortly. “Why we did not greet her as a queen, and give her safe haven without asking questions, God knows. What Cecil thought he was doing, treating her like a criminal, only the devil knows.”