“Of course he is no friend of Howard’s, nor yours, nor mine. Name me one friend of Cecil’s! Who likes or trusts him?” he demands bluntly. “How should any of us befriend him? Who is he? Where does he come from? Who even knew him before she made him steward of everything? But this is the end for Cecil’s power,” Percy says in a low voice to me. “Howard hopes to drive him out; this is all part of the same plan. Howard hopes to rid us of Cecil, of his enmity to the Spanish, and to save the Scots queen from his spite, and to see him reduced at court, perhaps thrown out altogether.”

“Thrown out?”

“Thomas Cromwell rose greater and Thomas Cromwell was stripped of his badge of office by a Howard at a Privy Council meeting. Don’t you think such a thing could happen again?”

I try to check my smile at this but it is no good. He can see my pleasure in the very thought of it.

“You like him no more than the rest of us!” Percy says triumphantly. “We will have him thrown down, Shrewsbury. Are you with us?”

“I cannot do anything which would conflict with my honor,” I start.

“Of course not! Would I suggest such a thing? We are your brother peers. Howard and Arundel and Lumley and the two of us are all sworn to see England in the hands of her proper rulers again. The last thing we want to do is to demean ourselves. But Cecil pulls us down in every direction. The penny-pinching he wants at court, the enmity to the Scots queen, the persecution of anyone but the strictest of Puritans, and”—he drops his voice—“the endless recruitment of spies. A man cannot so much as order a meal in a London tavern without someone sending the bill of fare to Cecil. He’ll have a spy in your own household, you know, Talbot. He knows everything about all of us. And he gathers the information and draws it together and waits to use it, when the time suits him.”

“He could have nothing on me,” I say staunchly.

Percy laughs. “When you refused to name the Scots queen as a whore at his inquiry?” he jeers. “You were his enemy from that moment. He will have a folder of papers with your name on it, gossip from the backstairs, rumors from bad tenants, envy from your debtors, and when the time suits him, or when he wants you humbled, he will take it to the queen and tell her she cannot trust you.”

“She would never...”

“He will have your personal servants in the Tower within the day, and a confession racked out of them that you are Queen Mary’s secret admirer.”

“No servant of mine...”