“He has to be stopped,” Percy says. “He is another Wolsey, another Cromwell. Another upstart who has come from nothing by slavish drudgery. He is a bad advisor; he is a dangerous voice in her counsels. And like both of them he will be thrown down by us lords if we act together. He has to be thrown down before he becomes overmighty. I swear to you he is a danger to the commonwealth of England. We cannot allow him to be made a lord of the realm.”

“A baron? You are certain she is going to make him a baron?”

“She pays him a fortune. We have to stop him, before he becomes too great.”

“I know it,” I say heavily. “But a baron!”

The queen is already through the gateway. Someone else will have to help her down from the saddle, I cannot hurry to get there in time to be the one to lift her and hold her.

“You will dine with us?” I ask. I cannot see who is holding her horse and who is lifting her down. “Bess will be glad to see you.”

“Cecil will know we have been here,” he says. “Be warned.”

“Surely, I can invite a guest to dinner in my own house,” I exclaim. “The queen will dine apart from us in her own rooms. There is no danger. What business is it of Cecil’s?”

“Everything is his business in England today,” he replies. “Within four days he will know we have been here, and everything we say at dinner will be reported to him, word for word. We are prisoners just as much as she is, when he spies on us at our very table. Do you know the name of his spy in your household? He will have one, at least: he will probably have two or three.”

I think of my own wife and her affection for Cecil. “Bess trusts him,” I say. “He would not put spies on her. He would never put a spy in Bess’s household.”

“He spies on everyone,” he insists. “You and Bess, as us. He must fall. We have to bring him down. Do you agree? Are you with us?”

“Yes,” I say slowly. “Yes. Let us have the Queen of England advised by her peers again, and not by a man born to be a servant, supported by spies.”

Slowly Percy puts out his hand. “You are with us,” he says. “You swear?”

“I am with you,” I say. “He cannot be a baron. I cannot see him ennobled, it is wrong. It goes against the very grain. I will bring Cecil down with you. We lords together. We will be lords of the realm again, together.”

WINGFIELD MANOR: BESS

MAY, 1569

They can’t dine here,” I say flatly.