me? This queen with no reputation? This socalled beauty? This muchmarried girl? I have sacrificed my youth, my beauty, and my life for this country, and they run after a queen who lives for vanity and lust.”
I hardly dare to speak. “I think it was more their faith…,” I say cautiously.
“It is not a matter of faith.” She wheels around on me. “I would have everyone practice the faith they wish. Of all the monarchs in Europe I am the only one that would have people worship as they wish. I am the only one who has promised and allows freedom. But they make it a matter of loyalty. D’you know who promised them gold if they would come against me? The Pope himself. He had a banker distributing his gold to the rebels. We know all about it. They were paid by a foreign and enemy power. That makes it a matter of loyalty; it is treason to be against me. This is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of who is to be queen. They chose her. They will die for it. Who do you choose?”
She is terrifying in her rage. I drop to my knee. “As always. I choose you, Your Grace. I have been faithful to you since your coming to the throne, and before you, your sister, and before her, your sainted brother. Before him, your majestic father. Before them, my family has served every crowned king of England back to William the Conqueror. Every king of England can count on a Talbot to stand faithful. You are no different. I am no different. I am yours, heart and soul, as my family always has been to the kings of England.”
“Then why did you let her write to Ridolfi?” she snaps. It is a trap and she springs it, and Cecil’s head droops as he watches his feet, the better to listen to my answer.
“Who? Who is Ridolfi?”
She makes a little gesture with her hand. “Are you telling me you do not know the name?”
“No,” I say truly. “I have never heard of such a person. Who is he?”
She dismisses my question. “It doesn’t matter then. Forget the name. Why did you let her write to her ambassador? She plotted a treasonous uprising with him when she was in your care. You must have known that.”
“I swear I did not. Every letter that I found I sent to Cecil. Every servant she suborned I sent away. My own servants I pay double to try to keep them faithful. I pay for extra guards out of my own pocket. We live in the meanest of my castles to keep her close. I watch the servants, I watch her. I never cease. I have to turn over the very cobblestones of the road leading to the castle for hidden letters; I have to rifle through her embroidery silks. I have to rummage through the butcher’s cart and slice into the bread. I have to be a spy myself to search for letters. And all this I do, though it is no work for a Talbot. And all of it I report to Cecil, as if I were one of his paid spies and not a nobleman hosting a queen. I have done everything you might ask of me with honor, and I have done more. I have humbled myself to do more for you. I have done tasks I would never have believed that one of my line could have done. All at Cecil’s request. All for you.”
“Then if you do all this, why did you not know when she was plotting under your very roof?”
“She is clever,” I say. “And every man who sees her wants to serve her.” At once I wish I had bitten back the words. I have to take care. I can see the color rising under the rouge in the queen’s cheeks. “Misguided men, foolish men, those who forget what you and yours have done for them. They seek to serve her from their own folly.”
“They say she is irresistible,” she remarks idly, encouraging me to agree.
I shake my head. “I don’t find her so,” I say, tasting ugly words in my mouth before I speak them. “I find her often sickly, often badtempered, often moody, not very pleasing, not a woman I could admire.”
For the first time she looks at me with interest and not with hostility. “What? You don’t find her beautiful?”