“Now Professor Drummond, I’ve let a lot of things you’ve written slide over the years, but your latest book has gone too far.”
Drummond stared at the elderly woman glaring across his desk, with a rising sense of bewilderment. He should pay more attention to his appointments, he decided, and tell the secretary that he really didn’t appreciate cranks devouring his valuable time.
“So errrm… what is that’s offended you, madam?”
The old hag pulled his book, Conquests of the Virgin Queen, from her bag. It was brutally battered, its pages loose and scored with angry red ink. She searched it, her scowl ever deepening.
“Where to start? Half of this is the most scandalous nonsense. I wouldn’t have touched most of these blighters with a barge pole. You really do have a low opinion of my taste in men-”
“Sorry, your taste in men?” Drummond cut in. “My book is about Elizabeth the First.”
She pulled herself upright, her face becoming portrait-familiar.
“History can be a lot stranger than even your nonsense, boy.”