The tears start into Isabel’s eyes when she thinks of Duchess Cecily praying for the baby’s soul. ‘I want to come home,’ she whispers.

‘We can’t,’ I say at once. ‘We have to be with Father.’

‘Please tell Her Grace that I thank her,’ Isabel stammers. ‘I am glad of her prayers. But of course, I don’t know what . . . I shall have to do as my fa . . . I shall have to do as my husband commands me.’

‘We are afraid that you are grieving,’ the woman says tenderly. ‘Grieving and alone.’

Isabel blinks away the tears that come so quickly to her these days. ‘Of course I feel my loss,’ she says with dignity. ‘But I have the comfort of my sister.’

Lady Sutcliffe bows. ‘I shall go to your husband and warn him of what your father is planning. The duke must save himself, and he must save you from the Lancastrian Queen Margaret. Don’t mention my visit to your father. He would be angry to know that you received me and that now you know that he is faithless.’

I am about to declare stoutly that Father is not faithless, that he could never be faithless, and that we would never keep a secret from him. But then I realise that I don’t know where he is now in his new French clothes – nor what he is doing.


ANGERS, FRANCE, JULY 1470

In the great hall my mother is waiting for us before a square table laden with food; it is like a banquet. She greets me and Isabel with a kiss and her blessing and then looks to my father. He seats Isabel on one side of the table, while George comes in and takes his place beside her with a murmured greeting. We bow our heads for grace, and then Father smiles on us all and bids us eat. He does not thank Isabel for making the long journey, nor commend her courage to her husband.

Me, he praises for my looks that he says are blooming in France – how is it that experiences which exhaust my sister make me so pretty? He pours the best wine into my glass, he places me between my mother and himself. He cuts slices of meat for me and the server puts them before me, serving me before Isabel, before my mother. I look at the food on my plate and I don’t dare to taste it. What does it mean when the best cut of meat is served to me before anyone else? Suddenly, having spent my life following Isabel and my mother into every room we ever enter, I am going first.

‘My Lord Father?’

He smiles and at the warmth in his face I find I am smiling back. ‘Ah, you are my clever girl,’ he says tenderly. ‘You always were the brightest cleverest girl. You are wondering what plans I have for you.’

I don’t dare to look at Isabel, who will have heard him call me the brightest cleverest girl. I don’t dare to look at George. I never dare to look at my mother. I know that George has met Lady Sutcliffe in secret, and I guess that he is afraid that Father knows. This sudden favour to me might be Father’s warning to George that he cannot play us false. I see Isabel’s hands are trembling and she puts them under the table out of sight.

‘I have arranged a marriage for you,’ my father says quietly.

‘What?’

This is the last thing I expected. I am so shocked that I turn to my mother. She looks back at me, perfectly serene; clearly she knows all about this.

‘A great marriage,’ he continues. I can hear the excitement under the level tones of his voice. ‘The greatest marriage that could be got for you. The only marriage for you now. I daresay you can guess who I mean?’

At my stunned silence he laughs merrily, laughs in our dumbstruck faces. ‘Guess!’ he says.

I look at Isabel. For a moment only I think perhaps we are going home, we will reconcile with the House of York and I will marry Richard. Then I see George’s sulky face and I am certain it cannot be that. ‘Father, I cannot guess,’ I say.

‘My daughter, you are going to marry Prince Edward of Lancaster, and you will be the next Queen of England.’

There is a clatter as George drops his knife to the floor. He and Isabel are frozen as if enchanted, staring at my father. I realise that George has been hoping – desperately hoping – that Lady Sutcliffe was reporting false rumours. Now it looks as if she was telling only part of the truth, and the whole of it is worse than any of us could have imagined.

‘The bad queen’s son?’ I ask childishly. In a rush, all the old stories and fears come back to me. I was brought up thinking of Margaret of Anjou as all but a beast, a she-wolf who rode out at the head of wild men, destroying everything in their path, in the grip of her terrible ambition, carrying with them a comatose king who slept through everything, as she tore England apart, murdered my grandfather, my uncle, tried to assassinate my own father in the kitchen with a roasting spit, in the court with swords; and was finally only defeated by him and Edward, our Edward, fighting uphill through snow in the most terrible battle that England has ever seen. Then like a blizzard herself, she blew away with the bloodstained snow into the cold North. They captured her husband and let him sleep in the Tower where he could do no harm; but she and the icy boy, who was inexplicably conceived by a wolf mother and sleeping father, were never seen again.

‘Prince Edward of Lancaster, the son of Queen Margaret of Anjou. They live in France now and are supported by her father René of Anjou, who is King of Hungary, Majorca, Sardinia and Jerusalem. She is kinswoman to King Louis of France.’ My father carefully ignores my exclamation. ‘He will help us put together an invasion of England. We will defeat the House of York, free King Henry from the Tower, and you will be crowned Princess of Wales. King Henry and I will rule England together until he dies – saints preserve him! – and then I will guide and advise you and Prince Edward of Lancaster who will be King and Queen of England. Your son, my grandson, will be the next King of England – and perhaps of Jerusalem too. Think of that.’