“A boy,” she says like a miser might breathe “God.” “God has answered my prayers.”

I nod. I am too tired to speak to her. My mother holds a cup of spiced hot ale to my lips and I smell the sugar and the brandy and drink deep. I feel as if I am floating, dreamy with exhaustion and the ending of pain, drunk on the birthing ale, triumphant at a successful birth, and dizzy with the thought that I have a baby, a son, and that he is perfect.

“Bring him here,” I command.

She does as I tell her and hands him to me. He is tiny, small as a doll, but every detail of him is perfect as if he has been handcrafted with endless care. He has hands like plump little starfish and tiny fingernails like the smallest of shells. As I hold him he opens his eyes of the most surprising dark blue, like a sea at midnight. He looks at me gravely, as if he too is surprised. He looks at me as if he understands all that is to be, as if he knows that he has been born to a great destiny and must fulfill it.

“Give him to the wet nurse,” My Lady prompts.

“In a moment.” I don’t care what she tells me to do. She may have command of her son, but I shall have command of mine. This is my baby, not hers, this is my son, not hers; he is an heir to the Tudors but he is my beloved.

He is the Tudor heir that makes the throne safe, that will start a dynasty that will last forever. “We will call him Arthur,” My Lady declares. I knew this was coming. They dragged me to Winchester for the birth so that we could claim the legacy of Arthur, so the baby could be born all but on the famous Round Table of the knights of Camelot, so the Tudors could claim to be the heirs of that miraculous kingdom, the greatness of England revived, and the beautiful chivalry of the country springing again from their noble line.

“I know,” I say. I have no objection. How can I? It was the very name that Richard had chosen for a son with me. He too dreamed of Camelot and chivalry, but unlike the Tudors he really tried to make a court of noble knights; unlike the Tudors he lived his life by the precepts of being a perfect gentle knight. I close my eyes at the ridiculous thought that Richard would have loved this baby, that he chose his name, that he wished him into being with me, that this is our child.

“Prince Arthur,” My Lady rules.

“I know,” I say again. It is as if everything I do with my husband, Henry, is a sad parody of the dreams I had with my lover, Richard.

“Why are you crying?” she demands impatiently.

I lift the sheet of my bed and wipe my eyes. “I’m not,” I say.










PRIOR’S GREAT HALL, WINCHESTER, 24 SEPTEMBER 1486

“I think they are going to dip him in gold and serve him on a platter,” my mother says sarcastically with a hidden smile at me, as she lifts the baby from his cradle early in the morning of his grand christening day. The rockers stand obediently behind her, watching her every move with the suspicion of professionals. The wet nurse is unlacing her bodice, impatient to feed the baby. My mother holds her grandson to her face and kisses his warm little body. He is sleepy, making a little snuffling noise. I hold out my arms, yearning for him, and she gives him to me and hugs us both.

As we watch, he opens his mouth in a little yawn, compresses his tiny face, flaps his arms like a fledgling, and then wails to be fed. “My lord prince,” my mother says lovingly. “Impatient as a king. Here, I’ll give him to Meg.”

The wet nurse is ready for him, but he cries and fusses and cannot latch on.

“Should I feed him?” I ask eagerly. “Would he feed from me?”

The rockers, the wet nurse, even my mother, all shake their heads in absolute unison.

“No,” my mother says regretfully. “That’s the price you pay for being a great lady, a queen. You can’t nurse your own child. You have won him a golden spoon and the best food in the world for all his life, but he cannot have his mother’s milk. You can’t mother him as you might wish. You’re not a poor woman. You’re not free. You have to be back in the king’s bed as soon as you are able and give us another baby boy.”

Jealously, I watch as he nuzzles at another woman’s breast and finally starts to feed. The wet nurse gives me a reassuring smile. “He’ll do well on my milk,” she says quietly. “You need not fear for him.”

“How many boys do you need?” I demand irritably of my mother. “Before I can stop bearing them? Before I can feed one?”

My mother, who gave birth to three royal boys and has none of them today, shrugs her shoulders. “It’s a dangerous world,” is all she says.

The door opens without a knock and My Lady comes in. “Is he ready?” she asks without preamble.