Richard’s head still shakes, slowly, side to side. ‘No.’

‘William de la Pole has the King in his pocket, Richard.’

‘Aye. And to Edmund Beaufort he opens that pocket. And to me, not at all.’

Oldhall slumps a little. ‘I see I tell you nothing you don’t already know.’

‘You must not think so, William.’ Cecily lays a hand on his arm. ‘You tell us much we need to hear.’

‘But tell me,’ asks Richard, ‘why might I be believed to be the French king’s special friend?’

‘Because, before he went to war against us, the King of France was not averse to comparing you to our current lieutenant in ways most unfavourable to Edmund Beaufort. He sent his herald to Henry to complain of it. You, he said, were a man France could do business with, while Beaufort … well, Beaufort couldn’t have done more to offend the French if he’d tried.’

Richard’s laugh is like ice cracking. ‘That’s Charles making trouble. No doubt a belligerent Beaufort suited him well enough. Gave him the excuse he needed to break the truce.’

She hears her own voice, waspish with impatience. ‘So, the best we can say of Beaufort is that he sharpens the King of France’s sword for him? What’s the worst? I wonder.’

‘That he has given away Rouen, and all we fought for in France,’ says Oldhall. ‘And meanwhile, de la Pole whispers in the King’s ear that you take friendship too far, Richard. He reminds him that you offered your son to the King of France for marriage with his daughter, and wonders what you meant by it.’

Cecily’s voice is incredulous. ‘What? That? Is he mad? We did that because the King asked it of us. And the request was carried by Suffolk himself. It was all part of the King’s great love fever when he married Marguerite – he was all for everybody marrying everyone then.’

And if Henry was fool enough not to realize that marrying one of his most powerful dukes into the French royal house was a dangerous idea, she hadn’t been. ‘He can’t be serious,’ Cecily had said then to Suffolk, who’d held up his hands, exasperated, and said, ‘Just write a few letters, Richard. Look keen for a month or two, then let the matter drop.’

‘William de la Pole’s memory of events is most politic,’ says Richard now, reaching for the wine jug.

Aye, thinks Cecily. A vicious mind playing on a simple one.

‘The point is this, Richard,’ says Oldhall. ‘He whispers that you fancy yourself England’s heir and harbour ambitions.’

She watches her husband pour the wine into his cup. Calm, precise. As if it commanded his attention entirely.

‘He’s right, on the first point at least,’ he says. He offers the jug to Oldhall and pours when the old man nods.