‘He needs it to grant taxes to prop up his teetering treasury,’ Richard writes. Flexing its muscles, Parliament refuses to do so, unless the Duke of York is formally recognized as the King’s heir, and given the pre-eminence in Government that such a title demands. ‘Beaufort, of course, says I put them up to it.’

Parliament is dissolved on an angry instant, and Richard is called before a king in high temper, who snarls and snaps in circles about him. ‘Then he raises his arm and I think, for a moment, that he’ll strike me, Cecily. Then his arm’s about my shoulder and there’s tears on his cheeks and, sometimes, sometimes, I’d swear he’s not right.’

That should not be news to you, she thinks.

‘You’re my cousin,’ Henry told him, whining like a child denied. ‘And I love you, well enough …’ Then snarling again, ‘But I will not raise above all others a man called upon by so many in challenge to myself.’

He means he will not raise him above Beaufort.

‘I am loyal, Your Grace,’ Richard said as the King turned his back on him. He cannot help but say it. ‘And I am your heir.’

‘God will bless us with a son.’ Thrown over the King’s shoulder as he stalked away.

You’d need to do something about that, Henry, thinks Cecily, folding the page.

Before Richard writes that he is coming home, another child is lost. Quiet Thomas, whose blue-tinged lips never opened in a cry. He is delivered two weeks after Easter, despaired of in his first hour, but holds until Ascension. Then, in his mercy, the risen Christ looses the tethers that bind body to soul, that he might rise with him to Paradise. So says her confessor.

Attempting more earthly consolation, Annette whispers it must surely be a relief to let him go, for the sight of his birdcage breast straining for air was enough to break a heart. Cecily finds strength enough to slap her, for she had not let him go and would have fought to keep him with her however long. She nurses her anger another week, then rises. She has other sons.

When Richard rides into Ludlow, at May’s end, she takes care to have his children about her to welcome him. The girls in their finest making careful curtseys, George in her arms, and the boys racing across the castle yard, waving their practice swords and crying, ‘Ai, for York!’ then throwing themselves against him. She sees him note their new-gained height, for both have celebrated birthdays this last month; eight now and nine, a promise of the men they will become. It is meant to lighten his heart, but seems only to sadden him.

‘They have a poor father,’ he tells her.