She watches Anne’s face light with a smile as Annette crosses the room, sees her wrap thin arms about the nurse’s neck and press a kiss of welcome to her cheek. She hears the sigh like a homecoming, ‘Annette.’

‘Ma puce.’

The days of waiting pass peacefully enough. They read much. Cecily has brought a book of saintly women, written at her commission by the poet friar, Osbern Bokenham. As a young man Osbern travelled through all the holy cities of Italy, before giving himself to God at the holy priory of Clare. Cecily has long been his patron and for her he writes, while his brothers in Christ watch over the graves of Richard’s royal ancestors, men and women long gone, whose blood binds him to England’s kings.

‘I visited Father Bokenham this summer,’ Cecily tells Anne. ‘I had business in Suffolk.’

Her daughter raises a brow to ask what that business was.

‘Oh, nothing so much. Some property we might buy.’ Cecily likes the flat fens of East Anglia, its bright skies and long views. She has Clare Castle, of course, but dreams of somewhere finer, where she can lay out gardens in the Italian style. A house for living, not a castle for defence. Though perhaps now is not the time to indulge such peaceful fancies. She’s laid out no money yet. But here’s the real news. ‘And a husband for your sister, Elizabeth.’

‘Tell me he is a good man,’ says Anne.

‘He is a duke. And the good son of a good mother. Though the less we say of his father the better.’

‘Oh. John de la Pole,’ says Anne, soft and knowing.

‘How clever you are.’

‘Does it not pain you, to give a daughter to William de la Pole’s son?’

Cecily shrugs. ‘I give her to Alice de la Pole’s son. She’s had the raising of him since William died. And wit enough to hold on to her lands as well as her son’s title.’

‘He has not much money.’

‘No, but he has a dukedom. And something we need perhaps more than that; the friendship of both king and queen. Or at least his mother has. Women, too, can forge alliances, you know.’

‘Ah, that’s well then.’ Anne folds her hands over her belly. ‘When?’

‘In the spring.’ Cecily lays her hand on Anne’s. ‘Elizabeth will do well enough. The boy is but fourteen. She’ll go to Alice’s household for now, a place of learning with a woman at its head.’

‘Fortunate girl.’

Cecily’s final business in Suffolk was with Father Bokenham himself. A gift for Richard that will mark both Christmas and the coming of his first grandchild. It’s even more poignant now, since the child is a girl.