As he rolls the fine vellum across a width of table in Fotheringhay’s hall, Richard smiles. On it, in the poet priest’s elegant hand, is Richard’s lineage in verse, back to the third Edward, from whom he and his king claim common descent. It is illustrated with images of every generation, and above each gold-traced figure flies the heraldry that proclaims their power. Such genealogies are common enough, but this one is rare for its beauty and for the precedence it gives to the women of Richard’s line, ending in the greatest of them all, Cecily herself, and the children she has borne him. He’s reading their names, from grace-given Anne to God-called Ursula, when she draws his attention to the head of the roll, where the sons of the third Edward stand side by side.

‘Here,’ she tells him, and points.

Richard’s descent is shown, not from the fourth son through the male line, but from the second through the female. For Edward’s second son had a daughter, who is Richard’s great-grandmother. And that lady’s granddaughter is Richard’s mother.

‘Henry, our present king, is descended only from the third son. Seen this way, you have the advantage.’

‘This is a dangerous game, Cecily.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she says, smiling into her sleeve. ‘Just a jest, for our own amusement.’ She walks around the table to stand beside him, leans her body in to his.

He moves away a step, and his voice comes low. ‘Yet you know this claim brought my father to the scaffold, running to put a crown on his wife’s brother’s head.’

She shrugs. ‘That brother had a right, and you’re the inheritor of it. There’s nothing in English law that says a man can’t claim a crown through the blood of his mothers.’

‘Nothing in law, but much in custom.’

‘The Queen thinks much of female power. A woman herself, yet she daily usurps her husband’s authority.’ Her finger traces the line again. ‘I only say that, one day, you might do the same with better cause.’

‘Leave it, Cecily. I’m still in favour with the King and, if I keep my wits about me, might remain so. I challenge nothing and no one. The King is the king, and the King has a son.’

‘Pah!’

He raises a hand. ‘So far as we know it, he has. And, before you speak again, I wish to know no more.’

‘And are you in favour with the Queen? Or with the men she keeps about her? My daughter tells they came at you with swords last month when you attended the King at Kenilworth.’

‘God’s blood, how does she know that?’

‘Because she has a husband who keeps company with the Queen and doesn’t know when to shut up.’