Cecily knows how much it matters to her. Joan was born a bastard. Her own mother bore four children for John of Gaunt, old King Edward’s third son, before he made her his wife. It was fortunate for those children that Gaunt’s nephew, the young King Richard, loved a romance as much as he loved his uncle, and was pleased to work with Pope and Parliament to have the burden of bastardy lifted. One day they went to bed the shameful by-blows of an infamous adulterer. Next morning they rose up the legitimate offspring of a royal duke. Joan has buried that early shame deep beneath the edifice of the family she has built, one of the finest in England. Her children are dukes and duchesses, earls, countesses and bishops. Well married, well made. And now her youngest daughter, Cecily, is first among them.

She leans across the board, squeezes her mother’s hand. ‘You did well for me. And I love you for it.’ Then sits back, prim. ‘But you mustn’t take all the credit. You gave me only the hope of a dukedom. Richard brought the prize home.’

Her mother arches a brow. ‘I am chastised. Yet my cardinal brother says you played some part in it yourself.’

‘Perhaps I did. A little.’ She gives a sly smile and sees it returned.

Joan laughs, waves a hand to signal the new game’s beginning.

Cecily shakes her head and moves her first pawn. ‘Anyway, I do not complain of being busy, mother. I am only explaining. We are never still.’

‘And you travel with your husband, do you?’

She knows where this is going. Twenty-one this summer, five years bedding with Richard, and her cradle still empty. ‘When I can.’

‘When you’ve not had to take to your bed, you mean?’

Cecily doesn’t answer, but watches, intent, her mother’s first move on the board.

‘How many have you lost?’

Cecily had written only of the first. Her mother’s reply had been terse. It urged her to endurance, and recommended prayer; reminded Cecily that she herself had miscarried, lost four children in infancy, but seen ten live on and thrive.

Cecily has kept silent on the subject since. ‘Must we talk about this?’

‘Why should we not?’

‘Because you tolerate failure no better than I do.’

So they talk instead of politics; the foolishness of France, the competence of the King’s ministers. Until Cecily sacrifices her king to let her mother win.

Joan takes the captured king in her hand, holds it before her eyes in the firelight. ‘And what of young Henry?’

‘He cannot play chess.’

‘Then you had better give your husband a son. There might be more to play for, one day.’