Cecily raises her chin. ‘God has given us a daughter.’ She scans his face for disappointment and sees none. Only a growing smile as he comes forward, sits beside her on the bed and lowers his head to gaze.

He’s silent a moment while the women, gazing back over their shoulders, edge from the room. When they’re gone, he speaks. ‘So, this is little Anne, then?’

‘For your mother.’

‘And your sister.’

‘And for the Holy Virgin’s mother, who was so long barren then blessed with so great a daughter.’

She hears his breath catch. ‘What a world we will make for her, Cecily.’

‘She is the first of our house.’ She means there will be more.

They talk a while and in minutes have brought their newborn to womanhood, drawn out her beauty, married her to greatness, blessed her with brothers.

They laugh at themselves and, when Richard looks at her, his eyes are soft with joy. But beneath his smile he too looks tired. She wonders if he slept while she laboured. Probably not. But it’s good that he should learn the art of waiting. She leans across the child and lays a hand against his cheek, touches her lips to his. He draws her fingers to his mouth and kisses them.

‘They say a month for the churching,’ she tells him.

He closes his eyes, resigned. Nods.

She draws her thumb along his lips, a promise. ‘It will be less.’

True to her word, not three weeks pass before she demands to be taken back across the fields to receive the Church’s blessing, to light candles before the Virgin’s altar and give thanks for her deliverance. The unfinished nave, still open to the skies, is bathed in golden sunlight and the masons, now in their seventh year of building, down tools to marvel at the sight of the proud duchess on her knees. As the choristers send up their song she gazes skyward to where swallows, already dreaming of an autumn departure, dart and chitter. Like them she’s been impatient to be away. Within days of the birth, the room that had been her sanctuary had become a cage. As her milk dried she found herself glad to hand little Anne to the wet nurse when she fretted. She’s tired of nursery talk and the unleavened company of women. She’s happy enough when they tell her the child feeds well and sleeps soundly; reassured that it has been baptized and received into God’s grace. She can see for herself its limbs are strong and growing, that the child is cared for, body and soul. Now she wants only to return to the world.