Cecily knew death was coming for her mother even before the seed of this second child was set. Word confirming that great lady’s passing comes as new life quickens, and as preparations for the move to France gather pace. One morning she halts on the stair to cup a hand against that first trembling movement. At the same moment she hears, through a window open on to Fotheringhay’s courtyard, a messenger’s horse being reined in tight. She guesses the news its rider carries before his boots strike the cobbles.

Richard frets. Worried that grief will consume her strength and weaken the child. He need not. Cecily is, after all, her mother’s daughter.

The old lady had prepared for death as thoroughly as for any of life’s inevitabilities. Years since, her husband established a chantry in tiny Staindrop church, where, within view of Raby’s towering walls, he has lain waiting for her full fifteen years. She herself founded a second chantry in Lincoln, where her own mother is buried. In both, she has ordered masses to be said in perpetuity for Ralph’s soul and hers, for the souls of her parents, and for the kings whose causes they made their own. Last Christmas, along with gifts for little Anne, Joan sent a letter, telling Cecily that the cancer could not be halted and she was ready to go to God. In May, she wrote her will. There was news in it that surprised all but Cecily, for Joan’s letter had told her already that Ralph’s long wait would be in vain.

‘My mother will be buried in Lincoln,’ Cecily told Richard, folding the letter in her hands. ‘Beside my grandmother.’ She smiled at his amazement and then, remembering his love for Ralph, touched a finger to his cheek. ‘She wishes to remind the world who she was first. Before Westmorland’s wife, she was Gaunt’s daughter, half-sister to a king.’

Cecily’s mother was the youngest of the four children John of Gaunt got on his mistress. The only one still living is Henry. For twenty-one years he was a bastard brat, a struggling churchman. Then his father married his mother and he found himself a bishop. Today he is Cardinal Beaufort, England’s foremost churchman and the King’s most trusted counsellor; a patron of art and learning so rich that even the exchequer comes to him for loans. Once, Cecily remarked how high fortune’s wheel had raised him. He concurred, smiled his sly old smile, and ventured she’d no idea how hard he’d had to push.