‘It is an honour, given at my request, to the man who executes our policy in France. I choose to see it as reassurance of the King’s continuing favour – and your uncle’s. You may see it as you will.’

She sees his fist, curled around the arm of his chair, while a long finger rubs back and forth against a tight frown. The distance between them is suddenly too great.

She rises to cross it, lays a hand against his cheek. ‘I am too tired to fight. Come, I’ll write the King and thank him for his favour. And my uncle. Let’s to bed.’

But first they go to the nursery to look once more upon their sleeping son.

The widow Annette is there beside the crib, stitching and watching in a pool of candlelight. She rises, and steps quietly aside as they approach.

There’s a shadow of golden hair on Edward’s head that Cecily cannot help but kiss.

Richard gazes at his son. ‘He is the greatest gift you have ever given me, Cecily.’

‘I have drawn the sun to earth for you.’

He smiles at her and she feigns a laugh, as if she believes her words to be only a mother’s fondness and not gospel truth.

That night she lies beside her sleeping husband thinking only of her son, remembering the weight of him in her arms, the warmth of his breath, the prayers that banked his fire and made him safe.

When sleep comes, it brings Gloucester to her mind, spinning and adrift. And then Eleanor, stepping taper-lit through the grey London dawn while men laugh and women sneer. Cecily feels in her feet the cold of the cobbles and the jeers of the crowd that fall like blows about her head. She watches the lady’s penitent back disappearing into mist, the damp hem of a thin shift clinging to bruised heels.

Poor Eleanor. Cecily will not bludgeon her with pity. She will take her as a lesson and rest.

Edward sleeps soft and safe on Annette’s careful watch. She nests her body against Richard’s curled back. If any man should rise now to threaten York, they cannot do it through her empty belly.

13

January–April 1443

Dijon, Burgundy

Burgundy’s Duchess Isabella is not a beautiful woman. Her features are too sharp, her lips too thin and, if diplomacy did not matter, Cecily would say the lady plucks her brow too high. And for all she bathes her face in lemon juice and camomile, her Portuguese blood robs her skin of the moon-pale lustre with which Cecily can light a room. It hardly matters. If Isabella’s flesh doesn’t sparkle, her jewels do, and Cecily has never seen any woman dress so richly or so fine.