When Cecily’s second French-born son is welcomed into Christ’s Church there is no lack of grandeur. Or of purpose. His solemn task, on the first morning of his life, is to remind the world that, in Normandy at least, the reins of power lie in York’s hands and no one else’s. It’s Cecily’s idea, but Annette inspires it, with tales and histories told to distract her mistress during the impatient days of her lying-in. Normandy’s first duke, she tells her, was the Viking warrior Rollo. He was so huge no horse could carry him. So strong no man could best him. So fearsome that the king who ruled France then – ‘He was called Charles the Simple, you know’ – ceded him this rich land in return for being left alone. ‘So, from Rollo’s loins have come all the Dukes of Normandy. Including William, of course, the conqueror of England.’

‘So Normandy belongs naturally to England,’ Cecily concludes.

She watches Annette still her needle, quirk a brow and think.

‘Or England to Normandy, I think?’ A provoking smile, and back to her sewing.

Annette claims not to be political; a Frenchwoman who married an Englishman. Buried him too, and the little one that toddled after him into the grave. She has decided to love other women’s children. It hurts less when they die.

‘There is a font, still,’ Annette remembers, ‘here in our own cathedral. Rollo ordered it made for the baptism of his sons only. No other man’s child. Empty now five hundred years or more. They say,’ she confides, ‘that any boy baptized in it will have all that Rollo had: his greatness and his power.’

Cecily, who has been short of smiles lately, grins. ‘And, hopefully, a bigger horse.’ Then she takes Annette’s hand. ‘Go to my husband and tell him your story. He’ll know what to do.’

And, of course, he does. Despite the blustering protests of Rouen’s archbishop, Rollo’s dry stone holds water again and the newborn Edmund, once doused in it, cries powerfully in his father’s arms. Afterwards Annette, who carried this boy to his baptism, just as she carried his brother, makes a fine tale of it for Cecily. How the noses of the good men of Rouen scraped the floor with bows so deep she thought their backs might snap, as she followed Richard’s arrow-straight back down the flower-strewn nave and out into midday sunlight.

‘Your husband knows how to impress, lady. Never a ceremony so fine.’ Annette smirks. ‘You would have thought a king had come to Rouen and Christ himself leaned down from Heaven to bless him.’

‘A king? Nonsense, Annette. You make too much of it.’ But Cecily, pleased as a cat, kisses her baby’s head, tells him well done and takes from Annette’s lips the loving caress Richard has sent for her.