‘I will return to France whenever your order sends me there, Your Grace.’

The servants have brought up wine, and Cecily smiles as she hands a cup to Marguerite. ‘We both will, of course.’ She hands another to William, who will not catch her eye.

‘Good, good,’ says Henry, taking his own cup from Richard’s hand. ‘Now to loving business. We are here to see your daughter wed.’

So Cecily goes and fetches little Anne to the gilded chapel, bare of flowers in this winter season, shivering with candlelight.

As the door opens for them, all faces but one turn towards them, palely shining. Then the groom, nudged by his father, raises his sullen head.

‘Are you ready?’ she asks her daughter.

And Anne nods.

So she leads her by the hand to Henry Holland, who hurries his vows and pets his dogs that have followed him to church.

When it’s done she brings the child back to her nurse. But before her daughter is led away, she kneels and looks deep into the small, stern face. ‘It is well done, Anne. I am pleased.’

A little colour comes to the bone-pale cheeks and, almost, the girl smiles.

The next day dawns colder still, with sheets of pink cast against a silver sky and beads of frost glimmering on the muzzles of the Alaunt hounds. They make big-pawed nuisances of themselves, snuffling the ground between the horses’ legs. Their master is mounted already, downing cup after cup of the warmed wine handed out by grooms to keep sluggish blood from freezing. Anne is little more than a parcel of furs when the nurse lifts her from her mother’s side into the carriage, then draws herself heavily in beside her.

Cecily watches a small white hand worm from the furry bundle and wrap itself tight about the nurse’s chapped finger. ‘Has she no gloves?’

The nurse loosens the child’s grip and plunges Anne’s empty fist back beneath the furs. Opposite her, John Holland’s wife reaches down for one of the wool-wrapped hot stones placed there for their comfort, and lays it in Anne’s lap. ‘Here. Hold this for heat.’ Then to Cecily, with a shrug, ‘She looks well enough wrapped.’

Cecily nods and looks about her. The escort is ready, its horses breathing smoke into sharp air. She’s impatient, now, for them to be away. She has her own journey to make. While Anne travels to a new life in Devon, she goes to Cambridge with the King. She wants to see what he does with the money he will not spend on his French garrisons.