Philippa felt a tingle of alarm. Her uncle was rather unorthodox in his ideas, and she had the impression that Manchester doctors were likely to be far more interested in doling out medicines. Her uncle was of the firm conviction that medicines did more harm than good, no matter what the disease might be.

“But my milk,” the princess said. Then she blinked and looked at Mr. Berwick. “Shoo.” He disappeared through the door in a flash.

It was all a bit odd. Philippa was very fond of their family butler, as was her father. But she would never say shoo to Quirbles. It simply wouldn’t be appropriate, and she might offend him.

“I’m poisoning Jonas, aren’t I?” the princess said. “It’s my milk that’s the problem. I’m killing my own baby.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

Philippa got up; her knees had started to hurt. “No, you are not poisoning your child. He needs your milk, and in fact, you are doing an excellent thing by nursing him yourself. You have a flair for the dramatic, Your Highness.”

“Actually, I don’t,” the princess said wearily, tipping her head to rest it against the back of her chair. “I’m very sensible, in my normal state. But it’s just been so awful since he was born. Not that I mean he is awful,” she added.

Philippa bent over and took the baby from her. “This child needs you to rest. Your milk will give out if you don’t sleep.”

“My milk . . . Whenever I feed him, he screams so it breaks my heart. The sound goes through the whole castle. Moments like this, when he’s just sleeping and not crying, are so precious. Besides, I’m afraid that I’ll come back and—”

“As long as we give him enough water, he will not die,” Philippa said firmly. “He’ll be thin, but he’ll survive. And it will get better.”

At that very moment, Jonas’s eyes popped open. He looked at her blurrily, and then let out a bellow. Despite herself, Philippa flinched.

“Is that the first time you’ve heard it?” the princess asked wearily, rising from her chair and holding out her arms.

“He has a fine voice,” Philippa said. “No, you sit down. You feed him, then I’ll show you how to massage his tummy afterwards, which might help with his pain.”

Two hours later, Jonas’s tummy was tight as a drum, he’d been given the gentlest of massages, he’d screamed until he was blue and breathless . . . and finally, exhausted, he had fallen asleep.

Philippa carefully put him down in his cradle, humming the last few bars of the song with which she’d sung him to sleep.

“Do you still believe he will be all right?” his mother asked, bending over to tuck the blanket just under the baby’s chin.