I take her hands. ‘It will happen,’ I say. ‘You must be patient.’

‘How is the marriage to be binding if it is not consummated?’ she demands.

‘It will be consummated, he will do the act, Your Grace, and we should be glad that he is not forceful.’

‘Is he even a man?’ she hisses scornfully, not glad at all.

‘He is a man, he is your husband, and he is your king,’ I say. ‘It will happen. He will do it within the week.’ As long as it is not a saint’s day, or a holy day, I think to myself, if he can confess straight after the deed. Not in the morning before Mass, never in daylight. He is indeed extremely pious. ‘And, Your Grace, when he approaches you, you must accept him without comment, without complaint.’

She tosses her head. ‘But I want to be loved. I have always been loved. I want my husband to love me with passion, like in a troubadour tale, like a knight.’

‘He does love you, he will love you. But he is not a lustful man.’

The anger goes from her as quickly as it came and the face she turns to me is puzzled. ‘Why would he not desire me on the first night, on our wedding night?’

I shrug. ‘Your Grace, he is a thoughtful young man, and very spiritual. He will come to you when he thinks the time is right, and then you must be kind to him.’

‘But who will be kind to me?’ she asks pitifully.

I smile and pat her cheek as if she were my younger sister and not my queen. ‘We will all be kind to you,’ I promise. ‘And you will be happy.’

LONDON,

SUMMER 1445–1448

Margaret is lucky in that she is young and beautiful and the Londoners take to her on sight and cheer her coronation. She is lucky in that she is endearing – I am not the only one who comes to love her and watch for her safety. Around her little court she gathers a collection of people who adore her. Me, she keeps close, her dearest friend and confidante. She loves Alice, William de la Pole’s wife, too, and the three of us are inseperable in these early years of her marriage except for when I go to Grafton for my confinements, a new baby, John, and one who comes early and is especially small and precious on that account: Richard.

But she makes some mistakes and they are grave ones. Her liking for William de la Pole leads her to insist that he be consulted in the king’s councils, and he – already a great man – rises to even higher importance through her favour. The two of them speak against the king’s uncle, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and they whip up suspicion against him so powerfully that he is accused of trying for the throne on his own account, treason against his own nephew. The shock is too great for the duke and he dies before they can bring him to trial. At once there is a storm of gossip which declares that the good duke was murdered, and people point the finger of blame at William de la Pole. After the loss of this, his last uncle, the king leans yet more on his other advisors, and consults the opinion of his young wife. This is a terrible choice. She is little more than a girl, she knows nothing about England, in truth she knows nothing about anything.