‘He will have his friends beside him,’ I say. ‘Men who are accustomed to warfare. My husband, and Edmund Beaufort the Duke of Somerset.’

‘Edmund has sworn to save Calaisce at my be says. ‘And he is absolutely a man of his word. He swore to me, he went down on his knees and swore to me that nobody would blame me for the loss of Calais, that he would keep it for England and for me. He said it would be his gift to me, like the little fairings he used to give me. He said he would have a golden key made and I can wear it in my hair. They will sail in April.’

‘So soon?’

‘The king has told the Calais garrison to send all their ships to ferry him across the narrow seas. He is taking a great army and a thousand sailors to sail his ships. He is going in April without fail, he says.’

I hesitate. ‘You know, once he gets the fleet assembled, he must go,’ I say carefully. ‘It is very hard to keep a force together, waiting.’

The queen has no idea that I am talking of a year of our lives that Richard and I wasted on the quayside at Plymouth, waiting for her husband to do what he had promised. She has no idea of what that cost us.

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Edmund Beaufort will get the ships without fail, and then the king will go. Edmund will keep him safe, I know it.’

I see that Edmund Beaufort has completely filled the place of William de la Pole in the affections of the young couple. The king has always needed a man to command him, he is afraid without someone at his side. And the queen is lonely. It is as simple as that.

‘My lord Beaufort will take the king to Calais; thank God that we can rely on him.’

THE WEST OF ENGLAND,

SUMMER 1452

He does not go. Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, commands my husband to muster a fleet in Calais and sail with it across the narrow seas to escort the king to France to start his campaign. Richard in Calais recruits the fleet and waits for the order to send the ships to bring the English army to Calais; but spring comes and goes and the order never comes.

I enter my confinement in Grafton, glad to know that Richard is not campaigning this year, and, as it happens, I am right about the baby, I am always right about my babies. I hold my wedding ring on a thread over my curved belly and when it swings clockwise it is a boy and if it is a girl, it circles counter-clockwise. This is hedge-magic, superstition and nonsense that the midwives believe, that the physicians deny. I smile and call it nonsense; but it has never been wrong. I call the new little mite Eleanor and put her in the wooden cradle that has now rocked nine of Richard’s children, and write to tell him that he has a little girl, that she has his dark curling hair and blue eyes, and that he is to take leave from Calais, come home, and see his new daughter.