I choose a moment when we are preparing for a masque of Edmund Beaufort’s planning. He has ordered that the queen should have a gown of white, fastened high at the waist with a plaited gold cord, and that her hair should be loose. She is supposed to represent a goddess; but she looks like a bride. He has designed new sleeves for the white gown, cut so short and so wide that you can see her arms almost to the elbow. ‘You will have to wear another set of sleeves,’ I say frankly. ‘These are quite indecent.’

She strokes the inside of her arm. ‘It feels so lovely,’ she says. ‘My skin feels like silk. It feels so wonderful to be this . . .’

‘Naked,’ I finish for her; and without another word I find another pair of sleeves in her chest of clothes and start to lace them on. She lets me exchange the sleeves, without a word of complaint, and then sits before her mirror. I wave away her maid and take the hairbrush to stroke out the tangles from the long red-gold ringlets that fall almost to her waist. ‘The noble duke Edmund Beaufort pays you much attention,’ I say. ‘It is noticeable, Your Grace.’

She gleams with pleasure. ‘Ah, you said before, Jacquetta. This is an old song. But he looks at me as a good courtier, a chevalier.’

‘He looks like a man in love,’ I say bluntly, expecting to shock her. But I am horrified to see the colour flame in her cheeks. ‘Oh, does he?’ she asks. ‘Does he really?’

‘Your Grace – what is happening? You know you should not be speaking of real love. A little poetry, a little flirtation is one thing. But you cannot think of him with desire.’

‘When he speaks to me, I come alive.’ She addresses my reflected image in the mirror, and I see her face gleaming and silvery through the looking glass. It is as if we are in another world, the world of the scrying mirror, and such things can be said. ‘With the king it is as if I am caring for a child. I have to tell him that he is in the right, that he should ride out like a man, that he should rule like a king. I have to praise him for his wisdom and coax him when he is upset. I am more a mother to him than a lover. But Edmund –’ She gives a little shuddering breath, lowers her eyes and then looks up at the mirror and shrugs, as if there is nothing she can do.

‘You must stop seeing him,’ I say hastily. ‘Or only see him when others are present. You must keep your distance.’

She takes the brush from my hand. ‘Don’t you like him?’ she asks. ‘He says he likes and admires you. He says he is your friend. And he trusts Richard above all others. He praises him to the king.’