In her rooms the queen is lying in her bed. I am so afraid of what I may have done that I recoil on the threshold of her darkened room, and whisper, ‘Margaret.’ She raises her hand, she can move, she is not enchanted. One of her younger ladies is at her side, while the rest of them are in the room outside, whispering about the danger to the baby, and the shock to the queen, and the likelihood of everything going terribly wrong, as women always do when one is near to childbirth.

‘Enough,’ I say irritably, as I close the door on the queen’s chamber so she cannot hear these fearful predictions. ‘If you can’t say anything cheerful then don’t speak at all. And you, Bessie, I don’t want to hear another word about your mother’s travails in childbed. I have been brought to bed eleven times, raised ten, and never endured one quarter of the pains you report. Indeed no woman could have borne what you describe. The queen may well be as lucky as me.’

I stamp past them to the queen’s rooms and send away my little maid with one wave of my hand. She goes in silence and for a moment I think the queen is asleep; but she turns her head and looks at me, her eyes dark and hollowed with fatigue and fear.

‘Has the king woken this morning?’ Her lips are chapped where she has been biting them, she looks haggard with worry.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not yet. But they have washed him and he has taken a little breakfast.’

‘He is sitting up?’

‘No,’ I say uncomfortably. ‘They had to serve him.’

‘Serve him?’

‘Feed him.’

She is silent. ‘It’s a blessing in a way,’ she says. ‘It means he says nothing rashly, in temper, at first thought. It gives us time to consider. I keep thinking that it is a blessing in a way. It gives us time to . . . prepare.’

‘In a way,’ I agree.

‘What do the doctors say?’

‘They say they think he will wake, perhaps tomorrow.’

‘And then he will be himself again? And remember everything?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t believe that they really know.’

‘What shall we do?’

‘I don’t know.’

She sits on the side of the bed, her hand cupped on her belly, and rises to her feet to look out of the window. Below her are the beautiful gardens running down to the river where a punt bobs invitingly at a landing stage, and a heron stands still and quiet in the water. She sighs.

‘Do you have any pain?’ I ask anxiously.

‘No, no, I can just feel the baby moving.’

‘It is most important that you remain calm.’

She laughs shortly. ‘We have lost Gascony, next the French are certain to attack Calais, the king has gone to sleep and cannot be wakened, and . . .’ She breaks off. Neither of us has mentioned the duke taking her into his arms as an accustomed lover, kissing her face, promising to keep her safe. ‘And you tell me to remain calm.’