‘His Grace says that if the king does not waken within a few days we cannot stay here.’

I look at him.

‘People will start to wonder and then there will be gossip. We can say that the king is weary and he can ride in a litter back to London.’

‘We can draw the curtains of the litter,’ I agree. ‘But what then?’

‘The queen has to go into her confinement at Westminster Palace. That’s been planned for months, it can’t be changed. I suggest the king stays quietly in his rooms.’

‘People will talk.’

‘We can say he is praying for her health. We can say he is keeping monastic hours.’

I nod. It is possible that the king’s illness can be kept from everyone but a small court circle.

‘What about meeting with the lords? What about the king’s council?’ I ask.

‘I can handle them,’ the duke says. ‘I will take decisions in the name of the king.’

I look sharply at him and then I lower my eyes so he cannot see my shock. This is to make himself all but King of England. The queen will be in confinement, the king asleep, Edmund Beaufort will step up from being Constable of England to King of England.

‘Richard, Duke of York, is likely to object,’ I remark to the floor beneath my feet.

‘I can handle him,’ he says dismissively.

‘And when the king wakes?’

‘When the king wakes we will all go back to normal,’ the queen says. Her voice is strained, her hand on her belly. ‘And we will have to explain to him that when he was taken so suddenly ill we had to decide what to do without consulting him.’

‘He is likely to be confused when he wakes,’ the duke says. ‘I asked the physicians. They say that he may have troubling dreams, fantasies. He will be surprised at waking. He will not be able to tell what is real and what is a bad dream. Best that it should be in his own bedroom at Westminster, with the country well ruled.’

‘He may remember nothing,’ the queen says. ‘We may have to tell him again all about the loss of Gascony.’

‘We must make sure that he hears the news first from us, and that we tell him the truth gently,’ the duke supplements.

They look like conspirators, their heads close together, whispering. I glance around at the queen’s rooms; no-one else seems to see anything out of the ordinary. I realise that I am the only one who suddenly sees a sickening intimacy.

The queen rises to her feet and gives a little moan at a twinge of pain. I see the duke’s hand fly out, and then he checks the gesture: he does not touch her. She pauses and smiles at him. ‘I am all right.’

He glances at me like a young husband prompting a nurse. ‘Perhaps you should rest, Your Grace,’ I respond. ‘If we are to travel to London.’