I really fear he is going back to sleep. His head is nodding and his eyes are closing.

‘I am so tired,’ he says like a little child, and in a moment he is asleep again.

* * *

We sit up through the night in case he wakes again; but he does not. In the morning the queen is pale and strained with anxiety. The doctors go in to him at seven in the morning and gently touch his shoulder, whisper in his ear that it is morning, and to their amazement he opens his eyes and sits up in his bed, and orders that the shutters be opened.

He lasts till dinnertime, just after midday, and then sleeps again, but he wakes for his supper and asks for the queen, and when she enters the privy chamber he orders a chair to be set for her, and asks her how she does.

I am standing behind her chair as she answers him that she is well, and then she asks, gently, if he remembers that she was with child when he fell asleep.

His surprise is unfeigned. ‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘I remember nothing. With child, did you say? Gracious, no.’

She nods. ‘Indeed, yes. We were very happy about it.’ She shows him the jewel he had made for her, she had it in its case, ready to remind him. ‘You gave me this to celebrate the news.’

‘Did I?’ He is quite delighted with it. He takes it in his hand and looks at it. ‘Very good workmanship. I must have been pleased.’

She swallows. ‘You were. We were. The whole country was pleased.’

We are waiting for him to ask after the baby; but clearly, he is not going to ask after the baby. His head nods as if he is drowsy. He gives a tiny little snore. Margaret glances at me.

‘Do you not want to know about the child?’ I prompt. ‘You see the jewel that you gave the queen when she told you she was with child? That was nearly two years ago. The baby has been born.’

He blinks, and turns to me. His look is quite without understanding. ‘What child?’

I go to the door and take Edward from his waiting nurse. Luckily, he is sleepy and quiet. would not have dared to bring him lustily bawling into this hushed chamber. ‘This is the queen’s baby,’ I say. ‘Your baby. The Prince of Wales, God bless him.’

Edward stirs in his sleep, his sturdy little leg kicks out. He is a toddler, handsome and strong, so unlike a newborn baby, that my confidence wavers even as I carry him towards the king. He is so heavy in my arms, a healthy child of fifteen months. It seems nonsensical to be presenting him to his father like a newborn. The king looks at him with as much detachment as if I am bringing a fat little lamb into the royal rooms.

‘I had no idea of it!’ he says. ‘And is it a girl or a boy?’