‘Do you think days?’ Lady Grey asks.

I look at Elizabeth. ‘I can’t tell yet,’ I say. ‘And a first child often takes his time.’

Lady Grey leaves us, promising to send up a good dinner as soon as it grows dark. Elizabeth waits for the door to close behind her, and says, ‘You said “his”; you said “his” time.’

‘Did I?’ I smile at her. ‘What d’you think?’

‘I did the wedding ring spell,’ she says eagerly. ‘Shall I tell you what it said?’

‘Let me try,’ I say, as excited as a girl. ‘Let me try with my ring.’

I slip my wedding ring from my finger and take a thin gold chain from my neck. I put the ring on the chain, wondering a little that I should be so blessed as to be dowsing for my daughter, to see what her baby will be. I hold the chain over her belly and wait for it to hang still. ‘Clockwise for a boy, widdershins for a girl,’ I say. Without my moving it, the ring begins to stir, slowly at first as if in a breeze, and then more positively, round and round in a circle. Clockwise. ‘A boy,’ I say, catching it up and restoring the ring to my finger and the chain to my neck. ‘What did you think?’

‘I thought a boy,’ she confirms. ‘And what are you going to have?’

‘A boy too, I think,’ I say proudly. ‘What a family we are making, I swear they should all be dukes. What will you name him?’

‘I am going to call him Thomas.’

‘Thomas the survivor,’ I say.

She is instantly curious. ‘Why d’you call him that? What is he going to survive?’

I look at her beautiful face and for a moment it is as if I am seeing her in a stained-glass window, in a shadowy hall, and she is years away from me. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I just think he will have a long journey and survive many dangers.’

‘So when do you think he will come?’ she asks impatiently.

I smile. ‘On a Thursday, of course,’ I reply, and quote the old saying: ‘Thursday’s child has far to goquo;

She is diverted at once. ‘What was I?’

‘Monday. Monday’s child is fair of face.’

She laughs. ‘Oh, Lady Mother, I look like a pumpkin!’

‘You do,’ I say. ‘But only till Thursday.’

* * *

It turns out that I am right on both counts, though I don’t crow over Lady Grey, who would make a bad enemy. The baby is a boy, he is born on a Thursday, and my Elizabeth insists he shall be called Thomas. I wait until she is up and about, I take her to be churched myself, and when she is well and the baby feeding, and her husband has stopped coming to me ten times each day to ask if I am sure that everything is well, I go to Grafton to see my other children, and promise them that their father is bravely serving his king, as he always does, and he will come home to us, as soon as he can, as he always does, that their father has sworn to be faithful to us over and over, that he will always come home to me.