I rode to Hampton Court with Danny in a pillion saddle behind me for the first time. He was old enough and strong enough to ride astride and to hold tightly on to my waist for the short journey. He was still mute, but the wound had healed up, and he was as peaceful and as smiling as he had always been. I could tell by the tight grip on my waist that he was excited at the journey and at riding properly for the first time. The horse was gentle and steady and we ambled along beside the queen’s litter down the damp dirty lanes between the fields where they were trying to harvest the wet rye crop.

Danny looked around him, never missing a moment of this, his first proper ride. He waved at the people in the field, he waved at the villagers who stood at their doorways to watch as we went by. I thought it spoke volumes for the state of the country that a woman would not wave in reply to a little boy, since he was riding in the queen’s train. The country, like the town, had turned against Mary and would not forgive her.

She rode with the curtains of the litter drawn, in rocking darkness, and when we got to Hampton Court she went straight to her rooms and had the shutters closed so that she was plunged into dusk.

Danny and I rode into the stable-yard, and a groom lifted me down from the saddle. I turned and reached up for Danny. For a moment I thought he would cling and insist on staying on horseback.

‘Do you want to pat the horse?’ I tempted him.

His face lit up at once and he reached out his little arms for me and came tumbling down. I held him to the horse’s neck and let him pat the warm sweet-smelling skin. The horse, a handsome big-boned bay, turned its head to look at him. Danny, very little, and horse, very big, stared quite transfixed by each other, and then Danny gave a deep sigh of pleasure and said: ‘Good.’

It was so natural and easy that for a moment I did not realise he had spoken; and when I did realise, I hardly dared to take a breath in case I prevented him speaking again.

‘He was a good horse, wasn’t he?’ I said with affected nonchalance. ‘Shall we ride him again tomorrow?’

Danny looked from the horse to me. ‘’es,’ he said decidedly.

I held him close to me and kissed his silky head. ‘We’ll do that then,’ I said gently. ‘And we’ll let him go to bed now.’

My legs were weak beneath me as we walked from the stable-yard, Danny at my side, his little hand reaching up to hold mine. I could feel myself smiling, though tears were running down my cheeks. Danny would speak, Danny would grow up as a normal child. I had saved him from death in Calais, and I had brought him to life in England. I had justified the trust of his mother, and perhaps one day I would be able to tell his father that I had kept his son safe for love of him, and for love of the child. It seemed wonderful to me that his first word should be: ‘good’. Perhaps it was a foreseeing. Perhaps life would be good for my son Danny.