“How many of you?”

“Three, just three. I’m the oldest and then William, my brother, and then Nan. You will remember my mother? She was a lady-in-waiting, and then she got Nan a place with—” I break off. Nan served Katherine of Aragon and every queen since. The king has seen her walk in to dinner behind every single one of his six wives. “My mother got Nan a place at court,” I amend. “And then she got my brother, William, married to Anne Bourchier. It was the very pinnacle of her ambition; but you know how badly that went. It’s been a costly mistake for us all. Both Nan and I were put aside so that William could marry well. There was only money for William, and once my mother had got Anne Bourchier there was no money left for a dowry for me.”

“Poor little girl,” he says sleepily. “If only I had seen you then.”

He did see me then. I came to court once with my mother and Nan. I remember the young king of those days: golden-haired, strong in the legs, chest broad but lean. I remember him on horseback; he was always on horseback like a young centaur. He rode past me once and I looked up at him, high on his horse, and he was dazzling. He looked directly at me, a little girl of six jumping up and down, waving at the twenty-seven-year-old king. He smiled at me and raised his hand. I stood stock-still and stared up at him in wonderment. He was as beautiful as an angel. They called him the handsomest king in the world, and there was not a woman in England who did not dream of him. I used to imagine him riding into our little home and asking for my hand in marriage. I thought that if he came for me, everything would be all right, for the rest of my life, for always. If the king fell in love with me, what more could I want? What more could anyone want?

“And so I was married to my first husband, Edward Brough, the eldest son of Baron Brough of Gainsborough.”

“Mad, wasn’t he?” comes sleepily from the richly embroidered pillows. His eyes are closed. His hands, clasped over the mound of his chest, rise and fall with each wheezy breath.

“That was his grandfather,” I say very quietly. “But it was still a fearsome house. His lordship had a terrible temper and my husband shook like a child when he raged.”

“He was no match for you,” he says with sleepy satisfaction. “They were fools to match you to a boy. Even then, you must have been a girl who needed a man you could admire, someone older, someone who could command.”