“That we are as one,” Henry says.

John reaches out to him and the king warmly clasps his hand. “We are as one,” he assures him.

The king sends for Edward, and Maggie and I bustle him into a new jerkin and comb down his hair. He is pale, with the terrible pallor of a child who never gets outside, and his arms and legs are thin though he should be growing strong. He has the York charm and good looks in his little-boy face but he is nervous, as my brothers never were. He reads so much and talks so little that he stammers when he has to speak, and will break off in the middle of a sentence to try to recall what he means to say. Living alone among rough men, he is desperately shy; he smiles only at Maggie and only with her can he talk fluently and without hesitation.

Maggie and I walk with him to the closed door of the privy council chamber, where the yeomen of the guard stand with their pikes crossed, shutting everyone out. He stops, like a young colt refusing a jump.

“They don’t want me to go in,” he says anxiously, looking at the big blank-faced men who stare past the three of us. “You have to do what they say. You always have to do what they say.”

The quaver of fear in his voice reminds me of the day that the men in this very livery carried him down the stairs and I could not save him.

“The king himself wants to see you,” I tell him. “They will open the door as you walk towards them. The doors will open as you get close.”

He glances up at me, his shy smile lighting up his face with sudden hope. “Because I’m an earl?”

“You are an earl,” I say quietly. “But they will open the door because it is the king’s wish. It is the king who matters, not us. What you must remember to say is that you are loyal to the king.”

He nods emphatically. “I promised,” he says. “I promised just as Maggie said I should.”

The procession from the Tower of London to St. Paul’s Cathedral is deliberately informal, as if the royal family strolled to church in their capital city every day. The yeomen of the guard walk with us, beside, behind, and in front, but more as if they were members of the household, leading the way to church, than guards. Henry goes in front with my mother, to signal to everyone the unity of this king with the former queen, and My Lady chooses to go hand in hand with me, showing everyone that the Princess of York is embedded in the House of Tudor. Behind us come my sisters, Cecily with her new husband, so that everyone can see that there is no princess of York of marrying age to form the focus of dissent, and behind her comes Edward our cousin, walking alone so that people waiting both on the right and left can see him clearly. He is well dressed, but he looks awkward and stumbles once as he starts to walk. Maggie walks behind him with my sisters Anne, Catherine, and Bridget, and she has to hold herself back from her little brother and not take his hand, as she used to do. This is a walk he has to do alone, this is a walk where he has to show himself alone, without any supporter, without any coercion, freely following in the train of the Tudor king.