“Where is my mother?” I ask flatly.

She looks grave as if she were not ready to dance for joy. “Perhaps you should speak with my son the king.”

“He is in his chambers with his council. I don’t want to disturb him. But I shall do so and tell him that you sent me, if that is what you wish. Or can you tell me where my mother is. Or don’t you know? Are you just pretending to knowledge?”

“Of course I know!” she says, instantly affronted. She looks around at the avid faces and gestures to me that we should go through to an inner chamber, where we can talk alone. I follow her. As I go by my mother’s ladies I see that some of them are missing; my half sister Grace, my father’s bastard, is not here. I hope she has gone with my mother, wherever she is.

My Lady the King’s Mother closes the door herself, and gestures that I should sit. Careful of protocol, even now, we sit simultaneously.

“Where is my mother?” I say again.

“She was responsible for the rebellion,” My Lady says quietly. “She sent money and servants to Francis Lovell, she had messages from him. She knew what he was doing and she advised and supported him. She told him which households would hide him and give him men and arms outside York. While I was planning the king’s royal progress, she was planning a rebellion against him, planning to ambush him on his very route. She is the enemy of your husband and your son. I am very sorry for you, Elizabeth.”

I bristle, hardly hearing her. “I don’t need your pity!”

“You do,” she presses on. “For it is you and your husband that your own mother is plotting against. It is your death and downfall she is planning. She worked for Lovell’s rebellion and now she writes secretly to her sister-in-law in Flanders urging her to invade.”

“No. She would not.”

“We have proof,” she says. “There’s no doubt. I am sorry for it. This is a great shame to fall on you and your family. A disgrace to your family name.”

“Where is she?” I ask. My greatest fear is that they have taken her to the Tower, that she will be kept where her sons were held, and that she won’t come out either.

“She has retired from the world,” Lady Margaret says solemnly.

“What?”

“She has seen the error of her ways and gone to confess her sins and live with the good sisters at Bermondsey Abbey. She has chosen to live there. When my son put the evidence of her conspiracy before her, she accepted that she had sinned and that she would have to go.”

“I want to see her.”

“Certainly, you can go to see her,” Lady Margaret says quietly. “Of course.” I see a little hope flare in her veiled eyes. “You could stay with her.”

“Of course I’m not going to stay in Bermondsey Abbey. I shall visit her, and I shall speak with Henry, as she must come back to court.”