“What has she done?” I demand. I cannot maintain the pretence that she is innocent of everything.

“Do you mean that?” he shoots back at me. “Or are you trying to discover how much I know?”

I give a little exclamation, and turn away from him.

“Sit down, sit down,” he says. He comes after me and takes my hand and leads me to the fireside chair where we used to sit so comfortably. He presses me down into the seat and pats my flushed cheek. For a moment I long to throw myself into his arms and cry on his chest and tell him that I know nothing for sure, but that I fear everything just as he does. That I am torn between love for my mother and my lost brothers, and love for my son. That I cannot be expected to choose the next King of England and finally, most puzzling of all for me, I would give anything in the world to see my beloved brother again and know that he is safe. I would give anything but the throne of England, anything but Henry’s crown.

“I don’t know all of it,” he says, sitting heavily opposite me, his chin on his fist, looking at the flames. “That’s the worst thing: I don’t know all of it. But she has been writing to your aunt Margaret in Flanders, and Margaret is mustering an army against us. Your mother has been in contact with all the old York families, those of her household, those who remember your father or your uncle, calling them to be ready for when Margaret’s army lands. She has been writing to men in exile, to men in hiding. She has been whispering with her sister-in-law, Elizabeth—John de la Pole’s mother. She’s even been visiting your grandmother Duchess Cecily, her mother-in-law. They were at daggers drawn for all of her marriage but now they are in alliance against a greater enemy: me. I know that she was writing to Francis Lovell. I have seen the letters. She was behind his rebellion, I have evidence for that now. I even know how much she sent him to equip his army. It was the money I gave her, the allowance that I granted her. All this I know, I have seen it with my own eyes. I have held her letters in my own hands. There is no doubt.”

He exhales wearily and takes a sip of his drink. I look at him in horror. This evidence is enough to have my mother locked up for the rest of her life. If she were a man, they would behead her for treason.

“That’s not the worst of it,” he goes on grimly. “There is probably more; but I don’t know what else she’s been doing. I don’t know all her allies, I don’t know her most secret plans. I don’t dare to think.”

“Henry, what do you fear?” I whisper. “What do you fear that she has been doing, when you look like this?”