“What is it, Maggie?”

Her little forehead is furrowed. “I am anxious about Teddy.”

I wait. She is a devoted sister to the little boy.

“Anxious about his safety.”

“What do you fear?”

“He is the only York boy, the only heir,” she confides. “Of course there are other Yorks, the children of our aunt Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk; but Teddy is the only son left of the sons of York: your father King Edward, my father the Duke of Clarence, and our uncle King Richard. They’re all dead now.”

I register the familiar chord of pain that resonates in me at his name, as if I were a lute, strung achingly tight. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, they are all dead now.”

“From those three sons of York, there are no other sons anymore. Our Edward is the only boy left.”

She glances at me, uncertainly. Nobody knows what happened to my brothers Edward and Richard, who were last seen playing on the green before the Tower of London, waving from the window of the Garden Tower. Nobody knows for sure; but everyone thinks they are dead. What I know, I keep a close secret, and I don’t know much.

“I’m sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to distress you . . .”

“It’s all right,” I say, as if to speak of the disappearance of my brothers is not pain on pain. “Do you fear that Henry Tudor will take your brother into the Tower as King Richard took both of mine? And that he won’t come out either?”

She twists her hand in her gown. “I don’t even know if I should be taking him to London,” she exclaims. “Should I try to get a ship and take him away to our aunt Margaret in Flanders? But I don’t know how. I don’t have any money to hire a ship. And I don’t know who to ask. D’you think we should do that? Get Teddy away? Aunt Margaret would guard and keep him for love of the House of York. Should we do that? Would you know how to do it?”

“King Henry won’t hurt him,” I say. “Not right now, at any rate. He might later on, when he’s established as king and secure on the throne, and people aren’t watching him and wondering how he’s going to act. But in the next few months he’ll be seeking to make friends everywhere. He’s won the battle, now he has to win the kingdom. It’s not enough to kill the previous king, he has to be acclaimed by the people and crowned. He won’t risk offending the House of York and everyone who loves us. Why, the poor man might even have to marry me to please them all!”

She smiles. “You’d make such a lovely queen! A really beautiful queen! And then I could be sure that Edward would be safe, for you could make him your ward, couldn’t you? You’d guard him, wouldn’t you? You know he’s no danger to anyone. We’d both be faithful to the Tudor line. We’d both be faithful to you.”