So you see, I am not riding up the Great North Road.

I know that Henry will have seen this, almost as soon as it was written, so I take it at once to him to demonstrate my loyalty; but as I enter the royal privy chamber I stop, for there is a man with him that I think I know, though I cannot put a name to his darkly tanned face. Then as he turns towards me I think I had better forget everything I have ever known about him. This is Sir Edward Brampton, my father’s godson, the man that my uncle saw at the court in Portugal with the forward page boy. He turns and bows low to me, his smile quietly confident.

“You know each other?” my husband says flatly, watching my face.

I shake my head. “I am so sorry . . . you are?”

“I am Sir Edward Brampton,” he says pleasantly. “And I saw you once when you were a little princess, too young to remember an unimportant old courtier like me.”

I nod and turn my entire attention to Henry, as if I have no interest in Sir Edward at all. “I wanted to tell you that I have a note from Bermondsey Abbey.”

He takes it from my hand and reads it in silence. “Ah. She must know that James is dead.”

“Is that what she means? She writes only that she won’t be riding up the Great North Road. How did the king die? How could such a thing happen?”

“In battle,” Henry says shortly. “His country supported his son against him. It seems that some of us cannot even trust blood kin. You cannot be sure of your own heir, never mind another.”

Carefully I do not look towards Sir Edward. “I am sorry if this causes us trouble,” I say evenly.

Henry nods. “At any rate, we have a new friend in Sir Edward.”

I smile slightly, Sir Edward bows.

“Sir Edward is to come home to England next year,” Henry says. “He was a loyal servant of your father’s and now he is going to serve me.”

Sir Edward looks cheerful at this prospect and bows again.

“So when you reply to your mother, you can tell her that you have seen her old friend,” Henry suggests.

I nod and go towards the door. “And tell her that Sir Edward had a forward page boy, who made much of himself, but that he has now left his service and gone to work for a silk merchant. Nobody knows where he is now. He may have gone trading to Afric, perhaps to China, no one knows.”

“I’ll tell her that, if you wish,” I say.

“She’ll know who I mean,” Henry smiles. “Tell her that the page boy was an insolent little lad who liked to dress in borrowed silks but now he has a new master—a silk merchant as it happens, so he will be well suited in his work, and the boy has gone with him, and is quite disappeared.”