“I know that you went to see her,” he says without preamble.

The man pours a tankard of mulled ale and puts a small glass of red wine on a table beside me, and then makes himself scarce.

“I took the royal barge,” I say. “It was no secret.”

“And you told her of the boy?”

“I did.”

“And did she know already?”

I hesitate. “I think so. But she could have learned it from gossip. People are starting to talk, even in London, about the boy in Ireland. I heard about it in my own rooms tonight; everyone is talking, again.”

“And does she believe that this is her son, returned from the dead?”

Again I pause. “I think that she may do. But she is never clear with me.”

“She is unclear because she is engaged in treason against us? And does not dare to confess?”

“She is unclear because she has a habit of discretion.”

He laughs abruptly. “A lifetime of discretion. She killed the sainted King Henry in his sleep, she killed Warwick on the battlefield shrouded in a witch’s mist, she killed George in the Tower of London drowned in a barrel of sweet wine, she killed Isabel his wife and Anne, the wife of Richard, with poison. She has never been accused of any of these crimes, they are still secret. She is indeed discreet, as you say. She’s murderous and discreet.”

“None of that is true,” I say steadily, disregarding the things that I think may be true.

“Well, at any rate . . .” He stretches his boots towards the fire. “She did not tell you anything that would help us? Where the boy comes from? What are his plans?”

I shake my head.

“Elizabeth . . .” His voice is almost plaintive. “What am I to do? I can’t keep fighting for England. The men who came out for me at Bosworth didn’t all turn out for me at the battle of Stoke. The men who risked their lives at Stoke won’t come out for me again. I can’t go on fighting for my life, for our lives, year after year. There is only one of me, and there are legions of them.”

“Legions of who?” I ask.

“Princes,” he says, as if my mother had given birth to a monstrous dark army. “There are always more princes.”

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, DECEMBER 1491

As the court sets about the task of the twelve days of merrymaking for Christmas, Henry sends out a force to Ireland, in ships that sail for him from the loyal port of Bristol. They land the soldiers and bring back his spies, who ride to London and tell him that the boy is beloved of everyone who meets him. The moment that he set foot on the quayside the people caught him up and carried him round the town at shoulder height, greeting him like a hero. He has the charm of a young god, he is irresistible.