I’m too proud to complain. I say, “You are welcome to come and warm yourself in here whenever you like, My Lady,” and I smile inwardly at turning her complaint of my extravagance into my generosity. And I don’t stoop to say anything about her years in the coldness of Wales, when she was far from my father’s extravagant court, far from our lovely rooms, and never warmed by a good fire.

She looks at the blaze and then at my robe. “I am surprised Henry does not order that you ride out,” she says. “It cannot be healthy cooped up indoors. Henry rides out every day and I always walk, whatever the weather.”

I turn to where the rain is running in gray drops down the thick panes of the window. “On the contrary, he wants me to rest,” I say.

At once her look sharpens, and her gaze goes to my belly. “Are you with child?” she whispers.

I smile and nod.

“He didn’t tell me.”

“I asked him not to, until I was sure,” I say.

Clearly, she expects him to tell her everything, whether I want to share the news or not.

“Well, you shall have all the firewood you need,” she says with a sudden burst of generosity. “And I shall send you logs from my own woods. You shall have applewood from my orchards, the scent is so pleasant.” She smiles. “Nothing is too good for the mother of my next grandson.”

Or granddaughter, I think, but I don’t say the words out loud.

My cousin Maggie is with child too, and we compare our widening bellies and claim to have extraordinary fancies for foods, tormenting the cooks by saying that we want coal with marchpane, and mutton and jam.

And then we have news that makes the king happy too. The ship that carried the boy to Cork is captured, returning empty, by one of Henry’s fleet that has been cruising constantly off Ireland. The master of the ship, the silk merchant, is questioned, and though he swears that he has no idea where the boy is now, they make him confess to everything else.

Henry comes to my room carrying a mug of mulled ale and a spiced tisane for me. “My Lady Mother said you should have this,” he says, smelling at it. “I don’t know if you will like it.”

“I can assure you that I will not,” I say lazily from the bed. “She gave it to me yesterday evening and it tasted so vile that I poured it out of the window. Not even Margaret would drink it and she is as humble as your mother’s serf.”

Cheerfully, he opens the latch on the window. “Gardez l’eau!” he shouts cheerfully, and tips the tisane out into the wet night.

“You seem happy,” I say. I slide off the bed and come to sit with him at the fireside.

He grins. “I have a plan, which I want to share with you. I want to send Arthur to Wales, to have his own court at Ludlow Castle.”