She nods. That’s all she will do. She won’t even trust me with a word.

“He’s in Ireland? And sailing from there, to England?”

Now she shrugs, as if she knows she did not send him to his death but what he did after, and where he is now, she will not say.

“But Mother, what shall I do?”

She looks at me steadily, waiting for more.

“Mother, think of me for a moment! What should I do if my brother is alive and he comes at the head of an army, to fight my husband for the throne? The throne that should go to my son? What should I do? When my brother comes to my door with his sword in his hand? Am I Tudor or York?”

Gently, she takes both my hands in hers. “Dearest, don’t distress yourself. It’s bad for you and for the baby.”

“But what am I to do?”

She smiles. “You know you can do nothing. What will be, will be. If there is a battle”—I gasp but her smile is steady—“if there is a battle, then either your husband will win, and your son will take the throne; or your brother will win and you will be sister to the king.”

“My brother, the king,” I say flatly.

“Better that you and I never speak such words,” she says. “But I am glad to have seen the day that you could tell me that England is waiting for the boy that I sent out into the darkness—not knowing what might become of him, not even knowing if the little boat would go safely downriver. My heart has ached for him, Elizabeth, and I have spent many, many nights on my knees for him, hoping for his safety, knowing nothing for sure. I pray that your boy never leaves you and you never have to watch him go, not knowing if he will come back again.” She sees my anxious face and her beautiful smile gleams out at me. “Ah, Elizabeth! Here you are, well and happy, two boys in your nursery and a new baby in your belly, and you tell me that my son is coming home—how can I be anything but filled with joy?”

“If this boy is your son,” I remind her.

“Of course.”

GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, JUNE 1492

Maggie goes into her confinement and gives birth to a baby boy. Tactfully, they call him Henry in tribute to her husband’s beloved king. I visit her and hold her adorable little boy before I have to prepare for my own withdrawal from court.

Henry arrives home just before I enter my confinement, and presides over the great dinner that celebrates my departure from court for the long six weeks before the birth and then the month before I am churched and can come back.

“May I send for my mother?” I ask him as we walk together towards the confinement chamber.