I slip from my bed and lift the tapestry to look out, almost expecting to see carolers outside my window, the sound is so pure, echoing against the stone walls; but all there is to see is a waning moon, curved like a horseshoe floating in a sea of stormy dark-headed clouds which blow past it and over it, though the thick heads of the trees are still and there is no wind. The river gleams like silver in the moonlight, and still I hear the sweet clear noise like plainsong, soaring into the vault of the sky like a choir in a church.

For a moment only I am bewildered, then I recognize the sound, I remember the song. This is the noise that we heard when we were in sanctuary and my brothers disappeared from the Tower. My mother told me then that this is the song the women of our family hear when there is to be a death of one they love very dearly, one of the family. It is the banshee calling her child home, it is the goddess Melusina, the founder of our family, singing a lament for one of her children. As soon as I hear it, as soon as I understand it, I know that my mother, my beloved, beautiful, mischievous mother, is dead. And only she knew, when she told me that she was certain that she would see Richard, whether she meant she would see him on earth or whether she was certain they would meet in heaven.

Henry breaks his own mother’s rules about the confinement of the queen, and comes himself to the screen in my chamber to tell me of her death. He is inarticulate, struggling with his duty to tell me and his fear of causing me grief. His face is fixed, expressionless, he is so anxious that I shall see no trace of the huge relief that he feels that such a dangerous opponent is out of his way. Of course, it is only natural for him to rejoice that if a new pretender emerges from the darkness of the past, at least my mother is not here to recognize him. But for me this is nothing but loss.

“I know,” I say as Henry stumbles on false words of regret, and I put my finger through the grille to touch his fist as he grips on the metal. “You need not be distressed, Henry. You don’t have to tell me. I knew last night that she had died.”

“How? Nobody came from the abbey till my servant this morning.”

“I just knew it,” I say. There is no point telling Henry or his mother about something that would frighten them, seeming like witchcraft. “You know how your mother hears God speak to her in prayer? I had something like that, and I knew.”

“A godly vision?” he confirms.

“Yes,” I lie.

“I am so sorry for your loss, Elizabeth, I truly am. I know how much you loved her.”