“And his wife with child.”

I take her arm and we walk on. “Oh, if only my mother could have seen this.”

Maggie nods. “She would be so glad. So glad.”

I laugh aloud. “She would be delighted, especially if the girl is beautiful and has a fortune. But Maggie, do you know where they married? And how they looked?”

“She wore a gown of deepest red, and your bro . . . he wore a white shirt and black hose and a black velvet jacket. They held a great tournament to celebrate.”

“A tournament!”

“King James paid for everything, it was all done very well. They are saying it was as grand as our court, some say better. And now the king and the new couple have gone to his hunting palace at Falkland in Fife.”

“My husband knows all this.” I state the obvious.

“Yes. I know it from Sir Richard, who has to go to Lincoln to muster an army for war with Scotland. He had it from one of the king’s spies. The king is in his council right now, commanding the repair of the castles in the North of England and preparing for an invasion from Scotland.”

“An invasion led by the King of Scotland?”

“They say it is a certainty this spring, now that he is married into the royal family of Scotland. The King of Scotland is certain to put him on the throne of England.”

I think of my brother as I last saw him, a handsome little boy of ten with fair hair and bright hazel eyes and an impish smile. I think of the tremble of his lower lip when we kissed him good-bye and wrapped him up warmly and sent him out of sanctuary, all on his own, into the boat to go downriver, praying that the plan would work and that he would get overseas to our aunt Margaret the duchess and that she would save him. I think of him now, fully grown, a man on his wedding day dressed in black and white. I imagine him smiling his impish smile, and his bride beautiful at his side.

I put my hand to my belly, where I am growing a little Tudor, my brother’s enemy, the son of the man who usurped my brother’s throne.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Maggie says, seeing the smile die away from my face. “There is nothing either of us can do but hope to survive and pray that nobody puts the blame on us. And see what happens.”

In February I prepare for my confinement, leaving a court still subdued by mourning for Jasper, and still uneasy at the news from the youthful joyful court in Scotland where we hear that they spend their time hunting in the snow, and planning to invade our northern lands as soon as the weather is better.

Henry holds a grand dinner before I go into the darkened room, and the Spanish ambassador, Roderigo Gonzalva de Puebla, attends as an honored guest. He is a small man, dark and good-looking, and he bows low towards me and kisses my hand and then rises up to beam at me as if he is confident that I shall find him very handsome.