“Of course I’m warm,” he says. “Sir Richard had us in a breakneck canter for the last half hour.”

“I wanted to get in before nightfall,” Sir Richard explains and he dismounts and bows low to me. “He’s well,” he says shortly. “Healthy, strong, and learning something new every day. He’s very good in dealing with the people in Wales. Very fair. We’re making a king here. A good king.”

Maggie tumbles down from her horse, curtseys to me, and then bounds up to hug me. “You’re looking well,” she observes, stepping back to scrutinize me. “Are you happy?” she asks doubtfully. “How is everything here? His Grace the King?”

Something makes me turn and look towards the shadow of the doorway, to the open door. The torchlight is behind her, but I can see the silhouette of Katherine Huntly, her velvet dress black against the flickering darkness of the doorway. She is watching me greet my son, though her own baby boy is far away tonight and she is not allowed to see him. She is hearing my son’s guardian say that he is a good Prince of Wales though she thought her own son was born for that position, and he was always addressed with that title.

I beckon her forwards. “You remember Lady Katherine Huntly,” I say to Sir Richard.

Maggie curtseys to her and for a moment we three women stand still, as the drifting snow swirls around us as if we were untitled statues in a wintry garden. What should the names be on the bases of the statues? Are we two cousins and a sister-in-law, destined to live together in silence, never speaking the truth? Or are we two unlucky daughters of the defeated House of York and an imposter who has won her place with us by the low means of charming the king? Will we ever know for sure?

His Grace the King appoints six ladies-in-waiting at his own cost to serve Lady Katherine. They will work for her, as my ladies serve me, running errands, writing notes, giving small gifts to the poor, keeping her company, helping her choose her clothes and dressing her, praying with her in chapel, singing and making music with her when she is merry, reading with her when she wants to be quiet. She has her own set of rooms on my side of the great palace: her bedchamber, her privy chamber, her presence chamber. Sometimes she sits with me, sometimes she joins My Lady the King’s Mother, where she gets a chilly welcome, and sometimes she retreats with her ladies to her own presence chamber, a little court within a court.