“I don’t think so,” I say. “They seem to have settled for being constant companions, but no longer husband and wife.”

“And the king?” Maggie asks delicately.

“Why, what have you heard?” I ask dryly. “You’ve only been at court a few days, people must have rushed to tell you everything. What have you heard already?”

She makes a grimace. “It’s common talk that he can’t take his eyes off her, when they ride out he is always near her, when he dances he asks for her as his partner, he sends out the best dishes for her. He is constantly offering gifts which she quietly returns, again and again he sends her to the royal wardrobe, he orders silks for new gowns, but she will only wear black.” She looks at me, and finds me impassive. “You’ve seen all this? You know all this?”

I shrug. “I have seen most of it now, with my husband. I saw it once before with someone else’s husband. I was once the girl that everyone watched as they turned their backs on the queen. I was once the girl that got the gowns and the gifts.”

“When you were the king’s favorite?”

“Just as she is. Worse than she is, for I gloried in it. I was in love with Richard and he was in love with me and we courted right under the nose of his wife, Anne. I wouldn’t do that now. I would never do that now. I didn’t realize then how painful it is.”

“Painful?”

“And demeaning. For the wife. I see the court look at me as they wonder what I am thinking. I see Henry look at me as if he hopes that I don’t notice that he stammers like a boy when he talks to her. And she . . .”

Maggie waits.

“She never looks at me at all,” I say. “She never looks at me to see how I am taking it, or to see if I notice her triumph. She never looks at me to see if I observe that my husband adores her; and oddly it is only her gaze that I could endure. When she curtseys to me or speaks to me, I think she is the only person who understands how I feel. It is as if she and I are in this together, and we have to manage it somehow together. She cannot help that he has fallen in love with her. She does not seek his favor, she does not entice him. Neither she nor I can help it that he has fallen out of love with me, and in love with her.”

“She could leave!”

“She can’t leave,” I say. “She can’t leave her husband, she could not bear to leave him here, and Henry seems determined that he shall live at court, live here like a kinsman almost as if he were . . .”

“As if he were your brother?” Maggie whispers, quiet as a breath.