“How did Warbeck ever get out of this alive?” Lady Margaret bluntly demands of Henry, as the three of us stand, looking at the ruin that was the king’s apartments, the charred roof beams open to the sky still smoking over our heads. “How could he survive it?”

“He says that his door caught fire and he was able to kick it open,” Henry says shortly.

“How could he?” she asks. “How could he not die of the smoke? How could he not be burned? Someone must have let him out.”

“At least no one was killed,” I say. “It’s a miracle.”

The two of them look at me, their faces like a mirror of suspicion and fear. “Someone must have let him out.” The king repeats his mother’s accusation.

I wait.

“I shall make inquiry among the servants,” Henry swears. “I will not have a traitor in my palace, in my own wardrobe rooms, I will not be betrayed under my own roof. Whoever is protecting the boy, whoever is defending him, should take warning. Whoever saved him from the fire is a traitor, as he is. I have spared him so far, I will not spare him forever.” Suddenly he turns on me. “Do you know where he was?”

I look from his flushed angry face to his mother’s white one. “You would do better to discover who set the fire,” I say. “For someone has destroyed our most valuable goods to burn the boy out. Who would want him dead? It was no accidental blaze in those rooms, someone must have heaped up clothes and kindling and put a flame to it. It could only be someone trying to kill the boy. Who would that be?”

It is the way that My Lady stammers that gives her away to me, listening for one of them to lie. “H—he h—has dozens of enemies, dozens,” she says flatly. “Everyone resents him as a traitor. Half the court would want to see him dead.”

“By fire? In his bed?” I say, and my voice is as sharp as an accusation. She drops her glance to the ground, unable to meet my eye.

“He’s a traitor,” she insists. “He is a lost soul, a brand fit for burning.”

Henry glances at his mother, uncertain as to what we are saying. “Nobody can think that I wanted him dead,” he says. “All I have ever said is that it would have been better for Lady Katherine if she had never married him. No more than that. Nobody could think that I wanted his death.”

His mother shakes her head. “Nobody could accuse you. But perhaps someone thought they were doing you a service. Protecting you from your own generosity. Saving you from yourself.”

“If he had died, then Lady Katherine would be a widow,” I say slowly. “And free to marry again.”

My Lady takes the cross at her belt firmly in her hands and holds it tightly, as if she is warding off temptation. I wait for her to speak but for once she chooses to be silent.