“I think I’ll tell them to bring him in alive,” Henry says carelessly, as if it does not much matter either way. “I would not want to distress Lady Katherine.”

“She will be distressed,” I observe.

“Yes, but now she must see that her husband has run away and left her, run like a coward and left her as if he did not regard himself as married anymore,” Henry said firmly to me, impressing me with his view. “She must see that he can care nothing for her if he would just go—abandon her completely.”

“Faithless.” His mother nods.

“You had better go and break the news to her,” Henry says. “Tell her that he organized his own escape and he did it quite without honor, drugging a guard and sneaking out like a thief. Leaving her alone, and their son fatherless. She must despise him for this. I expect she will get her marriage annulled.”

I rise from my seat and as he pulls back the heavy wooden chair for me I turn and face him, my gray eyes looking into his dark ones. “I shall certainly tell her that you think she should despise him, I shall certainly tell her that you think she should regard herself as a single woman, as you have always done. In addition, shall I assure her that your motives are chivalrous when you call for her marriage to be annulled?” I ask icily, and I walk out and leave him and his mother to call for a map of the kingdom and calculate where the boy might be.

That night, Henry comes to my bedroom, surprising me and Cecily, who was going to be my bedmate for the night. She scuttles from the room, pulling her robe around her as Henry strolls in, bringing a jug of mulled ale, and a glass of wine for me, just as he used to do when we were happy together.

He gives me my glass, sits at the fireside, pours himself a tankard of ale, and drinks a deep draft, like a man who has reached a safe haven and can afford to celebrate.

“He was plotting, you know,” he says shortly. “Plotting his escape with Flanders, with France, with Scotland. The usual allies. The friends who never forget him.”

I don’t ask who “he” is. “They helped him get out?” I ask.

Henry chuckles, puts out his booted foot, and kicks a log that is teetering on the edge of the fire. “Well, someone certainly helped him. Bundled him out and set him free.”

I find that I am looking at him coldly, trying to understand what he is saying. “Was he drugged like his guards?” I ask eventually. “Was he drugged and kidnapped and put out of the castle?”

Henry does not meet my eyes. Again, he reminds me of Harry, who will twist his finger in his hair and look at his boots and tell me whatever little lie would best suit his case.