I wait till the ladies are at the door of my chamber, taking the dishes for dinner from the servants at the threshold and bringing them in to spread on the big table before the fire so that we can feast and be merry during our long time of waiting before Lent reduces the choice. “How is he?” I ask shortly.

At once she glances around to see if they can hear us, but there is no one in earshot. “Broken,” she says simply.

“Is he ill?”

“Wasted.”

“Does he have books? Letters? Is he very alone?”

“No!” she exclaims. “People are constantly allowed to come in to see him.” She shrugs. “I don’t understand why. Almost anyone can go and speak to him. He lives in a presence chamber, the door standing open, any fool in London can come in and pledge allegiance. He is hardly guarded at all.”

“He doesn’t speak to them, does he?”

A little shake of her head shows that he says nothing.

“He must not speak to anyone!” I say with sudden energy. “His safety depends on his not speaking to them, to anyone.”

“They speak to him,” she tries to explain to me. “His guards don’t keep the door shut, they force it open. He is surrounded by people who come and whisper promises to him.”

“He must not reply!” I take her hands in my anxiety that she understands. “He will be watched, he is being watched. He must do nothing that could cause suspicion.”

She looks up and meets my eyes. “He is himself,” she says. “He has caused suspicion all of his life. Even if he does nothing but breathe.”

The labor is long and I am faint with pain by the time that I hear a little weak cry. They give me birthing ale and the familiar scent and the taste remind me of when I had Arthur and my mother was there with her strong arms around me and her voice leading me into dreams where I felt no pain. When I wake, hours later, they tell me that I have given birth to a boy, another boy for the Tudor dynasty, and that the king has sent his congratulations and a rich gift, and his Lady Mother is on her knees for me in her chapel even now, giving thanks that God continues to smile on her house.

They take him away to be christened Edmund, which I take to be the morbid choice of My Lady, as he was a martyred king; but when it is time for me to be churched I find that I am unwilling to leave the confinement chamber. The heaviness and the weariness that came with the baby do not leave me, not even when they take him with his wet nurse to the palace at Eltham and Lady Margaret’s confessor, John Morton, puts aside his great cope and mitre as Archbishop of Canterbury and comes like a parish priest to the grille in my chamber and invites me to confess my sins, be blessed, and return to the world. I go slowly to the ironwork grille and rest my hands on the twisted Tudor roses, and I feel imprisoned like the boy, and unlikely to be freed.