Henry shows no sign of thinking of the boy or my cousin Teddy at all. He is as merry as a king sure of his throne, certain of his inheritance, and confident of his future. When the Spanish ambassador comes and speaks gravely of traitors yet living in confinement, Henry slaps him on the back and tells him to assure their majesties of Spain the kingdom is safe, our troubles are all over, the infanta must come at once, and she and Arthur will be married at once. There is no obstacle.

“There is the boy,” the ambassador remarks. “And Warwick.”

Henry snaps his fingers.

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1499

We return to London and Henry retires into his private rooms with his mother to review all the reports that have gathered in his absence. Within a day there is a stream of men coming and going by the private stair, almost unobserved by the court. Only I watch them and wonder at so many yeomen of the guard coming from their duty at the Tower to speak privately with the king.

That evening, when the young men of the court visit my rooms to dance with my ladies and to flirt in the hour before dinner, Henry is grim and gray-faced.

“You have had some bad news,” I say as he glances back at the court lining up behind us.

He shoots a hard look at me. “Do you know what it is?” he demands. “Have you known all this time?”

I shake my head. “Truly, I know nothing. I have seen people reporting to you all the day and now I see you looking ill, you are so weary.”

He takes my hand in a painfully tight grip. “You are missing a cousin,” he says.

At once my thoughts go to Teddy in the Tower. “My cousin? He’s gone?”

“Edmund de la Pole,” he says, spitting out the words. “Another false York. Son of your aunt Elizabeth. The one that she swore to me I could trust.”

“Edmund?” I repeat.

“He’s run away,” Henry says shortly. “Did you know?”

“No, of course not.”

The court is ready. Henry glances over his shoulder as if he always fears who is behind him. “I am sick,” he says. “Sick to my belly.”

He sits at the head of the great table and they bring him the best that the kingdom can supply, but I can see as he takes a small portion from one dish and then another that he tastes nothing. The meat has lost its savor and the marchpane its sweetness. He glances down the table to Lady Katherine, seated at the head of my ladies, and she looks back at him and gives him her sweet, promising smile. He looks at her not as if she is a woman that he desires, but a puzzle that he cannot solve, and the smile dies on her lips as she swallows and turns her face down.