Henry looks at me for the first time. “Has someone spoken to you? Has someone tried to recruit you?”

“No, of course not. I am known to be completely faithful to you.” I look at his hard-faced mother. “Everyone at court but the two of you knows I am completely faithful.”

“What is it then? Speak.”

I draw a breath. “Years ago, when my mother and all my sisters and I were in sanctuary, Richard came to us to tell us that the princes were missing. Mother and I swore an oath against the man who had killed them,” I say.

“That was Richard himself,” My Lady insists quickly.

Henry’s hand stirs slightly as if to silence her.

“Richard put them to death,” she repeats, as if repetition will make it so.

I ignore her, and go on. “We swore that whoever had taken them and put them to death would himself see his own son die in childhood. And his grandson would die young also. And his line would end with a girl and she would have no heir.”

“Richard’s son died, as soon as they named him Prince of Wales,” My Lady reminds her silent son. “It is proof of his guilt.”

He turns and glances at her. “You knew of this curse?”

She blinks like an old reptile, and I know that John Morton reported my words to My Lady as promptly as he prayed to God.

“You did not think you should warn me?” Henry asks.

“Why should anyone warn you?” she asks, knowing that neither of them can answer such a question. “We had nothing to do with their deaths. Richard killed the boys in the Tower,” she asserts steadily. “Or it was Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham. Richard’s line is ended, the young Duke of Buckingham is not strong. If this curse has any power it will fall on him.”

Henry returns his hard gaze to me. “So what is your warning?” he asks me. “What is our danger? What can it possibly be to do with us?”

I slide off my chair and I kneel before him as if he might judge me too. “This boy,” I say, “the one who claims to be Prince Richard of York . . . If we put him to death, that curse might fall on us.”

“Only if he is the prince,” Henry says acutely. “Are you recognizing him? Do you dare to come here and tell me that you recognize him now? After all that we have been through? After claiming to know nothing all the time?”

I shake my head and bow lower. “I don’t recognize him, and I never have. But I want us to take care. I want us to take care for our children. Husband, my lord, we might lose our son in his youth. We might lose a grandson in his youth. Our line might end with a girl and then with nothing. Everything that you have done, everything that we have endured might end with a Virgin Queen, a barren girl, and then . . . nothing.”