I rise to my feet as my half brother, Thomas Grey, great survivor that he is, comes into the room and looks around at the three of us. “I thought you would want to know at once,” he says without introduction.

“We do,” I say.

“He’s dead,” he says, before we have time to build any false hopes. “He died well. He confessed and died in Christ.”

Lady Katherine makes a little choking noise and puts her face in her hands. Margaret crosses herself.

“Did he confess the imposture?” I ask.

“He said that he was not the boy that he had pretended to be,” Thomas says. “He had been commanded, if he wanted a merciful death, to tell the crowd, to tell everyone that there was no hope of a living York prince. So he told them that: he was not the boy.”

I can feel a little scream of laughter growing inside me, bubbling in my throat. “He told them he was not the boy that he had pretended to be?”

Thomas looks at me. “Your Grace, he swore he would leave no one in any doubt. The king allowed him to be hanged and not gutted, but only if he made everything clear.”

I can’t help myself, my peal of laughter fights its way out of my grim lips and I laugh aloud. Katherine looks shocked. “He admitted he was not the boy that he had said? When earlier, at Exeter, in his written confession, they made him say that he was the boy Perkin!”

“It was clear to everyone what he meant, if you had been there—” my half brother checks for we all know I could not have been there “—but if you had been there you would have seen him penitent.”

“And what name did they call him?” I ask, recovering myself. “As they led him to the scaffold?”

Thomas shakes his head. “They didn’t name him, not that I heard.”

“He died without being given or acknowledging a name?”

Thomas nods. “That’s how it was.”

I rise to my feet and open the shutters to look out over the dark river. A few lights are bobbing, reflected on the water, as I listen to hear any noise, any singing. It is the feast of St. Clement, and I can hear a choir, very faintly in the distance, a sweet sad singing like a lament.

“Was he in pain?” Lady Katherine rises to her feet, white-faced. “Did he suffer?”

Thomas faces her. “He went up to the scaffold with courage,” he said. “His hands were tied behind his back and they helped him gently up the ladder. There were hundreds there, thousands, pushing to see, they had built the scaffold very high so that everyone could see him. But there was no one catcalling or shouting. It was as if they were sorry. Or curious. Some people were crying. It wasn’t like a traitor’s execution at all.”

She nods rapidly, swallowing tears.

“He spoke very briefly, saying he was not who he had pretended to be, then he went up the ladder and they put the noose around his neck. He looked around for a moment, just for a moment, as if he thought something might happen . . .”