“You look lovely,” she says, kissing me. “Does he know you are wearing red and black?”

“His mother watched them fit the gown,” I say dully. “She chose the material. Of course he knows. She knows everything and she tells him.”

“They didn’t want green?”

“Lancaster red,” I say bitterly. “Martyrdom red, whore’s red, blood red.”

“Hush,” she commands. “This is your day of triumph.”

At her touch, I find my throat is tightening, and the tears that have been blurring my view all morning spill down on my cheeks. Gently, she pushes them away with the heel of her hand, one cheek and then the other. “Now stop,” she orders softly. “There is nothing that can be done but obey and smile. Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose. The main thing is that we always, we always go on.”

“We, the House of York?” I ask her skeptically. “For this wedding dissolves York into Tudor. This is no victory for us, but our final defeat.”

She smiles her secretive smile. “We, the daughters of Melusina,” she corrects me. “Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age, I didn’t know whether she could summon up a storm or whether it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it.

“It doesn’t matter if you call it magic or determination. It doesn’t matter if you make a spell or a plot. You have to make up your mind what you want, and have the courage to set your heart on it. You will be Queen of England, your husband is the king. Through you, the Yorks regain the throne of England that is their right. Walk through your sorrow, my daughter, it hardly matters as long as you walk to where you want to be.”

“I have lost the man I love,” I say bitterly. “And this very day I am to marry the man who killed him. I don’t think I will ever walk to where I want to be. I don’t think that place exists in England anymore, I don’t think that place exists in this world anymore.”

She could almost laugh aloud in her easy confidence. “Of course you think that now! Today you are to marry a man that you despise; but who knows what will happen tomorrow? I can’t foretell the future. You were born at the very heart of troubled times. Now you will marry one king, and perhaps you will see him challenged, and perhaps you will see him fall. Perhaps you will see Henry go down in the mud and die under the hooves of a traitor army. How can I know? No one can. But one thing I do know: today you can marry him and become Queen of England. You can make peace where he has made war. You can protect your friends and family and put a York boy on the throne. So go to your wedding with a smile.”