“It all takes so long,” he grumbles. “We have to stop at practically every house and castle on the road, to hear a loyal address.”

“Father used to say that while the speeches were going on he looked over their heads at the numbers in the crowd and worked out what they could afford to lend him,” I volunteer. “He never listened to a word that anyone was saying, he counted the cows in the fields and the servants in the yard.”

Henry is immediately interested. “Loans?”

“He always thought it was better to go straight to the people than go to Parliament for taxes, where they would argue with him as to how the country should be run, or whether he might go to war. He used to borrow from everyone that he visited. And the more passionate the speech and the more exaggerated the praise, the greater the sum of money he asked for, after dinner.”

Henry laughs and puts an arm around my broad waist and draws me to him, in the stable yard, before everyone. “And did they always lend him money?”

“Almost always,” I say. I don’t pull away but neither do I lean towards him. I let him hold me, as he has a right to do, as a husband can hold his wife. And I feel the warmth of his hand as he spreads his fingers over my belly. It’s comforting.

“I’ll do that then,” he says. “Because your father was right, it’s an expensive business trying to rule this country. Everything that I am granted in taxes from Parliament I have to give away in gifts to keep the loyalty of the lords.”

“Oh, don’t they serve you for love?” I ask nastily. I cannot stop my sharp tongue.

At once, he releases me. “I think we both know that they don’t.” He pauses. “But I doubt they loved your father that much, either.”

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, APRIL 1486

After weeks of preparation they are finally ready to leave. Lady Margaret is to ride out with her son for the first two days and then come back to London. If she dared, she would make the whole royal progress with him, but she is torn. She wants to be with him, she always wants to be with him, she can hardly bear to let him out of her sight; but at the same time, she cannot bear not to supervise my daily routine and keep me under constant control. She can trust no one else to order my food, to patrol my twice-daily walks, and provide me with uplifting books of sermons to read. No one but she can judge how much food or wine or ale should be served at my table, and only she can run the royal household as she wants it. It is unbearable to her that, in her absence, I might run it as I like. Or even worse—that the palace might be commanded once again by its former mistress: my mother.