Then, after Easter, while my mother and my two sisters are sewing baby clothes in My Lady the King’s Mother’s presence chamber, a messenger, covered with dust from the road, comes in all his dirt to the doorway, saying he has an urgent message from His Grace the King.

For once, she does not look down her long nose, insist on her own grandeur, and send him away to change his clothes. She takes one astounded look at his grave face and admits him at once into her private room, and goes in behind him, closing the door herself, so that no one can overhear the news that he brings.

My mother’s needle is suspended over her sewing as she raises her head and watches the man go by. Then she gives a little sigh, as a woman quietly contented with her world, and goes back to her work. Cecily and I exchange one anxious look.

“What is it?” I ask my mother, as soft as a breath.

Her gray eyes are downcast, on her work. “How would I know?”

The door to My Lady’s private room is closed for a long time. The messenger comes out, walks through all of us ladies as if he has been commanded to march by saying nothing, and still the door remains closed. Only at dinnertime does My Lady come out and take her seat on the great chair under the cloth of estate. Grim-faced, she waits in silence for the head of her household to tell her that dinner is served.

The archbishop, John Morton, comes and stands beside her as if ready to leap forwards with a benediction, but she sits, flinty-faced, saying nothing, not even when he leans down as if to catch the quietest whisper.

“Is everything well with His Grace the King?” my mother inquires, her voice light and pleasant.

My Lady looks as if she would rather keep her silence. “He has been troubled by some disloyalty,” she says. “There are still traitors in the kingdom, I am sorry to say.”

My mother raises her eyebrows, and makes a little tutting noise as if she is sorry too, and says nothing.

“I hope His Grace is safe?” I try.

“That fool and traitor Francis Lovell has abused the sanctuary he was allowed and come out and raised an army against my son!” Lady Margaret declares in a sudden, hideous outburst of rage. She is shaking all over, her face flushed scarlet. Now that she has allowed herself to speak, she cannot keep from shouting, spittle flying from her mouth, the words tumbling out, her headdress trembling in her fury as she clutches the arms of her chair as if to hold herself seated. “How could he? How dare he? He hid himself in sanctuary to avoid the punishment of defeat and now he is out of his earth like a fox.”

“God forgive him!” the archbishop exclaims.

I gasp, I cannot help myself. Francis Lovell was Richard’s boyhood friend and dearest companion. He rode out to battle at his side, and when Richard went down he fled to sanctuary. He can only have come out for a good reason. He is no fool, he would never ride out for a lost cause. Lovell would never have come out of sanctuary and raised his standard without knowing that he had support. There must be a ring of men, known only to one another, who have been waiting for the moment—perhaps as soon as Henry left the safety of London. They must be prepared and ready to challenge him. And they will not be coming against him alone, they must have an alternative king in mind. They must have someone to put in his place.