“What’s happening?” I ask. “What’s happening down there?”

“The people are rising against Henry Tudor,” my mother says calmly.

“What?”

“They’re gathering outside the palace, mustering, in their hundreds.”

I feel the baby move uneasily in my belly. I sit down, take a gasping breath. “What should we do?”

“Stay here,” my mother says steadily. “Until we can see our way.”

“What way?” I ask impatiently. “Where will we be safe?”

She looks back at my white face and smiles. “Be calm, my dear. I mean, we stay here till we know who’s won.”

“Do we even know who’s fighting?”

She nods. “It is the English people who still love the House of York, against the new king,” she says. “We’re safe either way. If Lovell wins in Yorkshire, if the Stafford brothers win their battles in Worcestershire, if these London citizens take the Tower and then set siege here—then we come out.”

“And do what?” I whisper. I am torn between a growing excitement and an absolute dread.

“Retake the throne,” my mother says easily. “Henry Tudor is in a desperate fight to hold his kingdom, only nine months after winning it.”

“Retake the throne!” My voice is a squeak of terror.

My mother shrugs. “It’s not lost to us until England is at peace and united behind Henry Tudor. This could be just another battle in the Cousins’ War. Henry could be just an episode.”

“The cousins are all gone!” I exclaim. “The brothers who were of the houses of Lancaster and York are all gone!”

She smiles. “Henry Tudor is a cousin of the House of Beaufort,” she reminds me. “You are of the House of York. You have a cousin in John de la Pole, your aunt Elizabeth’s son. You have a cousin in Edward Earl of Warwick, your uncle George’s son. There is another generation of cousins—the question is only whether they want to go to war against the one who is now on the throne.”

“He’s ordained king! And my husband!” I raise my voice, but nothing perturbs her.

She shrugs. “So you win either way.”

“D’you see what they’re carrying?” Maggie squeaks with excitement. “Do you see the flag?”

I rise from my chair and look over her head. “I can’t see it from here.”

“It’s my flag,” she says, her voice trembling with joy. “It’s the ragged staff of Warwick. And they’re calling my name. They’re calling À Warwick! À Warwick! They’re calling for Teddy.”

I look over her bobbing head to my mother. “They’re calling for Edward, the heir of York,” I say quietly. “They’re calling for a York boy.”

“Yes,” she says equably. “Of course they are.”

We wait for news. It is hard for me to bear the wait, knowing that my friends and my family and my house are up in arms against my own husband. But it is harder on My Lady the King’s Mother, who seems to have given up sleeping altogether but is every night on her knees before the little altar in her privy chamber, and all day in the chapel. She grows thin and gray with worry; the thought of her only son far away in this faithless country, with no protection but his uncle’s army, makes her ill with fear. She accuses his friends of failing him, his supporters of fading away from him. She lists their names in her prayers to God, one after another, the men who flocked to the victor but will abandon a failure. She goes without food, fasting to draw down the blessing of God; but we can all see that she is sick with the growing fear that despite it all, her son is not blessed by God, that for some unknown reason, God has turned against the Tudors. He has given them the throne of England but not the power to hold it.