“What about Teddy?”

“He has been taken to the Tower for his own safety. He was in danger here. He needs to be carefully guarded. But I will speak to the king about your cousin. I will tell you what he says. Without question, he will judge rightly.”

“I want to see the king now!”

She pauses. “Now, daughter, you know that you cannot see him, or any man, until you come out of confinement,” she says reasonably. “But I will give him any message or take him any letter you wish to write.”

“When I have given birth you will have to let me out,” I say breathlessly. It is as if the room is airless and I am struggling to breathe. “Then I will see the king and tell him that I have been imprisoned in here.”

She sighs as if I am very foolish. “Really, Your Grace! You must be calm. We all agreed you were entering your confinement this evening, you knew full well that you were doing this today.”

“What about the dinner and bidding farewell to the court?”

“Your health was not strong enough. You said so yourself.”

I am so amazed by her lie that I gape at her. “When did I say that?”

“You said you were distressed. You said you were troubled. Here there is neither distress nor trouble. You will stay here, under my guidance, until you have safely given birth to the child.”

“I will see my mother, I will see her at once!” I say. I am furious to hear my voice tremble. But I am afraid of My Lady in this darkened room, and I feel powerless. My earliest memory is of being confined, in sanctuary, in a damp warren of cold rooms under the chapel at Westminster Abbey. I have a horror of confined spaces and dark places, and now I am trembling with anger and fear. “I will see my mother. The king said that I should see her. The king promised me that she would be with me in here.”

“She will come into confinement with you,” she concedes. “Of course.” She pauses. “And she will stay with you until you come out. When the baby is born. She will share your confinement.”

I just gape at her. She has all the power and I have none. I have been as good as imprisoned by her and by the convention of royal births which she has codified and to which I agreed. Now I am locked in one shadowy room for weeks, and she has the key.

“I am free,” I say boldly. “I’m not a prisoner. I am here to give birth. I chose to come in here. I am not held against my will. I am free. If I want to walk out, I can just walk out. Nobody can stop me, I am the wife of the King of England.”

“Of course you are,” she says, and then she goes out through the door and turns the key in the lock from the outside, and leaves me. I am locked in.