While they are christening my boy, I wash and they dress me in a fine new gown of crimson lace and cloth of gold, they put the best sheets on my great bed, and help me back onto the pillows, so that I can be arranged, like a triumphant Madonna, for congratulations. I hear the trumpets outside my room, and the tramp of many feet. They throw open the double doors to my chamber and Cecily comes in, beaming, and puts my baby Arthur into my arms. My mother gives me a beautiful cup of gold for him, the Earl of Oxford has sent a pair of gilt basins, the Earl of Derby a saltcellar of gold. Everyone comes piling into my bedchamber with gifts, kneeling to me as the mother of the next king, kneeling to him to show their loyalty. I hold him and I smile and thank people for their kindness, as I look at men who loved Richard and promised loyalty to him, and who are now smiling at me and kissing my hand and agreeing, without words, that we shall never mention those long seasons ever again. That time shall be as if it never was. We will never speak of it, though they were the happiest days of my life, and maybe the happiest days of theirs, too.

The men swear their loyalty, and pay compliments, and then my mother says quietly: “Her Grace the Queen should rest now,” and My Lady the King’s Mother says at once, so that it shall not be my mother who gives an order: “Prince Arthur must be taken to his nursery. I have everything prepared for him.”

This day marks his entry into royal life, as a Tudor prince. In a few weeks’ time he will have his own nursery palace; we will not even sleep under the same roof. I shall reenter the court as soon as I am churched and Henry will come back to my bed to make another prince for the Tudors. I look at my little son, the tiny baby that he is, in his nursemaid’s arms, and know that they are taking him from me, and that he is prince and I am queen and we are mother and child alone together no more.

Even before I am churched and out of confinement, Henry rewards us Yorks with the marriage of my sister. The timing of the announcement is a compliment to me, a reward for giving him a son; but I understand by their waiting so long that if I had died in childbed, he would have had to marry another princess of York to secure the throne. He and his mother kept Cecily unmarried in case of my death. I went into the danger of childbed with my sister marked out for my widower. Truly, My Lady plans for everything.

Cecily comes to me breathless with excitement, her face flushed as if she is in love. I am tired, my breasts hurt, my privates hurt, everything hurts as my sister dances into my rooms and declares: “He has favored me! The king has favored me! My Lady has spoken for me, and the wedding is to happen at last! I am her goddaughter, but now I am to be even closer!”