As they watched the death throes of the boar and how the pewterers skillfully held the dogs at bay, Hastings remarked: “I have a great deal of respect for any creature who turns and fights when all seems lost. ’Tis why I follow your brother, the king.”

Richard gazed curiously at Will, who towered above him on the handsome chestnut mare. He had heard people talking about Will Hastings and his bad influence on Edward, but the older man sounded sensible and sincere.

“My brother is the best soldier in the world,” Richard stated. “When I am skilled, I shall follow him, too.”

“Then he is a lucky man, young lord,” Will said, grinning. “You will have to grow a little, ’tis true, but you appear a sturdy lad, and you already understand loyalty.”

Richard thanked the chamberlain graciously, and as Will moved away, the boy wondered what the job of king’s lord chamberlain entailed.

“Lord of the royal bedchamber,” one of the pages enlightened him one day. “You know that men like to have women in their beds?” Richard was reminded of the conversation he had had while fishing with Ned that day at Southwark, and thus his blush told the page that Richard did indeed know. “The chamberlain finds ladies for the king, so I have been told.”

Richard was shocked. “Will Hastings is the king’s councilor. He helps Ned make important decisions. My sister told me.”

His friend shrugged. “Decisions about women are important. I’m just telling you what I know.”

“But what if a woman doesn’t want to go?”

“All the girls want to be in your brother’s bed, Lord Richard,” Will’s brazen young pageboy told him. “And my master likes to bed them afterwards.”

This astonishing conversation would forever color Richard’s judgment of his brother’s best friend, even when he learned the real duties of a chamberlain. Much later, he would have to acknowledge Will as the most loyal of Edward’s councilors, but for the time being he had his doubts.

It took Edward only four months to fulfill his promise of a title to Richard.

One blustery day in October, not long after Richard’s ninth birthday, he received a letter with the royal seal of England and written in the king’s own hand. That Edward would write to him personally, was almost more thrilling to the boy than the message it contained. But not quite.

“Meggie! George!” he cried, waving the letter at his siblings playing chess by the window in their solar at Greenwich Palace. “I am to be given the dukedom of Gloucester. I am to be a duke!”