“If you want something badly enough—and you work hard, pray to God every day, and obey your uncle—anything is possible.” He tucked the fox inside his shirt and chuckled. “I shall give this to my son, Johnny. ’Tis said he behaves like a fox in a hen house when he is around the young…not that you would understand, young Dickon,” he hurriedly added.

“Fiddle faddle!” Dickon retorted, grinning and for a moment forgetting Richard was a guest. “Of course I know.”

Richard was so unnerved to hear Kate’s favorite expression, he rose and picked up his cloak.

Dickon blanched, suspecting he had upset the grand visitor. “I b…beg your pardon, sir. Did I say something to offend you? My father always said my tongue would get me into trouble one day.”

Just like your mother, Dickon, Richard thought, amused. His heart ached for Kate at that moment, but reaching out and chucking the boy under the chin, he said kindly, “I am not offended, Dickon. Far from it. You have lightened my day. Now run along while I talk to your uncle.”

Geoff was astonished by the generous stipend Richard promised to send every year to help with the boy’s board, lodging, and education. “See to it that he finds a good mason to apprentice with, Master Bywood. The boy has a true gift.”

Richard rode on to Canterbury, his mind going over the extraordinary encounter. He did not blame Kate for keeping knowledge of the boy from him. After the turmoil of his own life as a royal prince, he envied Dickon his simple life. If only he, too, could have been an ordinary man. He patted the fox hidden in his jacket and marveled that he and Kate had produced such a prodigy. Had the lad been forced into the royal household, his talent would have been stifled. He decided to honor Kate’s wish that he not interfere in the boy’s upbringing except for the monthly stipend. How he wished he could have put his arms about the innocent lad just for a moment—his own flesh and blood.

Suddenly, his thoughts were all of Ned. His unruly hair, his lopsided smile and cheerful nature. He realized then how very much he loved and missed his heir and vowed to send for him as soon as the snow was off the northern moors.

Richard’s only Parliament opened on a frosty day in late January with a lengthy oration from England’s chancellor, John Russell, bishop of Lincoln, who proudly praised the body politic that was Parliament but that, under Edward, had lost its way. “Like the lost tenth coin of the woman in Christ’s parable, we look to our new sovereign to cleanse our house and recover what was lost: good governance and fairness for all people.”