Dickon had been trying hard to follow all of this. Yearning for Ned’s approval and not wanting to be thought ignorant, he braved: “Why will the king believe Father this time?”

“A clever question, little man. If you remember, we hold the king hostage. If Father was so ambitious for the crown, why is the king not dead?”

Dickon nodded slowly. “So, it is his loyalty that makes our father the greater man.”

Ned’s approving hand had come down hard on Dickon’s back, almost knocking the boy off his stool. “You have the measure of it, Dickon. Ambition is a fine thing, but it cannot override duty. We, as princes of the royal blood, have a duty to England first, the king, then family, and our own ambition last. ’Twas what Father taught Edmund and me, but as he is not here to teach you, I will. ’Tis what we must all abide by.”

These words would nag Dickon during his brother’s lifetime of disavowing them, especially when it came to Edward’s personal desires.

After more than a week, Meg was almost more impatient to have Cecily return than her beloved father as she found playing mother to her brothers had almost, she told her attendant Beatrice, driven her to uncork a flagon or two. Nurse Anne was getting too old to run after two boys, one of whom, she believed, should have been sent away for his knightly training long before now. And as far as she was concerned, the lads had suffered from the lack of discipline the customary military training would have provided.

“Boys at this age have no other objective than to hit each other; climb trees; throw stones at the poor crows; roll around on the grass, soiling their nice clothes; filch food from under the cook’s nose; and utter war whoops just as one is carrying something fragile,” Nurse Anne grumbled to Beatrice. “I dropped a water pitcher last week when one of them jumped out at me as I was leaving the pantry.”

The two servants were thus relieved to see the earl of March arrive on his chestnut palfrey that tenth day of October and order his brothers to deck themselves out in their finery. No one had noticed that it was almost a year to the day since Richard of York had fled from Ludlow.

“We are going to join our father’s procession into London,” he told the boys. “I am sorry, Meg, but…”

“But what, pray?” Meg countered, irritated. “You will not ride from here without me.”

Edward chuckled. “I pity your poor husband, sister. However, I have not made provision for a horse for you, so I am afraid…”

“I shall ride pillion behind George,” Meg interrupted, “and you can take Dickon up with you. He’s small enough to sit in front, and there’s an end to it,” and she ran off to change into something more festive, leaving Ned with his mouth agape.