GROBY HALL, LEICESTERSHIRE,
AUTUMN 1455

I take permission from the queen to leave court and go to my daughter’s home at Groby Hall. The queen laughingly remarks that she could stop a cavalry charge more easily than she could deny me permission to go. My Elizabeth is with child, her first baby, and it is due in November. I too am expecting a baby, a child made from our day and night of lovemaking when Richard came home and went again. I expect to see Elizabeth safely out of childbed and then I will go to my own home and confinement.

Richard will not be here to see this, his first grandchild, of course. He won’t be at my side at Groby Hall, while I wait for Elizabeth’s firstborn, nor at our home at Grafton when I go into my birthing chamber, nor when I return to Hertford Castle, nor in London. His lord the Duke of Somerset is dead and his command, that Richard should return to me, will not be obeyed. Richard cannot keep his promise to come home to me while the future of Calais is so uncertain. The Earl of Warwick is the new Constable of Calais and Richard will have to decide whether or not to admit the new commander, or defy him. Once again Richard is far from me, having to decide which side to join, his loyalty on one side, his greater safety on another, and we cannot even write to each other, as Calais has barricaded itself in again.

Elizabeth’s mother-in-law, Lady Grey, greets me at the door, resplendent in a gown of deep blue velvet, her hair arranged in two great plaits on either side of her head, which makes her round face look like a baker’s stall with three great buns. She sweeps me a dignified curtsey. ‘I am so glad you have come to keep your daughter company during her confinement,’ she says. ‘The birth of my grandchild is a most important event for me.’

‘And mine for me,’ I say, staking my claim with relish, there being no doubt in my mind that this will be my daughter’s son, my grandson, and Melusina’s descendant. All that he will have of the Grey family will be the name, and I have paid for that already with Elizabeth’s dowry.

‘I will show you to her room,’ she says. ‘I have given her the best bedroom for her confinement. I have spared neither trouble nor expense for the birth of my first grandchild.’

The house is large and beautiful, I grant them that. Elizabeth’s three rooms look east towards Tower Hill, and south to the old chapel. The shutters are all closed but there is a gleam of autumn sunshine through the slats. The room is warm with a good fire of thick logs, and furnished well with a big bed for sleeping, a smaller day bed, a stool for visitors and a bench along the wall for her companions. As I enter, my daughter rises up from the day bed, and I see in her the little girl that I loved first of all my children, and the beautiful woman she has become.

She is broad as a beam, laughing at my expression as I take in her size. ‘I know! I know!’ she says and comes into my arms. I hold her gently, her big belly between us. ‘Tell me it’s not twins.’

‘I tell her it’s a girl if she carries her so low and broad,’ Lady Grey says, coming in behind me.

I don’t correher; we will have time enough to see what this baby is, and what it will do. I hold Elizabeth’s broad body in my arms, and then I cup her beautiful face in my hands. ‘You are more lovely than ever.’

It is true. Her face is rounded and her golden hair has darkened a little, after a summer spent indoors, but the exquisite beauty of her features, the fine-drawn nose and eyebrows, the perfect curve of her mouth, are as lovely as when she was a girl.

She makes a little pout. ‘Only you would think so, Lady Mother. I cannot get through doorways, and John left my bed three months ago because the baby kicks me so much when I lie down that I move about all night and he cannot sleep.’

‘That will soon be over,’ I say. ‘And it’s good that he has strong legs.’ I draw her back to the day bed and lift up her feet. ‘Rest,’ I say. ‘You will have enough to do within a few days.’

‘Do you think days?’ Lady Grey asks.

I look at Elizabeth. ‘I can’t tell yet,’ I say. ‘And a first child often takes his time.’

Lady Grey leaves us, promising to send up a good dinner as soon as it grows dark. Elizabeth waits for the door to close behind her, and says, ‘You said “his”; you said “his” time.’

‘Did I?’ I smile at her. ‘What d’you think?’

‘I did the wedding ring spell,’ she says eagerly. ‘Shall I tell you what it said?’

‘Let me try,’ I say, as excited as a girl. ‘Let me try with my ring.’

I slip my wedding ring from my finger and take a thin gold chain from my neck. I put the ring on the chain, wondering a little that I should be so blessed as to be dowsing for my daughter, to see what her baby will be. I hold the chain over her belly and wait for it to hang still. ‘Clockwise for a boy, widdershins for a girl,’ I say. Without my moving it, the ring begins to stir, slowly at first as if in a breeze, and then more positively, round and round in a circle. Clockwise. ‘A boy,’ I say, catching it up and restoring the ring to my finger and the chain to my neck. ‘What did you think?’

‘I thought a boy,’ she confirms. ‘And what are you going to have?’

‘A boy too, I think,’ I say proudly. ‘What a family we are making, I swear they should all be dukes. What will you name him?’

‘I am going to call him Thomas.’

‘Thomas the survivor,’ I say.

She is instantly curious. ‘Why d’you call him that? What is he going to survive?’

I look at her beautiful face and for a moment it is as if I am seeing her in a stained-glass window, in a shadowy hall, and she is years away from me. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I just think he will have a long journey and survive many dangers.’

‘So when do you think he will come?’ she asks impatiently.

I smile. ‘On a Thursday, of course,’ I reply, and quote the old saying: ‘Thursday’s child has far to goquo;

She is diverted at once. ‘What was I?’

‘Monday. Monday’s child is fair of face.’

She laughs. ‘Oh, Lady Mother, I look like a pumpkin!’

‘You do,’ I say. ‘But only till Thursday.’

It turns out that I am right on both counts, though I don’t crow over Lady Grey, who would make a bad enemy. The baby is a boy, he is born on a Thursday, and my Elizabeth insists he shall be called Thomas. I wait until she is up and about, I take her to be churched myself, and when she is well and the baby feeding, and her husband has stopped coming to me ten times each day to ask if I am sure that everything is well, I go to Grafton to see my other children, and promise them that their father is bravely serving his king, as he always does, and he will come home to us, as soon as he can, as he always does, that their father has sworn to be faithful to us over and over, that he will always come home to me.

I go into my confinement in December, and the night before the baby is born I dream of a knight as brave and as bold as my husband, Sir Richard, and a country dry and hot and brown, a flickering standard against a blazing sun, and a man who is afraid of nothing. When he is born he is just a tiny crying baby and I hold him in my arms and wonder what he will be. I call him Edward, thinking of the little prince, and I feel certain that he will be lucky.