We follow the procession into the great cathedral for the solemn mass of Corpus Christi, where My Lady the King’s Mother drops to her knees the moment that we enter, and spends the entire two-hour service bent low. Her more devout ladies-in-waiting kneel behind her, as if they were all part of an order of exceptional devotion. I think of my mother naming My Lady as Madonna Margaret of the Unending Self-Congratulation, and have to compose my face into a serious expression as I sit beside my husband on a pair of great matching chairs and listen to the long service in Latin and watch the service of the Mass.

Today, as it is such an important feast day, we will take communion and Henry and I go side by side up to the altar, my ladies following me, his court following him. At the moment that he is offered the sacred bread I see him hesitate, for one revealing second, before he opens his mouth and takes it, and I realize this is the only time that he does not have a taster to make sure his food is not poisoned. The thought that he might close his lips to the Host, to the sacred bread of the Mass, the body of Christ Himself, makes me shut my eyes in horror. When it is my turn, the wafer is dry in my mouth at that thought. How can Henry be so afraid that he thinks he is in danger before the altar of a cathedral?

The chancel rail is cold beneath my forehead as I kneel to pray and I remember that the church is no longer a place of holy safety. Henry has pulled his enemies out of sanctuary and put them to death; why should he not be poisoned at the altar?

I walk back to my throne, past My Lady the King’s Mother, who is still on her knees, and know that her anguished expression is because she is praying earnestly for her son’s safety in this country that he has won, but cannot trust.

When the service is over we go to a great banquet in the castle, and there are mummers and dancers, a pageant and a choir. Henry sits on his great chair at the head of the hall and smiles, and eats well. But I see his brown gaze raking the room, and the way that his hand is always clenched on the arm of his chair.

We stay on in Norwich after Corpus Christi and the court makes merry in the sunny weather; but I soon realize that Henry is planning something. He has men at every port along the coast appointed to warn him of foreign shipping. He organizes a series of beacons that are to be lit if a fleet is sighted. Every morning he has men brought into his room by a private covered way directly leading from the stable yard to the big plain room he has taken for his councils. Nobody knows who they are, but we all see sweat-stained horses in the stables, and men who will not stop to dine in the great hall, who have no time for singing or drinking but say that they will get their meat on the road. When the stable lads ask them, “Which road?” they won’t say.

Suddenly, Henry announces that he is going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, a full day’s ride north. He will go without me to this holy shrine.

“Is there something wrong?” I ask him. “Don’t you want me to come with you?”

“No,” he says shortly. “I’ll go alone.”

Our Lady of Walsingham is famous for helping barren women. I cannot think why Henry would suddenly want to make a pilgrimage there.

“Will you take your mother? I can’t understand why you would want to go.”

“Why shouldn’t I go to a holy shrine?” he asks irritably. “I’m always observing saints’ days. We’re a devout family.”

“I know, I know,” I placate him. “I just thought it was odd. Will you go quite alone?”

“I’ll take only a few men. I’ll ride with the Duke of Suffolk.”

The duke is my uncle, married to my father’s sister Elizabeth, and the father of my missing cousin John de la Pole. This only makes me more uneasy.

“As a companion? You choose the Duke of Suffolk as your principal companion to go on pilgrimage?”

Henry shows me a wolfish smile. “What else but as my companion? He has always been so faithful and loyal to me. Why would I not want to ride with him?”

I have no answer to this question. Henry’s expression is sly.

“Is it to speak to him about his son?” I venture. “Are you going to question him?” I cannot help but be anxious for my uncle. He is a quiet, steady man who fought for Richard at Bosworth but sought and obtained a pardon from Henry. His father was a famous Lancastrian, but he has always been devoted to the House of York, married to a York duchess. “I am certain, I am absolutely certain that he knows nothing about his son John’s running away.”

“And what does John de la Pole’s mother know? And what does your mother know?” Henry demands.

When I am silent he laughs shortly. “You are right to be anxious. I feel that I can trust none of the York cousins. Do you think I am taking your uncle as a hostage for the good behavior of his son? D’you think I’m going to take him away from everyone and remind him that he has another son and that the whole family might easily go on from Walsingham to the Tower? And from there to the block?”

I look at my husband and fear this icy fury of his. “Don’t speak of the Tower and the block,” I say quietly. “Please don’t speak of such things to me.”

“Don’t give me cause.”










ST. MARY’S IN THE FIELDS, NORWICH, SUMMER 1487

Then, one evening, Henry comes to my room, not dressed for bed but in his day clothes, his lean face compressed and dark. “The Irish have run mad,” he says shortly.

I am at the window, looking out over the darkening garden to the river. Somewhere out in the darkness I can hear the loving call of a barn owl, and I am looking for the flash of a white wing. His mate hoots in reply as I turn and take in the strain in my husband’s hunched shoulders, the grayness of his face. “You look so tired,” I say. “Can’t you rest at all?”

“Tired? I am driven half to my grave by these people. What d’you think they have done now?”

I shake my head, close the shutters on the peace of the garden, and turn to him. For a moment I feel a whisper of irritation that he cannot be at peace, that we are always under siege from his fears. “Who? Who now?”

He looks at the paper in his hand. “Those I mistrusted—rightly as it turns out—and those that I had not even known about. My kingdom is cursed with English traitors. I hadn’t even thought about the Irish. I haven’t even had time to go among them and meet them; but already they are gone to the bad.”

“Who is treacherous?” I try to ask with a light voice, but I can feel my throat tightening with fear. My family have always been well loved in Ireland; it will be our friends and allies who are frightening Henry. “Who is treacherous and what are they doing?”

“Your cousin John de la Pole is false as I thought he was, though his father swore he was not. As we rode together he looked me straight in the eye and lied like a tinker. John de la Pole has done what his father swore he would not do. He went straight to the court of Margaret of York in Flanders and she is supporting him. Now he’s gone to Dublin.”

“Dublin?”

“With Francis Lovell.”

I gasp. “Francis Lovell again?”

Henry nods grimly. “They met at the court of your aunt. All of Europe knows she will support any enemy of mine. She is determined to see York back on the throne of England and she has the command of her stepdaughter’s fortune and the friendship of half of the crowned heads of Europe. She is the most powerful woman in Christendom, a terrible enemy for me. And she has no reason! No reason to persecute me . . .”