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early for that, isn’t it?” He flung his cloak back over his shoulders and drummed his gloved fingers on his hips. “But you’ll be interested to hear that Bishop Orleton has emerged from the assembly. Looking rather smug, I’d say. He asked where you were.”
    I swung my legs toward him, gripping the edge of the stones as a jolt of excitement flashed through my veins. “And?”
    He cupped a rough-whiskered chin in one hand thoughtfully. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything. I heard only bits, after all. I’m sure your mother will have you retrieved short—”
    “Will!” My lip twitched with a snarl. “Tell me. I command you.”
    “Do you?” he teased.
    “Just tell me, please. I’ve waited all day. I know it’s my father they’ve been talking about. What’s to become of him?” I smacked the stones with the heels of my hands and stood. “I need to know ... before they come.”
    He tossed a look over his shoulder and then nodded. “Very well. I suppose you should be prepared.” He clenched my shoulder so hard I feared tomorrow would find a bruise there with the imprint of his fingers.
    “Is he still king?”
    The wind tore at his hair, tossing it across his face. His grip lightened. He shook his head. “They say he gave up the crown willingly, my lord.”
    “Willingly?”
    With a shrug, he let go of me. “Even if his hand was forced, it’s for the best, don’t you think?”
    The onus of kingship struck me like a hammer blow to my breastbone. I slumped down on the stones, the air whooshing out of my lungs so fast and completely I had to gulp air to speak. “What does this mean? What of me?”
    He crouched down before me, his eyes sparkling with an undaunted confidence that I could but hope to emulate. “You, Ned? You were born to this. You’ll be king—and a fierce one at that.”
    He made it sound so simple, as if I should never question the auspices of my birth. Like it was a cloak I could don at will to become the king of England’s calling. But for the first time in all my hopeful, eager days, I felt a flutter of doubt. The uncertainty that I could be all things to all people. The terrible knowledge that whatever I thought was right would be wrong in someone’s eyes. And if that came to pass, would they do to me what had been done to my father?
    Yesterday, I had thought I would seize the crown with gleeful abandon, secure in my destiny, an answer to God’s whispered breath. Could I, in clear conscience, sit upon the throne while my father yet lived?
    “Edward?” a comforting voice called out.
    My mother stood in the tower doorway, her pale hair reflecting the silver glow of starlight, a thin gold circlet sitting just above her smooth brow like an angel’s halo. She lifted a hand, her flared sleeve falling away from her wrist to reveal delicate bones, fingers outstretched, begging me nearer.
    I went and took her hand in mine. With a gentle squeeze, the warmth of her touch eased my fears. Tears were pooling in her eyes. She tried bravely to blink them away, her teeth pinching her lower lip, but in a rush they spilled onto her cheeks. Her arms went around me, so fast and tight I fought for breath, my arms clamped to my sides. A long minute later, she snuffled and loosened her embrace. “They’re calling for you. They’re waiting to make the proclamation.”
    “I’m ready,” I said.

    Her head tilted. Smiling, she cupped my cheek in her palm. The sweet scent of rosewater drifted off her fingers. “I know. You always were—even before England was ready for you.”

 
     
     
    4
    Isabella:
    Westminster — February, 1327
    O n the morning of Christmas Eve, when Bishop Orleton delivered the Great Seal into my hands at Wallingford, he also gave me something else from my husband: a letter. In it, Edward spoke of hope, of receiving his children’s love, and of one day returning to the throne with me at his side. But as the days and weeks passed, his penned musings turned from pleading