The jousts to celebrate little Cecily's birth were barely over before Anne was making her next moves to secure the girl a glittering future. As part of that, she called Margaret into her lying-in chamber.

"Come and greet your niece, Lady March," she beamed, plastering a smile on to her face despite her own exhaustion, as she knew was expected of her, and gesturing expansively to the cradle that stood beside her bed, "Is she not the prettiest babe you've ever seen?"

Margaret stepped up to the cradle and bent over her niece, studying her up close for the first time. She paused for a few seconds, knowing that it was only diplomatic to actually seem to have looked at the child, for all they both knew that she would have called Cecily beautiful whether she was or not.

"Indeed, Your Grace," she said at last, "England is lucky to have such a fine Princess."

"Henry calls her his rose. Like your great-grandmother, the Rose of Raby."

"Is that who Her Highness is named for?" Margaret couldn't hide her surprise, "I thought it would be our aunt Cecily."

"That's what I thought at first, but he insisted your great-grandmother was his true inspiration," Anne replied, before signing to Margaret to hand her her daughter. She held the sleeping child close, running a hand over the downy fuzz on the crown of the infant's head.

To her surprise, she found herself instinctively trying to sync her breathing with Cecily's. An intense surge of protectiveness and a deep-seated need to know the child still breathed filled her every time she laid eyes on Cecily, something she hadn't felt with either of her sons. Absently, she wondered if this was what maternal love was truly like. Everyone had always told her she'd love Richard when he was born, despite her dislike of his father, just because he was her son. Yet she'd felt nothing but terror whenever she'd held him or even heard him. And her relationship with the new-born George had been little better, though she'd made more of an effort to hide it that time around. For Henry's sake, if nothing else. He'd been so worried she'd forsake him because he hadn't sired a girl on her at the first time of trying that she hadn't wanted to give him any further cause for concern. Besides, once he'd got over the shock of George's gender, he'd been so convinced that they'd all be the golden family of England; the happiest in the land, that who had she been to deny him? And anyway, it had all been worth it. Cecily was here, squealing, kicking and gurgling or screaming as the mood took her, and it was all worth it.

A discreet cough recalled Anne to Margaret's presence. She jolted. How long had she been like that, musing to herself whilst poor Margaret stood awaiting orders? It was inexcusable!

"Forgive me, Lady March. You must be wondering why I have called you here," she said gently.

"I wait upon Your Majesty's pleasure. You do not need to explain yourself to me, Your Grace," Margaret said smoothly. Anne half-raised her free hand.

"Very pretty. But I am not just your Queen, I am your sister. And as your sister, I must beg your pardon for ignoring you so. Please, accept my apologies," She paused and when Margaret nodded, went on, "Now, a girl as fine as this should have a fine husband, do you not agree?"

"Oh yes, Your Majesty!" Margaret concurred quickly, eager to please her young sovereign. She'd realised very quickly after Cecily's birth that, considering how beloved Henry was likely to be now, having given the Queen her heart's desire, she hadn't exactly been the best of sisters to him. If she didn't reform her behaviour, she'd risk missing out on the honours that were bound to be showered upon their family, at least if Cecily survived her first dangerous year, if not before. And she couldn't let that happen. She was supposed to be head of the Plantagenet family. It was bad enough that she had to follow the hem of Bessie's gown and call her 'Your Grace' and 'My Lady Lancaster'. It would get even worse if others in their family were promoted at her expense as well.

Anne knew nothing of Margaret's private thoughts, of course. She simply returned the older woman's eagerness with a smile.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Lady March, for I'm not sending you back to Flanders. I'm dispatching you to Portugal, effective immediately. They have a surplus of sons and I'm entrusting you with the task of securing one of them as a groom for our beloved Princess Cecily. Not the eldest, perhaps. The age gap would be too big and besides, I'd fear a Prince would be raised to be as arrogant as my first husband. But one of the younger ones would do nicely. Lord Louis or Lord Ferdinand, shall we say?"

Margaret curtsied, "You do me great honour by entrusting me with this task, Madam."

"I can think of no one more apt to send. After all, who better to champion a Princess's cause than her own aunt?"

Anne leaned carefully from the bed and raised Margaret from her curtsy and kissed her cheek, "Go with my blessing, sister Margaret. See to it that you have the steel that my mother's envoys lacked."

There was a sudden bite to Anne's usually melodious voice and Margaret paused, "If I may, Your Majesty. It was not your mother's envoys that lacked steel, but Your Grace's mother herself. You, on the other hand, have the steel that she lacked. You have that steel and I'm proud to serve it. In my humble opinion, Madam, you're twice the Queen your mother ever was."

The simple speech rang with sincerity and tears came to Anne's eyes at the sound of it. She turned her head away so that Margaret wouldn't see the emotion that leapt in her face.

"Thank you, Lady March," she whispered at last, voice thick, try as she might to hide it behind grave formality, "That means more than you know."


A blast on a trumpet broke into Anne's reverie and she jolted ever so slightly as her herald announced, "Lady Lancaster to see you, Your Majesty."

Anne beamed at the little girl and held out her arms, "Bessie, darling. Come and give me a kiss."

Bessie did so, but she wasn't her usual bubbly self and, when Anne asked if she wanted to hold Cecily, she wavered, before shaking her head, "I'd better not. I might drop her."

"Nonsense! Of course you won't! You never dropped George, did you, and you were much younger when he was born. You're a little lady now, of course you're not going to drop her. Now, come here. Cecily would like a cuddle with her big cousin."

Anne had the little girl nestle up against her side and placed Cecily in her arms before she could protest any further. Fortunately, Cecily was much more placid than either of her older brothers had been as babies and, though her eyes blinked open sleepily, she didn't protest at the change of scenery.

To Anne's surprise, Bessie's arms closed convulsively around the child and she bent her head over her, whispering fiercely to her, words that Anne, even sitting as close to the two as she was, couldn't make out. She watched them with rising alarm and, when Cecily began to cry at how tightly Bessie was holding her, she was only too relieved to see Eliza come hurrying over to them and taking the Princess away from her.

"Lady Lancaster, you need to be more careful with your cousin. You know that. You have to hold her more gently. She's our Princess of Wales, we can't have any harm coming to her," Eliza scolded softly, putting Cecily over her shoulder and rubbing her back to soothe her.

When she was calm, Eliza held her out, "Here, do you want to try again?"

This time, however, Bessie shook her head, "No! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, please! Please don't send me away! I didn't mean to scare her or hurt her! I'll be the best older cousin you can think of, just please don't send me away!"

She threw herself into Anne, knocking them both back against the wall as she sobbed. Shocked and winded, Anne could think of nothing to do but close her arms around the little girl's trembling figure, gritting her teeth against her own pain.

Bessie's cries startled Cecily, setting her off again, which only made Bessie sob harder. Making a split-second decision, Anne waved Eliza and the baby away, still more comfortable around a child who had at least reached the age of reason than an infant, even if both were crying.

Holding Bessie close, she stroked the vibrant copper hair until the little girl had calmed enough to be able to speak, "Oh," she breathed, "Oh, sweetheart. What's brought this on, hmmm? Why on earth would we ever want to send you away? You're our darling Duchess of Lancaster. You're not going anywhere."

"But you sent Richard away. You sent him away when I came to Court and George was born. He was sent away when he had a brother. So won't I be sent away now that Cecily's here? You don't need me at Court, not now that Cecily's born. After all, I'm just your ward. I'm not even your niece, not really!"

"Who's been telling you that?" Anne snatched up the little girl's chin in pointed fingers, making her squeal with the pain, "Who's been telling you such horrible lies?"

"No one! Honest! I just... It's true, isn't it? You don't need me anymore!" Bessie dissolved into tears again and Anne cursed inwardly. She knew only too well how Bessie had got this idea into her head. She'd have overheard the maids gossiping. Goodness knows she'd done exactly the same often enough as a child.

"Bessie, listen to me, darling," she whispered into the child's hair. When that had no effect, she tightened her hold on the child, "Elizabeth."

At the unexpected use of her full name, Bessie looked up with watery eyes.

"I don't care what the maids are saying. None of it is true. None of it, do you hear me? You are my niece and I adore you. I am never going to send you away. Ever. I promise you that. I will never send you away. Not on your own. If you go at all, you'll go with your cousins. Because you are mine. You are my niece, my Duchess of Lancaster and my beloved Bessie. Nothing and no one will ever be able to change that, no matter what they say or what they think. Yes, Cecily is the Princess of Wales, but do you remember what I said to you before George was born, back when we thought he was going to be a girl and we were going to call him Matilda?"

Bessie shook her head slightly, still not trusting enough to speak.

"Cecily may be the Princess, but you're her older cousin. Who better for her to look up to than her older cousin, hmm? When she gets older, you'll be the most important person in her life, because it'll be you she looks up to and expects to teach her the things I can't teach her, like how to get around your governesses and how to play dolls and all those sorts of things. Didn't I tell you that?"

Bessie thought back and realised she did remember something like that. And it seemed truer now, with Aunt Anne's arms around her, hugging her, than it had been when she'd been on her own. She nodded tentatively.

"Good. So you see, we do need you after all. How on Earth would we bring Cecily up without you? Now. Let's have no more of this nonsense about you being sent away. You're not going anywhere. Now, run and see if you can't find your lute. I believe I promised to teach you a new song, didn't I?"

Tears banished, Bessie bobbed her head eagerly and scrambled off the bed.

Anne watched her go, relieved to have headed off that particular storm so successfully. Older children were so much easier to handle than babies.

However, as she watched her go, a few of Bessie's words tugged at her, "You sent Richard away. You sent him away when I came to Court and George was born."

So she had. She'd thought nothing of it at the time, nothing other than that she didn't want to subject Henry to the indignity of raising John's son alongside his own children. But perhaps it was time to rethink that, especially if it would ease Bessie's fears that she might be sent away now that Cecily was fulfilling the all-important role of heiress.

John might grumble that she was 'demoting' Richard in rank if he had to share a nursery with George and Bessie and Cecily, but what did she care for that? The Prince of Castile's prediction that she'd never have a daughter had held no water, and the people would love to see the whole royal family reunited; all the more so if it was at such a happy time as this.

And of course, Anne reminded herself, with Cecily in the cradle, Richard had no hope of being named her heir. John would recognise that. No doubt he'd spend even less energy worrying about his son than he had hitherto because of it. After all, why would the peacock Prince of Castile care for anyone who couldn't be of any use to him? If she brought Richard to Court, treated him like any one of the other children, then by the time John deigned to pay attention to Richard again, if indeed, he ever did, he'd love her. He'd be her son, not John's. That thought, above all, appealed to Anne highly.

"Stop," she scolded herself aloud, as she caught herself thinking that last, "That's unkind. You might not like John, but you know much of his character isn't his fault. He was ruined by his mother before you even met him. Why, in different circumstances, George might have been just as bad. It's only because Mother was focused on Mary that he isn't. Are you really going to hold an unbalanced childhood against the man, when you know in your heart, you always resented your own? It's one thing to be glad to be free of being married to him, but quite another to keep Richard from seeing him. You swore you'd never do that, remember? Are you going to keep that promise or not?"

Bessie skidded breathlessly back into the room, clutching her lute, and Anne promptly closed her mouth, but her internal monologue continued until she finally sighed in silent agreement with herself. It was time to prove she'd become a woman rather than the spiteful child John had always considered her. She wouldn't go so far as to offer her ex-husband an apartment at Court, but a house in London, so that he might see their son from time to time? Yes, that she could manage.

She settled Bessie on a stool next to her and reached for her own lute, but not before making a mental note, "Next time I write to Monmouth, I must see about inviting Richard and his household back to Court. And see about passing Durham House over to John so he has a base in London too."


George and Juana were breakfasting together when, all of a sudden, footsteps and loud, angry voices broke into their silent harmony.

They had time to do no more than exchange a startled look before a familiar voice rose above the hubbub.

"I must see Their Highnesses immediately!"

"Beatriz," Juana mouthed, and George nodded. They both knew what this meant. How could they not? Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, was Queen Isabella's closest friend. It was said she'd scarcely left the Queen's side for months. There was only one reason she would be here now.

For an instant, Juana reached across the table and gripped George's hand so hard it hurt.

"Are you with me?"

"Until Death do us part," George promised, invoking the words of their wedding mass in these, their last few private moments. In response, Juana jerked her head almost convulsively. She took a deep breath and then stood, wiping her mouth clean and her face blank almost simultaneously.

When Beatriz practically stormed in, therefore, Juana was able to greet her with all the poise befitting a new Queen of Spain.

"Madame de Moya," she said softly, extending a hand, "I am pleased to see you, although I wish it were in less bitter circumstances than these doubtless are."

The Marchioness stopped short in the face of Juana's cool poise. She stood for a few seconds, clearly struggling with her emotions. At last, however, she remembered the most critical of her duties. She sank like a stone into a silent curtsy, one hand extended to Juana. On her open palm lay two rings – Isabella's great sapphire and diamond coronation ring and a smaller silver one set with her personal seal – a ring of yokes and arrows encircling a castle and lion. The unspoken message was clear, even before everyone else in the room, bar George, sank to their knees as well.

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," Juana murmured, plucking her mother's coronation ring from Beatriz de Bobadilla's hand and sliding into on to her own. It sat snugly on her finger as though it had been made for her. For a few seconds, Juana simply gazed at it, as though she couldn't believe it was truly hers. Then she switched her gaze to the woman still bent in obeisance before her. She took in the Marchioness's red eyes; how elderly, drawn, pale and fragile she looked. Pity stirred in Juana's heart and she helped the elderly woman to her feet and placed her arms about her.

"Rise, Beatriz. I know better than anyone how truly and loyally you served my mother. I also know how much you grieve her passing. I know it and I thank you for it, for all of it. I grieve with you for the finest Queen Castile and Aragon have ever known. Moreover, I can only hope and pray that I will find among my ladies as faithful servant as my mother had in you. I shall count myself truly blessed if I do."

As the last words left her mouth, Juana stooped and brushed the older woman's cheek with her lips. George looked on in approval. Queen Isabella's death had been so expected for so long that Juana had taken it graciously, even calmly. Grace was usually all to the good in a Queen, but there were bound to be those who would try to spin Juana's poise to their own ends. There always were. They'd call her cold, unfeeling; suggest that she'd never really loved her mother. The moment she had just shared with the Marchioness, however, bonding with her over their shared relationship with the recently deceased Queen, would go a long way to combat those rumours.

"We'll have to move the court to Valladolid and send for the Infantas, especially Doňa Ana. As the new heiress, Her Highness ought to be here."

Juana's voice broke George out of his musings. He raised his head and their eyes met over Beatriz's shoulder, even as Juana assumed the mantle of responsibility that had, until so recently, still been her mother's, at least in name. Nothing cemented her mental shift so clearly for him as her referral to Ana as their heiress.

Calm as she would seem to outsiders, however, George could read Juana's private anguish at a glance, and so he went round behind her and, for a brief moment, let his fingers brush her shoulders, not caring what any who saw it might think. She let him, moving her hand up to meet his and then guiding it down so that she could link her arm through his as they left the room.

They left the room together arm in arm and, with that gesture, Juana was stating that, for the first time in five years, Spain had a King and Queen again, in practice, if not in name. Spain might only see George as her Prince Consort, at best, but she would always see him as her partner, the other half of her soul, no matter what her nobles thought.

For the first time in five years, Spain had a King and Queen again and they would face the future together, whatever it brought.


"I regret to inform Your Highness that our dearly beloved mother, the right honourable and esteemed Queen Isabella, has died…"

John had to read the words several times before he could take them in. Even once he had, he read them several more times, desperately hoping they would somehow magically change before his eyes.

When they did not, he felt his heart sink into his boots.

John was many things, but one thing he was not was a fool, at least not where his own interests were concerned. This letter was the death knell of all his hopes of ever being restored to his rightful place as Anne's Consort. Juana might at least have done him his due as her brother and written to him personally rather than through a scribe, but the letter was so formal it might almost as well have been written by an official. And if she couldn't even muster a shred of sisterly affection or concern for him over this, knowing how close he had once been to their mother, then frankly, a snowball would have to survive the flames of Hell before she came to his defence over his rights in England. Richard's were perhaps a different matter, since he was her nephew and a mere child, but she'd never defend his.

And this barely six weeks after Anne had birthed an apparently healthy daughter. Cecily, they'd named her. Cecily. The blind one. John thought it rather suited the child, born as she was out of her mother's foolish, blind affection for a man far below her station.

But the English dullards didn't see the irony in the girl's name, of course. They had celebrated and feasted their new Princess with all the glory they could muster. Which was nothing to the grandeur of Spain, of course. But no matter how reluctantly John did so, he had to admit the brat's birth stabilised her mother's position and, to those who would look for such signs, signified that perhaps, she had been right to seek her annulment after all. And with his mother's death, John himself had lost his greatest champion.

He ground his teeth, the thought as bitter as gall. For reasons he could not fathom and, despite everything Anne Howard had done that went against the law of nature, the Lord Almighty and the Virgin seemed to be smiling favour upon the chit.