"I was," Anne admitted. "Of the Dauphin."

If there was something unnatural about her wanting to be assured of her own child's future, every mother must be thusly apart from nature. Now that she'd confessed, she was glad, relieved to have someone she might speak to of her concerns.

"You'll be pleased to know that he proves a worthy king," she said, but then frowned. "But there are differences in the circumstances of his birth which I am unsure what to make of."