He’s laughing, then looks round at the sound of voices drifting up to them from the treeline. It’s the followers. They’ve struggled up the hill with baskets and boxes and a great rolled canopy for shade. Good, thinks Cecily, I’m hungry. And there goes Ormond, striding down the hill to meet them, waving a welcome.

She turns to Richard, who stands before the stone, his chin in his hand.

‘I dare you,’ she says.

He turns his head, smiles slow, lays his testing fingers against the white stone, cocks his head to listen. There’s nothing. Just the voices below them, and the skylarks sending up their song.

He frowns at her, mock rueful.

She steps to him, turns his frown back to a smile with a kiss. ‘It’s only a story,’ she whispers in his ear.

She threads her arm through his, and they set off down the hill.

24

September 1450

Wales

They’ve made no secret of their coming. No reason why they should. Rounding the northern tip of Anglesey then sailing down its eastern coast, ever in sight of land and flying the blue and murrey of York. No surprise, then, that William Bulkeley has had word of it. He keeps Beaumaris Castle, across the narrow straits from Wales. He should be preparing a welcome. But here he stands on castle dock, with armed men at his back, shouting across the water that they cannot land.

Cecily narrows her eyes in the evening light and lays a hand on her husband’s sleeve.

‘What are you saying, man?’ Richard shouts from the prow, but the offshore wind takes his voice away.

Bulkeley leans forward, cups his ear. As if that will help.

‘King’s orders, my lord,’ he calls back. Then his hand is in the air and he’s signalling, ‘I’ll come to you.’

Along the dock he runs, down narrow steps to a skiff, whose oarsmen have their muscles warm and ready for him. In the boat and here he comes, ducking low under the chain cast across the dock to bar their entry. When he looks up again, Cecily sees that shame has painted his face crimson. As well it might, she thinks. You were glad enough to feast us on our way to Ireland. Bowing and scraping and grateful for the honour.

When the little boat comes alongside, Richard orders a ladder be thrown down but, though Bulkeley struggles to stand in the bobbing craft, forcing the oarsmen to grab for the gunwales to steady it, he shouts up that he’d best not board.

‘Why not?’ Richard’s voice is grim.

Bulkeley looks nervously over his shoulder across the stretch of water that separates him from his men, then back again. ‘What force do you come with, my lord?’