While the good duke busies himself with dying, the cardinal goes to Arras for talks with the French king. Fruitless, of course. Charles says he won’t come to the negotiating table until there’s a crown for him to take away from it, so Cecily’s uncle is quickly home again.

This morning he’ll take his no-news to the King. But first, he walks with his niece and her husband in Westminster Gardens. It’s late September, but summer is slow to give way to autumn and Cecily is chafed by the sun’s heat, sullen on her back. She notices how tattered the flowers are. How the trees seem full of dust.

The cardinal’s face matches his steady stride. He looks to her like a man who’d hoped for better but expected worse and so is sanguine. It’s just one more move on the chessboard for him, she thinks. He’s already planning the next. She wonders whether she and Richard are to be brought into the game. Why else has he called them to walk with him here, even before he goes to the King?

She frowns and kicks out a crease in her skirt. Then sighs and shakes herself, takes her uncle’s arm. She knows well enough she’s peevish and out of sorts, and it isn’t all his fault. It’s because of the other news he brought home with him. For John Duke of Bedford, at least, the long French game is over, and he died believing it lost.

‘Did you see him,’ she asks. ‘Before the end?’

‘I was in time to give him God’s final office. I’d have brought his body home, but it was his last wish to remain in France.’

‘Well,’ says Richard. ‘He fought for her long enough.’ He shakes his head. ‘Hard to imagine France without Bedford’s hand upon it.’

‘Indeed,’ the cardinal sighs and nods. ‘Or a better hand to send in his stead.’

Days later, more bad news comes billowing across the Channel.

England’s ally, Burgundy’s duke, has turned his coat, made peace with Charles and will fight no more for England.

It comes as little surprise to Cecily. But, for Henry, betrayal is new and painful, so when he hears of it he weeps and storms. His counsellors, usually so conspicuous, seem to merge with the tapestries so that, when the King’s eye is casting around for a lieutenant to replace Bedford and do his bidding in France, it alights upon Richard who, with the cardinal, stands quietly by.

It’s their first real fight. Or, at least, Cecily fights. Richard will not, which makes her madder still. He stands steady while she storms, speaks quietly when she rails. He holds tight to her hand when she raises it against him, lowers his eyes, turns his head. She pulls away, sheathing in fists the nails that want to rake his face.