‘So my wife tells me.’ They stood a while and looked at each other. Then, ‘You know you want this no less than I do.’

Salisbury nodded slow, sucked his teeth and returned to his king.

‘I went back to Richard that evening,’ continues her brother’s hectic message. ‘With the King’s sworn assurances and promises of love. Told him I myself had seen Beaufort led away under guard. I swear to you, Cecily, I did see it. I supervised the dispersal of your husband’s army, so I could tell Henry I’d seen it done. Next day, I took Richard to the King. We found him at table, damn him, with Beaufort and the Queen. Right and left of him, grinning like cats. Then I knew your husband betrayed, and I their tool in it.’

‘Benighted idiot!’ Cecily’s body curls on itself in rage, like parchment in a fire, painful and reflexive. Then she’s up on her feet and moving, striding fast about the room. ‘Where is his army?’

The messenger doesn’t know – how could he? Dispersed, scattered, making its way to its several homes, he supposes, in counties across England and Wales. She knows where those homes are and the roads they’ll take to get to them. She calls up her secretaries, starts dictating her own messages, demanding her husband’s freedom, rallying Richard’s dissipated force, calling up more men from Wales.

‘Lady, you cannot march an army on London!’ Reynold, Ludlow’s marshal, keeper of its garrison. She had sent for him first. He’s a man who’s known her in her right mind and is bold enough to speak plain.

‘You think I should follow my brother’s advice? Do nothing?’

‘Who would lead such a force?’

She’s desperate, there’s no one to hand. ‘I will! You will come with me. Call up your captains.’

‘Forgive me, lady, as I serve you, but you cannot lead an army.’ He dares to lay a hand on her.

She shrugs it off like a scald, screams her frustration. She launches herself at the nearest of the secretaries, a young man, who can barely still his trembling to scribble, spills his ink in his fright. ‘Write the King. Tell him Edward of March comes. Edward Earl of March and his mother. I will show that barren queen of bitches that I have a son!’

Then there is a new voice, a woman’s, strong hands on her wrists, pushing against her, and a face inches from hers. ‘You have three sons, lady. Would you see them dead at your feet?’ It’s Annette. Annette, who must have heard the news and come running. Who has been with her in the worst of times. Who knows all about dead children.