She leaves Ludlow in driving rain and travels five days through its foulness, crossing a broiling Severn at Worcester and pushing on through Tewkesbury. From there the torrent eases, though the skies stay leaden, and for some hours of the day, she gives up the carriage to tire her body and mind on horseback. Marshal Reynold has indeed come with her, leading two hundred men to guard her honour. He rides ahead to scout the way. As they come towards Woodstock, with its royal hunting lodge, she looks up from her saddle’s pommel at the labouring sound of a horse ridden fast over wet ground.

She sees it is Reynold, coming back towards her, raising his arm for a halt. Dear God, what?

He pulls up beside her, his face split by a smile. ‘Lady, a company under the falcon and fetterlock is not a half-mile off, and your lord rides at the head of it.’

She pushes her horse up the low rise, and from its top she sees him. There’s open ground between them, falling softly down. She could cross it in moments. But she waits, and lets him labour up the slope towards her. She needs the time to still her heart. Her men have held back. She sees him order his to do the same.

He stops his horse a yard away and looks at her. His face is grey, thinner than she’s ever seen it. Shamed.

‘You still have your head on your shoulders then?’

He twists in the saddle, draws a gloved hand across an unshaven jaw. There is no jest in him, not even a bitter one.

She closes the distance and reaches across to him, feels moving muscle beneath his rain-damp sleeve before his hand turns, grasps hers and holds. She cannot breathe but say his name, ‘Richard.’ And the question, the only one that matters. ‘Are we safe?’

His bowed head nods. ‘Aye. For now.’

30

Last Epiphany night Richard offered an oath. Now his king has taken it from him. In public at St Paul’s. On God’s word and the body of the crucified Christ. Before all the court and a goggling London crowd. Loyalty until death, and so much more. Obedience, humility, surrender. On the long road home to Ludlow, he tells her of the words he has given to purchase his life, and how their future will be bound by them. He will never again raise a force for any purpose but at the King’s command. He will come to his king whenever and wherever he is called upon to do so. Should he feel himself grieved, by any party, he will seek no remedy for it but from his king. And, if called upon to explain his actions at any time or place, he will; not only to his king, but to his peers, the nobles of England.

Cecily’s eyes narrow at the last. ‘That would include Edmund Beaufort, I suppose.’