Today, two wet weeks after Easter, the path has been churned to mud by the press of pilgrims’ feet. The rain has abated overnight, but the wind from the sea carries knives. The prayers of the faithful are lost to the keening of gulls thrown inland and the mewing of scraggy lambs that muzzle their sodden mothers and find no warmth.

Cecily awaits her queen’s arrival at the mile mark, in the tiny slipper chapel where pilgrims give up their shoes for faith. If Marguerite is surprised to find her there, she gives no sign of it. And, indeed, she does look well. No swell to her belly yet, but her face lit, in the way a young woman’s can be when new life is kindled. Cecily’s obeisance is the lowest she has ever made, and she waits, head bowed and unmoving, until bidden to rise.

‘I imagine,’ says the Queen, ‘that you are here to give thanks for yet another son.’

‘And in supplication, Your Grace. A child’s life is tenuous and I’ve buried as many as I’ve cradled.’ She has no wish to appear too blessed.

‘I had heard it was your health feared for, not the child’s.’

‘But, by God’s grace, I live yet.’

‘Then that, too, is cause for thanks. For those who love you.’

Into the silence that follows steps Jacquetta to clasp her hand and kiss her cheek. ‘Cecily, how good to see you. A long time since we three were together in France.’ Then, turning to the Queen, ‘Your Grace, should we not relive those happy days and make our pilgrimage together?’

Marguerite, testing her bare white feet on the chapel’s cold tiled floor, concedes.

Bless you, Jacquetta, thinks Cecily.

Making their muddy way towards the town and its towering abbey, Cecily pits her will against pain that fists from cold-numbed feet into the muscles of her calves, and watches Jacquetta’s determined back, ahead of her in procession. Her old companion looks to be around five months gone. The road must be hard on her. She’s lost her youthful slimness, but prettiness remains. Cecily wonders if the golden Woodville still dotes on her and admits he’d have good cause. As they pass the first low-roofed houses of the town and the shelter of the friary’s wall, that pretty head turns to throw a smile at her. She surprises herself by returning it, though she knows it to be born, not from the pleasure of a good turn done, but from this rich opportunity to flaunt her closeness to the Queen.

Ah well. Jacquetta is a welcome irritation. A reminder of better days.

A pathway has been opened for them across the crowded market square and townspeople strain for the best vantage point from which to see a queen and two duchesses with their skirts inches deep in mud.