Behind the loving procession, in close array, follow the escorts of each lord, swords loose in their scabbards, fingers itching.

When the mass is done, and they step from the church, Cecily offers the Queen a deep obeisance. ‘How my lord and I rejoice in our return to the comfort of Your Grace’s love.’

The King beams, bouncing on his heels, while the Queen inclines a glance, blank and white.

Lifting her eyes, Cecily sees Richard’s smile. It looks courteous enough. She alone sees the mockery in it. Marguerite had hoped to end this week with his head on a block, not her hand on his sleeve.

It’s a small triumph, and expensively bought. But Cecily will take what pleasure she can from it. She has little choice, for it must sustain her. She reads Marguerite’s heart in the book of her own. She knows vehemence grows fat on the pap of frustration, and humiliation is surely the father of hate.

‘It’s not over,’ she whispers to Richard as they take their accustomed place at each other’s side in the carriage that will take them home to Baynard’s.

‘No,’ says Richard, in a voice that sounds suddenly tired. ‘It never is.’

38

June 1459

Fotheringhay

A tiny thing, a swan in silver, its wings an outstretched challenge, its strong-sinewed neck encircled with a crown. It nests in the palm of Cecily’s hand, glints in the light from the window. She runs a fingertip across its etched feathers, tests the sharpness of its covetous beak, then closes her hand upon it and sighs. Henry Holland, her daughter writes, wears one on his breast. They are embossed on the collars of his dogs. He has, she says, many hundreds of them. They are the badges of fealty he gives to soldiers who swear their oath to the Queen, to be her men and fight for her. And my husband is not alone, Anne writes. The sons of St Albans, too, have grown wings.

It comes as no surprise. Since she parted from the Queen on the steps of St Paul’s and came to Fotheringhay, they’ve been drawn relentlessly towards war. There’ve been signs enough, for those of a mind to see them. Armaments pouring into London and the ports. New serpentine cannon peering from royal battlements. Men whisper behind their hands that the Queen rules from Kenilworth while the King sickens. That she beggars the treasury to buy the favour of all men, save York, Salisbury and Warwick. For them she intends utter destruction.