And, dear God, there rises a golden wall of him. She’s tall enough, but she must raise her eyes to see his face and reach her arms to draw his head down for a kiss. It’s close on two years since last she saw him, and the boy she remembers will never be seen again. He’s a man now, or nearly, seventeen this spring. She should have expected it. The head of Ludlow’s household sends monthly reports of her boys’ progress – their learning, their growth, their prowess at arms – but nothing could have prepared her for the hammer blow of his presence, the theft of breath from her lungs.

And behind him comes Edmund on springing steps, only an inch or two shorter than his brother, but seeming half the breadth.

Edmund, made for speed. Edward, built to stop armies.

‘Dear God, Richard,’ she says, as they step ahead of their children into hall, ‘he’ll win battles for you.’

Through summer and the low-sunned days of September the muster continues. Beyond Ludford Bridge, an encampment grows. Richard continues to train alone, though his sons take on all comers. Few are fool enough to come for Edward, unless he agrees to fight them two at a time. Most afternoons Cecily comes out to watch, and, when he sees her, Edward draws up his height and fights harder. She lets him kiss her hand when he wins. He always wins, though Edmund gets a blade past him once in a while, pitching light-footed speed against superior strength. They’ve trained together long enough for him to predict his brother’s strategy and outstep him. It delights Cecily to see it. Edmund’s always had a tactician’s mind, her chess player. ‘Good lad,’ she shouts. When he turns to accept her salute, Edward grabs his ankle and they’re down on the ground, rolling like pups.

Richard names Edward and Edmund among his captains and draws them into his counsels. Now, when she and Richard talk strategy, more often than not they’re there; Edmund, saying little but noting everything, Edward talking too much, bold where his father is thoughtful, subsiding with a grin when his mother slaps his arm and tells him to shut up and let her think.

‘Speed up, Captain Mother,’ he chides her, and laughs when she slaps him again. But when she speaks, he listens. He’s learned that much from his father.

Salisbury and Warwick are expected by September’s end.

Her brother is first to arrive. Cecily is in hall when a scout comes an hour ahead of his master with news of ambush and battle and casualties coming in. She sends him back with orders for the able men to join the encampment at Ludford, for the injured to be brought within the castle walls. By the time they’re stretchered in, she has surgeons and apprentices standing ready with their medicines and knives.