Looking out from the walls, Cecily hears the sound of birdsong for the first time in weeks and, instead of the banners of fighting men, the hills fly the colours of autumn, russet and yellow pouring down the hillsides to the river.

On the seventh day of listening she hears hoof beats, sharp and fast, and shields her eyes to see a horse in full gallop, its rider stretched along its neck. She meets him at the mounting block, horse and man a-shiver with news.

‘Your lord brings his army back to Ludlow apace,’ he tells her. ‘The King and twenty thousand in pursuit.’

‘The King?’

‘Aye, lady.’

‘What fool put him on a horse?’

They’d said a mass at Worcester, Richard writes her. They sent again their assurances to the King; to Windsor, to Westminster and Kenilworth, unsure of where he’d be found.

Then, not a day out of Worcester, came word of an army led by Marguerite with Henry beside her, flying the royal leopards of England, not a day’s ride away.

They pulled back to Worcester. Richard wrote the King again.

An answer came back.

Surrender, or face your king on the battlefield.

The signature was Henry’s, a shivering scrawl and blotched, the words all Marguerite’s; the threat of attainder, the promise of death.

Ludlow’s castle is defended by the river, west and south. Now the meadows to its east become an earthwork, with ditches and mounds and sharp impaling stakes, and men digging, blades on whetstones, prayers and masses, and priests peddling absolution at campfires. Men muttering and asking, will we fight? For we came to free the king, not to battle him. And Richard saying he will parley, and Cecily shouting, God’s blood, man!

And then the King’s army comes, lining the horizon. And its herald cries out the Queen’s words; that there will be no parley, but a pardon for any man who will desert York’s cause. For York himself, for Salisbury and Warwick, no mercy.

So those lords go down to spend the night in the meadows with their men, to be ready for whatever tomorrow will bring. Richard takes Edward and Edmund with him.

Cecily brings her other children together, their nurses and maids.

And the castle, at last, is quiet.

She’s woken by shouts and boots on the stairs.

They’re back.

Even Edward’s face is pale now, eyes wide and staring, for the worst they can imagine has happened. Between watches, under a moonless sky, a third of their army has deserted, scaling the earthworks to claim the King’s pardon.

‘We fight with what we have left,’ says Warwick.

And Edward shouts, ‘Damn them, yes!’

‘Shut up,’ Cecily tells him. ‘Sit down!’

Steady Edmund, who has had the sense to say nothing, pulls his brother down into a chair, leaves a hand on his arm.