She looks to her young ones, mute by the fire. She’s promised her husband she’ll keep them alive. So that’s to be her business now. Salvage. Annette’s arm is about Margaret, who holds George’s hand firmly in her own. White-faced Dickon presses close to the side of his young nurse, little Jane Malpas, not much more than a child herself, not crying but on the verge of it. She kneels before them, aches to hold, but a single touch will set her howling and leave her useless, so she clasps her hands and speaks.

‘Now then.’ Her lips crack, she licks them uselessly, her tongue tinder dry. ‘Nothing to be afraid of. You will stay by me, at all times. Do anything other and I’ll whip you. And of anything you’ve heard in this room tonight, say nothing. Do you understand?’ She waits for them to nod, then regains her feet. ‘Annette, find Marshal Reynold and Steward Stamford. Bring them here.’

When they come, even her peaceful steward has a sword strapped at his hip.

‘You won’t be needing that,’ she tells him. She says how it will be. ‘Tomorrow morning, shortly after dawn I imagine, our army will surrender. They’re promised pardon and will be allowed, I hope, to disperse. The King’s forces will then come here. They’re not to be resisted or opposed.’

Marshal Reynold can imagine no world in which Ludlow is given up. ‘Lady, we have enough men within the walls to withstand a siege—’

She holds up a hand, her thin white fingers cold beyond feeling, likely to snap. ‘Barely. Our fighting men are out in the field. And besides, there will be no siege because we have no hope that anyone will come to relieve it. There will be no fighting. We will surrender Ludlow into the King’s hands. Steward Stamford, bring all the castle’s women and as many of the men as you can into the great hall. Bar the door and keep them there.’

He nods, then swallows, clearly afraid. ‘Lady, where is your husband, our duke?’

Where?

Away and riding hard, she hopes, her sons flanking him. She feels the speed of their flight against her face, the rush of their breath in her own lungs, heads low over their horses’ necks, backs tense against the threat of pursuit. They scout the ground for ruts or fissures that might catch a hoof, snap a leg and send a rider flying. Even the earth they move across is an enemy now, and the cloud-shrouded moon a poor ally. She closes her mind to it. They are beyond her help. She can do nothing but keep their way secret. She holds a brittle finger, hard against her lip. ‘If you don’t know, they can’t make you tell.’