She sets herself on the bed, far from the window, and pulls her children to her. Dear God, it’s cold! The wall is ice at her back, George’s teeth chatter and Dickon’s eyes are wide and blank. Margaret has one of each boy’s hands clasped tight in her own, drawn deep into her lap. Cecily suddenly remembers Raby; that in her mother’s care she never once had cause to fear. Now her own children are deep in terror. Marguerite, she thinks, if you were here, I would tear out your heart.

‘We are perfectly safe,’ she tells them, her voice surprisingly steady. ‘And God himself watches over us.’

Margaret looks at her, chin up, mouth pursed, and nods, but her face is chalk-white and a blue-veined pulse leaps at her throat.

‘Brave girl,’ she tells her.

Already, beyond the window, the noise is rising. She pulls the thin blanket about them all and draws the bundle of hands from Margaret’s lap into her own.

Henry Beaufort’s soldiers are loosed now. They’ve been promised a looting and she can hear their roaring avarice above the smashing of glass, the cracking of wood and the roaring of beasts chased through the streets. Already the corner of sky she can see through the window is blackening with smoke.

She knows what happens when a town is sacked, she’s heard the stories. They’re taking everything that can be carried, breaking everything that can’t. They’re slaughtering the livestock and burning the stores. Men fool enough to defend their homes are falling to sword and cudgel and flying hooves. And any women left in the town, dear God.

I’ve done what I can, she tells herself.

But the castle gates stand open, and before long the soldiers come pouring in. The noise of them is so loud it seems they’re in the room with her, and the smell of burning seeps through the walls. She pulls her children closer, Dickon’s head against her breast, but when a deep pounding sounds below George breaks from her hold and rushes to the window.

‘They’re breaking into the hall,’ he tells her, leaning out to see.

‘Get down, George.’ She imagines a stray arrow, tearing the air.

‘They’re chasing … everybody …’ He falls quiet but continues to stare.

She leaps from the bed, pulls him down, but he strains to look again. And now she sees it herself she can’t turn away. In every direction her people are scattering, struck down as they run. A priest throws open the doors of the chapel, some reach it, others push on to the gates, disappearing into the chaos of the town.