‘Don’t, Cecily. I’m with you only so far. The point is you don’t have a conspicuous earldom in your jointure, so there’s an opportunity for mercy. But whatever you do have, assume it gone. You’ll lose your life trying to keep it.’

‘Good advice.’ She nods.

So, she comes to her king on her knees, is abject and asks for nothing. She looks about the chapter house at the lords gathered. She sees no friends there, they’ve not been called. This is a Parliament peopled by her enemies, Queen’s men, swan badges prominent on every breast. It’s hard to imagine that the king before her put on armour and led an army to Ludlow. She wonders how it was done, whether they propped him in the saddle or left him with the baggage, for he looks as though a strong wind would take him. His fingers tap listless on the arms of his chair, his eyes flicker and he asks constantly for things to be repeated.

Henry Beaufort, standing beside him, reads out the charges against her husband. That he is a traitor of ten years’ standing, the power behind Jack Cade, the aggressor at St Albans, a rebel at Ludlow and his king’s would-be assassin. He reads slow, for the King’s sake. With relish.

‘Do you acknowledge your husband a traitor?’ Beaufort demands of her.

She looks up and sees the King’s eyes flicker towards her, blinking and troubled. ‘I think you do not need my word to make him so.’

‘The King’s word makes him so.’

‘Why, then, so he is.’

‘And did you incite him, madam, into treachery?’

‘Do you think him a man so easily led?’

‘And yet –’ the King now, rousing himself in his chair, querulous and pointing – ‘is sin not seeded in a woman’s tongue?’

She sees the men about him shuffle their feet, Henry Beaufort jut his chin. Poor dogs, she thinks, to fawn on such a master.

She ignores them, fixes her eyes on Henry and softens her voice. ‘And was not salvation born of a woman’s womb?’

‘And of Christ’s wounds.’

‘And his mother’s tears.’

He smiles at her now, reminiscent and soft. ‘Your husband once told me so.’

‘He is a speaker of truth.’

Henry Beaufort grows impatient. ‘Are we here to argue the divine or to deliver justice?’

She keeps her eyes on the King’s face, dares to raise her voice a little. ‘Is there a difference?’ She leans closer, quieter. ‘Is there a difference, Your Grace?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. We seek God’s justice, do we not, Lord Beaufort? Upon this sinful woman.’

She lowers her head. ‘Redeemed through suffering.’

‘Your Grace …’ Henry Beaufort blustering, wishing, no doubt, that his queen was here to manage her husband.