The business is over. Buckingham leads her from the hall, into the air, which her lungs gasp for. She leans against the bare wall, chest heaving. Beneath her skirts her legs are wet and the stink of it acrid in her nose.

‘God’s bones, Cecily, you could talk your way out of Hell’s mouth.’

She judders and relief cracks a laugh in her throat. ‘Yes. Send me there. Let me try that.’

A week later, as Parliament ends and they make ready to return to Maxstoke, the writ comes. A thousand marks, payable on the quarter days, the first at Christmas. Her young ones have their lives, though they can be earls of nothing and dukes of nowhere.

If Richard doesn’t come back, what can she make them with a thousand marks? Something, surely. Not much.

‘I am your debtor till December,’ she tells her sister, who only nods and squeezes her hand.

‘I will keep an account.’

42

June–July 1460

Maxstoke

Buckingham’s letters to his wife end always with the same injunction: of this, say nothing to your sister. From them, Cecily has learned that Richard rules like a king in Ireland, men flock to him in defiance of England’s rule. That Calais opened its arms to her family, then closed its gates to Henry Beaufort, when he came with ships to wrest them from it. That Warwick and Edward run the Channel like pirates. They’ve raided the royal fleet at Sandwich; the golden Woodville, who had command of it, was torn from Jacquetta’s bed, humiliated and mocked. Well, that’s worth a smile. Poor Jacquetta.

She hears that her brother’s wife has evaded capture and is with him now in Calais. That Warwick met with Richard in Ireland, and evaded Henry Holland’s fleet on both the outward and return journeys.

‘Your son-in-law, it seems, had not paid his sailors,’ Anne tells her, ‘so they refused to engage.’

Cecily can’t hide the grin that splits her face at that. She allows herself a vision of her swaggering nephew, salt-sprayed and laughing at his ship’s prow, while foul-faced Henry Holland snaps and snarls like a dog on a leash.

‘I shouldn’t tell you these things.’ Anne folds the paper in cross fingers. ‘It’s not for your pleasure.’

Disobedience to her husband makes her sister’s temper short, so Cecily reaches a hand to her, placating. ‘I know. You tell me out of pity and because you have a good heart. And why not? I can do nothing with such news but smile at it.’ She takes both her sister’s hands in hers, squeezes. ‘You could get word to them for me, if you would.’ She’s asked a hundred times, and the answer is always the same. No words, just her hands pushed away and the swish of Anne’s skirts as she leaves, moving fast as if she flees temptation.