Cecily orders, and the room empties. The paper she takes from her sister’s hand is addressed to herself, and Edward’s signature is scrawled at its foot, rushed and blotched. She reads fast, of a battle won at Northampton. Of Buckingham dead, the King taken.

‘We’re for London again, mother,’ it tells her. ‘Stay where you are for now, if you can do so safely. The city’s not secure yet. I’ll send for you.’ She casts the missive on the table, draws her sister’s head to her shoulder, holds her till the crying gives way to shuddering breaths. The messenger tells them all that Edward would not trust to paper; that those she loves still live, that Salisbury holds London, that her son and Warwick are the victors of Northampton. He says Edward was first across the barricades; that his enemies fled from the sight of him. The Duke of York is still in Ireland, but will surely come soon, now the tide has turned. Her heart would soar, did not her sister’s sobs draw it down.

‘You return to my son?’ she asks the messenger. He says aye and she instructs him, ‘Tell him that, when I come, I will bring my sister. He will take her under his protection. She will not be harmed, nor arraigned. She will keep her jointure. And her children, provided they do not rise in arms against us, will be free to inherit their father’s lands and titles. Tell him I must have this in writing before I come, for she has given me shelter, and her lord preserved my life at Ludlow. Repeat the message, so I know you have it.’

He does, and is gone, and, if he wonders how a woman dare order so great a young lord, he has sense not to say so.

Three weeks pass. Cecily spends them at her sister’s side, who has taken to her bed and will not rise. It is torture to be still, but she must wait for Edward’s word. And it is well enough, she thinks, that she should suffer a little, that she should give this time in recompense to her sister for the husband her cause has killed. Sometimes Anne weeps in her arms. At others she turns her face to the wall and will not speak. She calls Cecily a bitch and a whore. She slaps and punches her, calls down curses on her head. Then she grasps her hands and begs forgiveness, thanks her over and over for the preservation of her sons.

One day, at last, Anne wakes clear-eyed. She takes a little breakfast and says she will walk in the garden. Cecily paces beside her, feeling the tremble in her frame.

‘You know, it could have been the other way about,’ Anne says. ‘My husband might have killed yours. He might have killed your sons.’

‘I know,’ Cecily says. ‘It is bloody.’