‘Could you have forgiven it?’

Never, Cecily thinks. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. Perhaps it is a thing beyond forgiveness.’

Beside her Anne nods. ‘Yes, I think so.’ Then she reaches out a hand and Cecily takes it, wraps it tight under her arm as they walk back to the house.

At the end of July, an escort arrives with its paper for Anne.

And Cecily, at last, is free.

43

August–October 1460

London

It’s a fine house, Fastolf Place. South of the Thames with gardens down to the water, but today its view is marred by the damage done to London’s Tower on the opposite bank, its walls greyed with smoke and tar, pockmarked with cannon.

‘It held out against us eighteen days,’ Edward tells her, looking out from Fastolf’s lawns. ‘Have you ever seen wildfire?’

She shakes her head.

‘No, of course not. Burns like the very devil and water makes it worse. They poured it from the walls. The whole river was alight from men on fire leaping into it. We’re still pulling out bodies, burned black.’

She lets her eyes cross the water, and sees him among the smoke and fury, burning brighter than any fire. It makes her heart race. She wonders if he’s spoken of it to others, or waited to confide the horror of it to her. There’s a scorch across his knuckles, a fast-whitening scar.

‘Is this all?’ she asks, tapping it.

He shrugs. ‘Nothing touches me, mother.’

‘Invincible, are you?’

He grins and looks, for all he’s seen and done, a boy again, so she draws down his head and kisses it.

‘Will you be comfortable here, do you think?’ he asks her. ‘Till father comes?’

‘Why isn’t he here already?’

‘You should know that better than anyone. Not all your men together, remember? Not all at once?’

‘Ah. Yes.’ He’s wise to her, this one. ‘I parted you from your brother with good cause.’

He shrugs as if it doesn’t matter. ‘Anyway, the house? I’ve the let of it as long as we need. Salisbury, Warwick and I are at Baynard’s. But it’s chaos most of the time, men coming and going at all hours.’

She can imagine. Power base, centre of operations, the place of decisions and action. ‘And when have I not wanted to be in the thick of things?’

‘Well, you, of course. But I thought somewhere quieter for Margaret, for the boys.’

‘Yes, certainly. For them.’ He’s tall, but she can still stare him down.

‘I’ll send a river boat for you. Every morning.’