Richard, too, has aged. She realizes it painfully that night, when she watches him sleep. His hair is almost full grey. She mourns its dark lustre, but this suits him, too. He’s silver in the light of the night candle and has kept his lean fitness. Beyond the tent’s walls she can hear the low sounds of the camp, the clink of steel as guards pass, the whickering of horses at picket. He’s brought men from Ireland and recruited more from Wales. They’re a comfort. He’s come back to make his claim. He confirmed it that evening as they dined. Rightful King of England, through mothers and from King Edward’s second son. Just as Father Bokenham drew it out, his gilded figures handing down the right.

He’s met with Warwick already. Salisbury’s son was in the Midlands when Richard landed, talking up their cause, scouting for news of the Queen’s party. He rode west, met Richard at Shrewsbury, and hurries ahead now to London, to prepare the way. ‘He urged me to be bold,’ he told her. ‘He’s right. I’ve been a loyal fool long enough.’

In the morning, barely dawn and the light grey through the tent’s walls, he wakes her to love. But when he’s in her, suddenly fails and falls back.

She makes light of it. ‘Have you forgotten how?’

‘I’ve been too long away from you. It has unmanned me.’

She curls on her side and lets him spoon his body about her back, his lips against her hair, his hand between her breasts.

After a little while he speaks again. ‘It was hard to leave you, in Ludlow. If you’d been harmed, or our children, I know it would have been all my doing.’

‘Make us safe now then,’ she tells him.

And he says, ‘I will.’

44

From Hereford to Gloucester, to Abingdon and Oxford, a steady progress towards London, a coming in state. And in every town and village men welcome Richard back, ask if he’s to be their king now. We want change, they say. They’re tired of idiot kings and French queens and rich men doing what they like, and no justice unless you can pay for it. Which is a joke, because there’s no money left once the taxman’s been. And that’s another thing, paying through the nose to keep a soft-headed king in comfort. And what about France, eh, wasn’t that meant to make us all rich? And is it true the King’s a cuckold? Laughing snide at that last and nudging, spitting in the street.

‘They’d make you king tomorrow, father,’ laughs Edmund, as the crowds jostle their horses.

‘Aye,’ says Cecily. ‘But they don’t sit in Parliament and they don’t have a vote.’