‘What do you mean, they won’t come? Why?’

And now he indulges his face with a smile. ‘Because your son has destroyed them.’

She hears Elizabeth and Margaret exclaim beside her and feels behind her for a chair. ‘For God’s sake, man, tell me of that.’ She can barely breathe as he recounts the tale.

How Jasper Tudor was marching men to join the Queen before Edward intercepted him on the Welsh border, on their own lands, south of Ludlow, on the broad moor that runs down to the river at Mortimer’s Cross. ‘None would have believed it,’ he told her. ‘Not nineteen yet, but more full of courage than any veteran of the wars. And nerves of steel. It was cold enough that morning to freeze sword to scabbard, the land about us all ice and bog. And the army we faced, well, twice the size of our own. Then, the strangest thing,’ he shakes his head, ‘I can’t explain it, even now. You’ll think I tell you tales. A trick of the light perhaps? The mist? But I swear on my faith I saw three suns rise behind us, not one.’

She hears the girls gasp and feels her heart trip.

‘You are incredulous,’ he says. ‘I don’t blame you. I only believe it because I saw it with my own eyes. Men trembled like the end of the world was coming. I thought they’d break and run and we’d be finished, but there goes Edward, galloping along the lines. “See how God favours us!” he shouts. He declared it a sign of providence; that the three suns were for the Trinity and the living sons of York.’

Her heart regains its beat, faster now and strong. ‘He was born under the sun,’ she says with certainty. ‘Yes. It would rise for him.’ She imagines its three-fold light blazing on his armour, his blinded enemies staggering.

‘Well, right enough, it did,’ Hastings grants her. ‘Men would have followed him into Hell’s mouth then. We had victory within the hour.’

She closes her eyes and lets exaltation flood her veins. The mad boldness of him, to summon even the sun and make it his.

But Hastings is still speaking. ‘Edward will smash Marguerite to pieces,’ he says.

She nods, yes, of course he will.

‘But you must keep her from the capital. If she takes it, she wins. We can’t besiege London in winter.’ He’s staring at her now, and she must gather her wits. ‘Will you do it? Will you go to the mayor?’ That smile again. ‘Edward says you’ve a mighty power of persuasion.’

She reaches for his hand, grasps and brings her brow to it. ‘While I have breath London will open its gates to none but him. I swear it.’

He sets his lips to her fingers. ‘Good. He said it would be so. Now I must be gone.’

‘Where?’