Granting him a small smile, she leans back against the cushions and closes her eyes. In her private darkness she calculates the value of all she has learned since coming into France: that the will of God, which has called all things into being, might turn a child into a king, a girl into a warrior, or a body into ash. And that any man – or woman indeed – may, according to their courage, shape His will to their purpose.

That night the company dine listlessly on roast goose. No one’s hungry, though they’ve barely eaten all day. They’d been too nervous to breakfast well that morning and the food at the coronation banquet, though impressive to look upon, had made poor eating. Pungent sauces masked fish dishes that were overcooked and cold when brought to table. Glistening pastries hid meats grey with fat. The French lords had complained among themselves, muttering under their breath about the incompetence of English cooks. ‘All show and no substance,’ Cecily called it, sniffing. ‘It wouldn’t have happened at home.’

In her mother’s household, the language of food spoke through the senses to the heart: see what we have, how we can sustain you. Don’t you want to be one of us? It had spoken to Richard, clearly enough. He’s wanted very much to be one of them ever since, in his twelfth year, eight years an orphan and adrift, he was brought north through foul December weather into the warm brilliance of Raby’s great hall at dinner.

The royal courier, who’d ridden graceless and hunched ahead of him for the two-week journey, pushed him towards Cecily’s father, full of charm. ‘Your new ward, my lord. I bring him and the season’s greetings from the Lord Protector, the great Duke of Gloucester.’

Richard raised his eyes, ready to be resentful. Then his vision was filled with the sight of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland, rising from the table and striding towards him, tall and smiling, with his arms thrown wide. ‘Ah, you’re in out of the cold now, Richard. Get that wet cloak off and come eat. Formalities later.’

It was the first time he saw Cecily. From the space hastily cleared for him, and with the blade of his hunger blunted, he raised his eyes from the warm cup that soothed his chilblained fingers. The earl was talking, bright and fast, down the table, to men who seemed hungrier for his attention than for the food before them. Nearer, a girl, no more than nine, stared fixedly at him from beside the chair of a lady rich in silk who, with her hand lying soft on the earl’s sleeve, stared likewise, as if measuring him for clothes. The girl blinked her grey eyes, reached up to whisper into the lady’s ear, then returned to her staring.