Francis’s brother, white-faced with rage at Henry’s court, asks why England has betrayed its alliance. The King, casting about, remembers only that he wanted peace and that his cardinal has bankrolled war. And so, all in a moment, John Beaufort’s burning star is falling, and the men who helped set it in the sky run from its destruction. He is recalled to England, exiled from court and his purse emptied to pay the reparation that will smooth Brittany’s hackles. He storms home to his estates, where his fat wife turns her back on him and he sits, still drinking, still sweating, still cursing, while the fire in his blood turns to ice. By springtime he is dead, whether from shame or sickness or by his own hand none can say.

The cardinal sends news of it in a letter, cold and stark. Then writes, ‘As for you, the King commends your patient work in France, and bids you redouble your efforts. Now ask me no more of John Beaufort. I know of no such man.’

And so their careful work begins; the rebuilding of their diplomacy, their holding of England’s line.

‘You were right,’ Cecily tells Richard.

‘I take no pleasure in it.’

And she finds she cannot either. The world no longer knows John Beaufort, but she cannot quell the feeling that his fallen star has scorched the earth in some unseen way and that, at a future step, she will feel the heat of it.

16

18 March 1445

Pontoise

She has looked forward to seeing their old friend again but, as he walks towards her along the ice-slick quayside of Pontoise, it seems to Cecily that William de la Pole is not a happy man. On the face of it, he has every cause for gladness. He has in his pocket a truce with France and, on his arm, a wife for his king. But to Cecily’s eyes he looks stretched and she’s sure that, when she saw him last, there had been less silver in his hair. That was a year ago. He’d been on his way to Tours then, high in King Henry’s favour, and sent by him in haste to talk peace with King Charles. More than that, he had confided, mellowed by the good dinner they gave him and not a little wine, a peace marked by a marriage.

‘A marriage for the King?’ She had spoken low, to hide her incredulity.

He nodded slow. ‘Between the royal houses of England and France.’

‘Well,’ she had smiled into her cup. ‘He must want peace very much.’

‘Since John Beaufort died it is all he thinks of.’

‘Peace, William? Or marriage?’

His turn to smile. ‘Well, is one not a blessing upon the other?’