She’s been Richard’s wife for eight years now, but in truth their life together began when they boarded ship for Calais. These eighteen months in France they’ve been every day together, and the family that shaped them has shaped them to fit. They’re natural allies. Watchers and listeners both. Thinkers, planners, weighers of words. They’ve seen their chance for a place in the world, and joined hands to grasp it.

From London to Calais, Rouen to Paris, Cecily has observed her husband’s careful diplomacy, his ready ear for the boy king’s prattling, his studied deference to Gloucester’s barking plaints, his quiet conversations with Bedford, his readiness to be helpful, his aptitude for work. She’s watched him wrack his conscience over Joan’s trial and execution, troubled by its savagery but knowing it to be the price of royal approval.

‘I don’t like it,’ he’d told her, that morning of the burning. ‘I’d rather find the men who put her up to it.’

She’d shrugged. ‘She’s the woman in front of those men, Richard. If French hopes live in a virgin maid, then a virgin maid must die.’ A finger on his chest, chiding. ‘King’s man.’

She’s smoothed his way, in so far as she could. She’s courted the wives of both dukes, who now call her friend. She speaks with Gloucester of books and music; subjects he’d expect a woman to speak to him of. With Bedford she reminisces about her father and his; the loyal earl, his beloved king, now reunited in Heaven. He has softened at such times. He is a man who can be moved.

In Rouen, in the days after Joan’s burning, Bedford’s wife had come to her, threaded their arms as they walked the castle walls. ‘I think they should be friends,’ she said, ‘your husband and mine.’ That night they dined together, all four and no other. They talked of the young king’s father, the greatness of his legacy, the preservation of his son.

‘I will make it my life’s work,’ Richard told them, his voice earnest, his eyes steady and clear. He means he will forswear his own blood, flowing to him through his Mortimer ancestors from Edward III’s second son; richer than young Henry’s, descended from his third. Bedford had nodded and, when they parted, pressed a hand to Richard’s shoulder, while Duchess Anne kissed Cecily’s cheek, and smiled against it.