They have moved through the low foundation walls of the college buildings and here, opening out before her, is the cloister, its pathways pegged, and the chapel sketched beyond it. The space is vast, and the stacks of pearl-white stone at its perimeter promise towering height. Men swarm everywhere about it, measuring, moving, hammering and shaping.

The noise of it is suddenly deafening. Henry grimaces.

Edmund Beaufort is immediately solicitous. ‘We could halt the work while you tour …’

Henry holds up a hand and smiles. ‘I would not have them lose an hour for my comfort,’ he says. ‘It is the Lord’s work they do. Lady Cecily, Richard …’ He draws them forward. ‘You, who have given Fotheringhay to God, will understand. This is our gift to Him, a palace of faith and learning that will outshine any in England.’

She follows his eyes as they look up, sparkling and light-filled. It’s as if he sees into another world, where the work is finished already; where traceried windows finger the heavens and the sound of hammers is translated into song.

She answers him honestly, that Fotheringhay is nothing to this. That none but God’s anointed could give so rich a gift. She knows the cost of Fotheringhay and imagines what is being spent here. She knows, too, that it is doubled. Twin colleges at Cambridge and Eton; twin mouths sucking and gulping at the withered teat of the royal exchequer.

‘And surely it will be rewarded,’ he smiles, serene. ‘In return for our gift He will give us peace. Peace with France and with all men of honour.’ The royal finger extends, ring-freighted, to rest on Richard’s breast. ‘Better we spend our money here, Richard, eh? Give this to God and trust His strength to defend our garrisons in France.’

Beside her husband, Marguerite speaks, soft. ‘Quite so, Your Grace.’

19

January–February 1447

Fotheringhay

Merlin meets skylark in bone-shattering collision. Locked in their wing-clattering fall, the birds spiral down and the falconer’s boy lumbers through snow to retrieve the prey.

Cecily raises her glove to recall her hawk, lifts a brow to Richard and grins. ‘I’ve bested you.’ There are a dozen larks in her basket.

Richard’s groom has a brace of rabbits slung at his saddle’s pommel.

‘Do you intend to leave any alive?’ he asks her. Then, with a nod, he guides her eyes along the river to a rising bank of cloud. ‘Best beat that weather home, I think.’

Riding into Fotheringhay’s bailey, they encounter a melee. Men, grooms and horses battle rising snow flurries and a freshening wind. At the centre of it, William de la Pole, swiping ice from his shoulders and a dewdrop from his nose.

‘Epiphany eve, William,’ Cecily calls out to him. ‘Are you a wise man bringing gifts?’