‘Sixty-five,’ the duke smiles. ‘And as ready and brave as he ever was.’

‘But he was paroled by the French. He promised not to fight again. How can we send him? He is a man of such honour – surely he won’t go?’

‘His presence alone will put the heart in them,’ he predicts. ‘He will ride at the head. He will not carry his sword but he will ride before them. It’s a glorious thing he does, and I will see him supported with a good army. I am doing my best, Lady Rivers. I am doing my very best.’ He raises his arm so that he can kiss my fingers, resting in the crook of his elbow, a graceful unusual gesture. ‘It is my pleasure to serve you, Lady Rivers. I would have you think of me as your friend.’

I hesitate. He is a charming man, a handsome man, and there is something about his intimate whisper that would make any woman’s heart beat a little faster. I cannot help but return his smile. ‘I do,’ I say.

* * *

We go west, through surly countryside where the people cannot earn enough to pay their taxes and who see the coming of our spendthrift court as an added burden, and we hear that Eleanor Cobham, who was once the Duchess of Gloucester, has died in her prison at Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. She died in silence of heartbreak and loneliness; they would not let her take her own life quickly and cleanly by a plunge from the battlements or a dagger in the veins of her wrist. They would not allow her to live any life at all; but they would not allow her death either. Now they are saying that her spirit haunts the castle in the shape of a big black dog that runs up and down the stairs as if looking for a way out.

I tell the queen that Eleanor Cobham is dead but I do not say that I think Eleanor was a woman like Margaret herself, a woman like me: one who expects to take a great place in the world, who can see the world and wants to make it bend to her will, who cannot walk easily in the small steps of a demure woman, nor bow her head to the authority of men. I do not say that I saw the black dog when I first met the duchess and smelled its fetid breath beneath her perfume. I am sorry for the duchess and the black dog that followed her, and I give a little shudder when I think that they took her into imprisonment for studying as I have studied, for seeking the knowledge that I have learned, and for being a woman in her power: just like me.

This summer progress is not a merry tour to celebrate a king joyously passing through his kingdom in the best days of the year; it is a sour visitation into each town when the citizens and the clergy turn out to welcome the king and then find he has come to hold a court in their guildhall, and summon their friends to answer charges. A man can be accused of treason for a word spoken out of turn, an ale-house brawl is defined as rebellion. When accused and in the dock, he is invited to name others and a spiral of spite, gossip and then charges follows. We go into the very heartlands of Richard, Duke of York, the wild beautiful country on the way to Wales, and put his tenants, his liegemen and his vassals on trial. The queen is triumphant at this gauntlet that they are throwing down before the Duke of York. Edmund, Duke of Somerset, is gleeful that though York accused him of treason, the court is now on his very doorstep, arraigning the tenants of York for the exact same crime.