‘We will leave you now,’ I say quietly. ‘This has been a great day for us all.’

‘I am very tired,’ he says confidingly. ‘But I do hope to wake tomorrow.’

‘Amen,’ I say again.

He beams like a child. ‘It will be as God wills, we are all of us in His hands.’

THE PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH, LONDON,

SPRING 1455

With the king awake, it is not to be how God wills; but how the queen wills. She sends a message at once to the council of lords, so explosive in tone and so dangerous in temper that they release the Duke of Somerset at once from the Tower, laying on him the embargo that he may not go within twenty miles of the king, nor engage in any form of political life. The duke, setting his London house in order and speedily arming his retinue, sends at once to his friends and allies and tells them that no-one will keep him from the king and that the Duke of York will be the first to realise that he has seized power.

As if to celebrate their return to the centre of England, the queen and the king open the palace at Greenwich and summon the lords. The Duke of York obeys the summons and resigns his position as Protector of the Realm, and finds his other title, that of Constable of Calais, is to be lost too. It is given back once more to Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, out of jail and gloriously returned to greatness.

He walks into the queen’s rooms in the palace as handsome and richly dressed as if he had been to the court of Burgundy for new clothes, not waiting for his trial for treason in the Tower. The wheel of fortune has thrown him high again, and there is no greater man at the court. All the ladies flutter as he comes into the room, nobody can take their eyes off him. He kneels in the centre of the room to Margaret, who flies across the room, her hands outstretched, the moment she sees him. He bows his dark head and takes both of her hands to his lips, inhaling the perfume on her fingers. The maid in waiting beside me lets out a little envious sigh. Margaret stands completely still, quivering at his touch, then she very quietly says, ‘Please rise, my lord, we are glad to see you at liberty again.’

He gets to his feet in one graceful movement, and offers her his arm. ‘Shall we walk?’ he suggests, and the two of them lead the way into the great gallery. I follow with a lady in waiting, and I nod to the rest of them to stay where they are. Carefully, I dawdle behind, so that my companion cannot overhear their whispered speech.

He bows and leaves her at the end of the gallery and Margaret turns to me, her face alight. ‘He is going to advise the king that the Duke of York need not be admitted to the council,’ she says delightedly. ‘We are only going to have those of the House of Lancaster around us. Anything that York gained while he was protector will be taken away from him, and his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, and that overgrown cub, Richard Neville the Earl of Warwick, will not be invited either. Edmund says that he will turn the king against our enemies, and that they will be banned from all positions of power.’ She laughs. ‘Edmund says that they will be sorry for the day that they put him in the Tower and confined me to Windsor. He says they will go on their knees to me. He says the king hardly knows where he is, or what he is doing, and that between us, the two of us can command him. And we will throw down our enemies, perhaps into jail, perhaps to the gallows.’