‘Damn my things,’ he says cheerfully.

We walk handfast from the dockyard at Greenwich towards the palace, creep in by the back stairs like a lad and a slut from the stables, bolt my door and stay bolted in all day and all night.

At midnight I send for some food and we eat wrapped in sheets beside the warm fire.

‘When shall we go to Grafton?’

‘Tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I want to see my children, and my new daughter. Then I shall come straight back, and I shall have to take ship, Jacquetta.’

‘Ship?’ I ask.

He grimaces. ‘I have to take Beaufort’s orders myself,’ he says. ‘The fort has been torn apart from the inside out. I cannot leave them without a captain. I shall stay until the duke replaces me, and then I shall come straight home to you.’

‘I thought you were home now!’ I cry out.

‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I would fear for the garrison if I did not go back. Truly, my love, these have been terrible days.’

‘And then will you come home?’

‘The queen has promised, the duke has promised, and I promise it,’ he says. He leans forwards and pulls a lock of my hair. ‘It is hard to serve a country such as ours, Jacquetta. But the king is well now and taking his power, our house is in the ascendancy again.’

I put my hand over his. ‘My love, I wish it were so, but it is not as easy as this. When you see the court tomorrow, you will see.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he says, puts his jug of ale aside and takes me back to bed.

* * *

We snatch a few days together, long enough for Richard to understand that the queen and the duke plan to turn the tables entirely, and accuse Richard of York of treason and throw him and his allies down. We ride to Grafton in thoughtful silence, Richard greets his children, admires the new baby, and tells them he has to return to Calais to keep order at the garrison but that he will come home again.

‘Do you think that they will persuade the Duke of York to beg pardon?’ I ask him as he is saddling his horse in the stable yard. ‘And if he confesses and obeys the king will you be able to come straight home?’

At first the plan goes beautifully. Richard returns to Calais, pays the soldiers, and tells the garrison the king is in his power again, advised by the Duke of Somerset, and the House of Lancaster is in the ascendancy. The Privy Council turn against the man they called on as their saviour and agree to meet without the Duke of York. They choose the safe haven of Leicester for this meeting, the heartlands of the queen’s influence, her favourite county, and the traditional base for the House of Lancaster. Their choosing Leicester makes them feel safe; but it tells me, and anyone else who cares to consider, that they are afraid of what the citizens will think in London, of what they will say in the villages of Sussex, of what they will do in Jack Cade’s home of Kent.