She opens her eyes and sits up a little. ‘And the king?’ she asks as an afterthought. ‘I suppose he is well as he said? Safe? I suppose he has escaped scot-free? As he always does, praise God?’

‘He was slightly injured,’ I say. ‘But he is safe in the care of the Duke of York. He is bringing him to London with all honour.’

‘How shall I manage without Edmund?’ she whispers. ‘Who is going to protect me now? Who is going to guard my son? Who is going to keep the king safend what if he goes to sleep again?’

I shake my head. There is nothing I can say to comfort her, she will have to suffer the pain of his loss and wake in the morning to know that she has to rule this kingdom, and face the Duke of York, without the support of the man she loved. She will be alone. She will have to be mother and father to her son. She will have to be king and queen to England. And nobody may ever know, nobody can even guess, that her heart is broken.

* * *

In the next few days she is not like Margaret of Anjou, she is like her ghost. She loses her voice, she is struck like a mute. I tell her ladies in waiting that the shock has given her a pain in the throat, like a cold, and that she must rest. But in her shadowy room, where she sits with her hand to her heart in silence, I see that in holding back the sobs, she is choking on her own grief. She dares make no sound, for if she spoke she would scream.

In London there is a terrible tableau enacted. The king, forgetful of himself, forgetful of his position, of his sacred trust from God, goes to the cathedral of St Paul’s for a renewed coronation. No archbishop crowns him; in a mockery of the coronation itself it is Richard of York who puts the crown on the king’s head. To the hundreds of people who crowd into the cathedral and the thousands who hear of the ceremony, one royal cousin gives the crown to another, as if they were equals, as if obedience was a matter of choice.

I take this news to the queen as she sits in darkness, and she stands up, unsteadily, as if she is remembering how to walk. ‘I must go to the king,’ she says, her voice weak and croaky. ‘He is giving away everything we have. He must have lost his mind again and now he is losing the crown and his son’s inheritance.’

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘We can’t undo this act. Let us wait and see what we can do. And while we wait you can come out of your rooms, and eat properly, and speak to your people.’

She nods, she knows she has to lead the royal party, and now she has to lead it alone. ‘How will I do anything without him?’ she whispers to me.