I take her hands, her fingers are icy. ‘You will, Margaret. You will.’

* * *

I send an urgent note to Richard by a wool merchant that I have trusted before. I tell him that the Yorks are in command again, that he must prepare himself for them to try to take the garrison, that the king is in their keeping and that I love and miss him. I don’t beg him to come home, for in these troubled times I don’t know if he would be safe at home. I begin to realise the court, the country, and we ourselves are sliding from a squabble between cousins into a war between cousins.

* * *

Richard, Duke of York, acts quickly, as I thought he would. He suggests to the palace officials that the queen should meet her husband at Hertford Castle, a day’s ride north of London. When her steward tells her, she rounds on him. ‘He’s going to arrest me.’

The man steps back from her fury. ‘No, Your Grace. Just to give you and the king somewhere to rest until parliament opens in London.’

‘Why can’t we stay here?&rsqo;

The man shoots a despairing look at me. I raise my eyebrows, I’m not disposed to help him, for I don’t know why they want to send us to Henry’s childhood home either, and the castle is completely walled, moated, and gated, like a prison. If the Duke of York wants to lock away the king, queen and the young prince he could hardly choose a better place.

‘The king is not well, Your Grace,’ the steward finally admits. ‘They think he should not be seen by the people of London.’

This is the news we have been dreading. She takes it calmly. ‘Not well?’ she asks. ‘What do you mean by “not well”? Is he sleeping?’

‘He certainly seems very weary. He is not asleep as he was before; but he took a wound to his neck, and was very frightened. The duke believes he should not be exposed to the noise and bustle of London. The duke believes he should be quiet at the castle, it was his nursery, he will be comforted there.’

She looks at me, as if for advice. I know she is wondering what Edmund Beaufort would have told her to do. ‘You may tell His Grace, the duke, that we will journey to Hertford tomorrow,’ I say to the messenger, and as he turns away I whisper to the queen, ‘What else can we do? If the king is sick we had better get him out of London. If the duke commands us to go to Hertford we cannot refuse. When we have the king in our keeping we can decide what to do. We have to get him away from the duke and his men. If we hold the king in our keeping at least we know he is safe. We have to have possession of the king.’