‘Just so.’

‘What can it mean? Do you see what it means?’

I shake my head. I had only conjured the swan because I didn’t want to mention my daughter’s name in this vision. Now, as so often, I find that the lie needs another lie.

‘A swan is the badge of heir to the House of Lancaster,’ she reminds me. ‘Your vision means that my son Edward will take the throne.’

‘Visions are never certain . . .’

Her smile is radiant. ‘Don’t you see? This is the solution for us? The king can step aside for his son,’ she says. ‘This is my way forwards. The swan is my boy. I will put Prince Edward on the throne of England.’

* * *

Although he has launched one of the most controversial and dangerous meetings that parliament has ever had to endure, ae has summoned three magnates who have brought their own armies, the king is joyously at peace with himself and with the world. He has every faith that these great matters will best be agreed in loving kindness without him; he plans to arrive after everything has been decided, to give it all his blessing. He absents himself from London to pray for peace, while they argue and calculate the price of agreement, threaten each other, come near to blows, and finally forge a settlement.

It drives Margaret beside herself to see her husband step back from his work of ruling his lords to become the king who will intercede only with heaven for his country’s safety – but leaves it to others to make it safe. ‘How can he summon them to London and just abandon us?’ she demands of me. ‘How can he be such a fool to make half a peace?’

It is indeed only half a peace. Everyone agrees that the York lords should pay for attacking the king’s own standard and they promise to pay great fines to the Lancaster heirs, to compensate them for the deaths of their fathers. But they pay in tally sticks which were given to them from the king’s exchequer – worthless promises of royal wealth which the king will never honour, but which Lancaster can never refuse, because to do so would be to admit that the kingdom is penniless. It is a brilliant joke and a powerful insult to the king. They promise to build a chantry at St Albans for Masses for the souls of the fallen, and they all vow to keep a future peace. Only the king thinks that a blood feud that is set to go down the generations can be thus halted with sweet words, a bouquet of sticks, and a promise. The rest of us see lies laid upon deaths; dishonour on murder.

Then the king returns to London from his retreat and declares a loveday – a day when we shall all walk together, hand-in-hand, and all will be forgiven. ‘The lion shall lie down with the lamb,’ he says to me. ‘Do you see?’