I do see – I see a city riven with faction, and ready to make war. I see Edmund Beaufort’s son, who lost his father at St Albans, is ordered to walk hand-in-hand with the Earl of Salisbury, and they stand at arm’s length, fingers touching, as if they could feel wet blood on their fingertips. Behind them comes his father’s killer, the Earl of Warwick, and he walks handfast with the Duke of Exeter, who has sworn secretly that there shall be no forgiveness. Next comes the king, looking well, glowing with happiness at this procession that he thinks shows to the people that the peers are united under his rule once more, and behind him comes the queen.

She should have walked alone. As soon as I saw her, I knew that she should have walked alone, like a queen. Instead the king has placed her hand-in-hand with the Duke of York. He thinks it shows their friendship. It does not. It says to the whole world that they were enemies once, and that they could be enemies again. It says nothing of goodwill and forgiveness but it exposes Margaret as a player in this deadly game – not a queen above faction, but a queen militant, and York as her enemy. Of all the follies on this day when we all went hand-in-hand – Richard and I among the others – this is the worst of them.

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,

WINTER 1458

The loveday peace lasts only for eight months. I leave court in the summer for my confinement and give birth to anoer baby, a daughter whom we call Katherine, and when she is well and strong and thriving at the breast of the wet nurse, we leave home and stay with my daughter Elizabeth at Groby Hall. She is brought to bed with a child and she has another boy.

‘What a blessing you are to the Greys,’ I say to her as I am leaning over the cradle. ‘Another baby: and a boy.’

‘You would think they would thank me for it,’ she says. ‘John is as dear to me as ever but his mother does nothing but complain.’

I shrug. ‘Perhaps it is time for the two of you to move to one of the other Grey houses,’ I suggest. ‘Perhaps there is not room for two mistresses in Groby Hall.’

‘Perhaps I should come to court,’ Elizabeth says. ‘I could serve Queen Margaret and stay with you.’

I shake my head. ‘It is no pleasant place at the moment,’ I say. ‘Not even for the lady in waiting that you would be. Your father and I have to go back and I dread what I will find.’

I return to a court busy with rumour. The queen requires that the Earl of Warwick takes the almost impossible task of keeping the narrow seas safe for English shipping; but at the same time hands over the fortress of Calais to Edmund Beaufort’s son, the new young Duke of Somerset, an inveterate enemy of all the York lords.