‘No,’ I say. ‘You will be busy in the forge today, I should think.’

He hefts my purse and grins up at me. ‘It’s a good day already,’ he says. ‘The best we’ve had in all our lives. God bless you, my lady.’

‘God bless you,’ I say, and turn my horse to the south.

* * *

I have been riding for about half an hour when I hear a blast of trumpets and see the dust of a great army on the move. I look around me for somewhere to hide but this is wide empty country, the fields are broad and bare and the hedges are low. I pull my horse over to an open gateway by a field and think that if they are the York army or York reinforcements then I can rein in, sit tight, look like a duchess, and let them go by. Perhaps they will have news of my husband and my boy.

When they are half a mile from me, I can make out the king’s standard, and I know that I am safe for the moment, as the army comes up, the queen and the king himself at the head.

‘Jacquetta!’ she cries out with genuine joy. ‘God bless you! Well met!’

She pulls her horse over to the side of the road to let the army keep on marching past us. Thousands of men are following her. ‘You are safe!’ she says. ‘And well! And the king here is so angry at the death of Lord Audley that he is marching himself to bring the York lords to account.’ She lowers her voice. ‘He has suddenly come to his senses and said he will lead the army himself. I’m so happy. He says he will never again forgive them, and he is going to avenge the death of our true friend.’

‘Lord Audley is dead?’ I ask. I can feel myself starting to tremble at the thought of what her next words might be. ‘And do you have news . . .’

A man from the centre of the kn thrusts his horse forwards and pushes up his visor to show his face. ‘It’s me!’ my husband yells. ‘Jacquetta! Beloved! It’s me!’

I gasp, he is unrecognisable, as they all are, weighed down in their armour and with helmets on. But he comes forwards, jumps down from his horse with a clatter, throws his helmet aside and pulls me into his arms. His breastplate is hard against me, the greaves on his arms cut into my back but I cling to him and kiss him and swear to him that I love him.

‘And Anthony is safe,’ he says. ‘And Elizabeth’s husband. We all came through scot-free. I told you I was lucky.’

‘Don’t look at me, I must smell,’ I say, suddenly remembering my clothes and my hair and the raised welts of flea bites on my skin. ‘I am ashamed of myself.’

‘You should never have stayed there,’ he says, glancing at the queen. ‘You should never have been there. You should never have been left there.’