‘What are you doing with my son? That is my son, release him.’

The man does not even bother to answer me, and I run across the slippery cobbles to where they have left Richard on the ground, like a dead man. As I reach him he stirs and opens his eyes, he looks dazed. ‘Jacquetta,’ he says.

‘My love. Are you hurt?’ I am dreading him saying that he has been stabbed.

‘A cracked head. I’ll live.’

A man roughly takes him under the shoulders. ‘Carry him into our house,’ I order.

‘I’m taking him on board,’ the man says simply. ‘You’re to come too.’

‘Where d’you think you are taking us? On whose authority? This is not an act of war, it is a crime!’

He ignores me. One man takes Richard’s boots, he holds his shoulders, they lug him like a carcase. ‘You may not take him,’ I insist. ‘He is a lord of the realm, under the command of the king. This is rebellion.’

I put my hand on the man’s arm but he simply ignores me and lugs Richard down to the quayside. Behind me, all around me, I can hear men shouting and women screaming as the soldiers go through the town, taking what they want, throwing open doors and banging the precious glass out of windows.

‘Where do you think you are taking my husband?’

‘Calais,’ he says shortly.

* * *

It’s a quick voyage. Richard recovers his senses, they give us clean water and something to eat, Anthony is unhurt. We are locked in a little cabin at first and then, once the ship is at sea and the great sail unfurled and creaking, they let us out on deck. For a little while we cannot see any land, England is lost behind us, but then we see a dark line ahead of us on the horizon, and as we watch we can see the squat mound of the city and, on its crest, the round walls of the castle. I realise I am returning to Calais under guard, as a hostage, to the town that I once entered as a duchess.

I glance at Richard and see that he remembers this too. This is an outpost which was under his command. Now he is a prisoner. This is the turn of fortune’s wheel indeed.

‘Take care,’ he says quietly to me and to our son. ‘They shouldn’t harm you, Jacquetta, they know you, and they like you. And they don’t make war on women. But the queen’s treatment of the Duchess of York will have angered them and we are quite in their power. No-one is going to rescue us. We will have to get out of this alive, by our own wits. We are quite alone.’

‘The Duke of Somerset holds Guisnes Castle, he might come for us,’ Anthony suggests.

‘Won’t get within half a mile,’ my husband says. ‘I have fortified this town, son, I know its strengths. Nobody will take it by force this century. So we are hostages in enemy hands. They have every reason to spare you, Jacquetta, and many a good reason to kill me.’