‘They can’t kill you,’ I say. ‘You have done nothing wrong but be loyal to the king from the day you were born.’

‘That’s why I’m the very man they should kill,’ he says. ‘It will fill the others with fear. So I am going to mind my manners and speak gently, and if I have to swear to give up my sword to save my life, I will do that. And –’ he addresses Anthony, who flings himself aside with an impatient word, ‘and so will you. If they ask for our parole and for our promise that we never take arms against them, we will give that too. We have no choice. We are defeated. And I don’t plan to be beheaded on the gallows that I built here. I don’t plan to be buried in the cemetery that I tidied and cleared. Do you understand?’

‘I do,’ Anthony says shortly. ‘But how could we have let ourselves be taken!’

‘What’s done is done,’ Richard says.

* * *

They keep us on the ship till nightfall, they do not want Richard paraded through the town and seen by the people. The influential merchants of Calais love him for defending them when the castle was claimed by York. The men of the town remember him as a loyal and brave captain of the castle whose word was law and could be trusted like gold. The troop of Calais love him as a firm and just commander. It was the experience of serving under Richard that persuaded the six hundred men to change sides at Ludlow, and support the king. Any troop that has been commanded by him will follow him to hell and back. Warwick does not want this most popular captain to appeal to the people as he goes through the town.

So they wait till late at night and bring us like secret captives into the great hall of the castle under cover of darkness, and the sudden blaze of torches is blindingly bright after the black streets outside. They bring us through the gateway, under the stone arch and then into the great hall with blazing fires at either end and the men of the garrison at the trestle tables, uneasy at the sight of us.

The three of us stand, like penniless runaways from a war, and look around the great hall, the vaulted ceiling with the smoke-blackened beams, the torches ablaze in the sconces all round, some men standing, drinking ale, some seated at dining trestle tables, and some rising to their feet at the sight of my husband and pulling off their caps. At the top of the hall, the Earl of Salisbury, his son the Earl of Warwick, and the young Edward, Earl of March, son of Richard, Duke of York, sit at the head table, raised on the dais, the white rose of York on a banner behind them.

‘We have taken you as prisoners of war and will consider your parole,’ the Earl of Warwick starts, solemn as a judge from his seat at the head table.