‘Take them away,’ Salisbury repeats.

* * *

We don’t have the rooms of the captain of the castle, of course, but we have good ones looking over the inner courtyard. They keep us only for a couple of nights and then a guard comes to the door and says that I am to be taken by ship to London.

‘What about us?’ my husband demands.

‘You’re hostages,’ the soldier says. ‘You’re to wait here.’

‘They are to be held with honour? They are safe?’ I insist.

He nods to Richard. ‘I served under you, sir, I’m Abel Stride.’

‘I remember you, Stride,’ my husband says. ‘What’s the plan?

‘My orders are to hold you here until we move out, and then to release you, unhurt,’ he says. ‘And I’ll obey them, and no others.’ He hesitates. ‘There’s not a man in the garrison would harm you, sir, nor your son. My word on it.’

‘Thank you,’ my husband says. To me he whispers, ‘Go to the queen, tell her they are preparing to invade. Try and see how many ships you can count in the pool. Tell her I don’t think they have many men, perhaps only two thousand or so.’

‘And you?’

‘You heard him. I’ll get home when I can. God bless you, beloved.’

I kiss him. I turn to my son, who goes down on his knee for my blessing and then comes up to hug me. I know he is broad and strong and a good fighter, but to leave him in danger is almost unbearable.

&lsquour Grace, you have to come now,’ the guard says.

I have to leave them both. I don’t know how I get up the gangplank of the merchant ship or into the little cabin. But I have to leave them both.

COVENTRY,

SPRING 1460

The court is in Coventry, readying for war, when I arrive in England and take the queen the news that our enemies in Calais are holding my husband and son, and that they are certain to invade this year.

‘Jacquetta, I am so sorry,’ Margaret says to me. ‘I had no idea. I would never have put you in danger like that . . . when they told me that you had been captured I was beside myself.’ She glances around and whispers to me, ‘I wrote to Pierre de Brézé, the Seneschal of Normandy, and asked him to take Calais and rescue you. You know what would happen to me if anyone found out I am writing to him. But you are this important to me.’

‘I was never in any great danger,’ I say. ‘But the rebel lords taunted Richard and Anthony and I think if they could have killed them in a brawl they would have done so.’

‘I hate them,’ she says simply. ‘Warwick and his father, York and his son. They are my enemies till death. You know the rumours they are spreading now?’

I nod. They have spoken slander against this queen from the moment she arrived in England.