‘They are openly saying that my son is a bastard, that the king knew nothing about his birth and christening and also – nothing about his conception. They think to disinherit him with slander, since they cannot hurt him by war.’

‘Do you have news of the Yorkist lords?’

‘They have met,’ she says shortly. ‘I have spies at York’s little court in Ireland and they tell me. Warwick went to meet the Duke of York in his castle in Ireland. We know that they met, we can guess they plan to invade. We cannot know when for sure.’

‘And are you ready for an invasion?’

She nods grimly. ‘The king has been ill again – oh, not very ill – but he has lost interest in everything but praying. He has been at prayer for all of this week and sleeping, sometimes as much as sixteen hours a day . . .’ She breaks off. ‘I never know if he is here or if he has gone. But, at any rate, I am ready, I am ready for anything. I have the troops, I have the lords, I have the country on my side – all but the perfidious people of Kent and the guttersnipes of London.’

‘When, do you think?’ I do not really need to ask. All campaigns start in the summer season. It cannot be long before they bring the news that York is on the march from Ireland, and Warwick has set sail from Calais.

‘I’ll go and see my children,’ I say. ‘They will be anxious about their father and their brother.’

‘And then come back,’ she says. ‘I need you with me, Jacquetta.’

NORTHAMPTON,

SUMMER 1460

In June, in the richest greenest easiest month of the year, the York lords make their move from Calais, and Richard, Duke of York, bides his time in Ireland, letting them do his dirty work for him. They land, as my husband predicted, with only a small force of about two thousand, but as they march their ranks are swelled with men who run out of the fields and from the stable yards to join them. Kent has not forgotten Jack Cade or the harvest of heads, and there are many who march out for Warwick now, who remember the queen swearing that she would make a deer park of their home. London throws the City gates open to Warwick and poor Lord Scales finds himself once again alone in the Tower, with orders to hold it for the king, whatever the cost. The York lords do not even trouble themselves to starve him out, they leave Lord Cobham in charge of the City and march north, to Kenilworth, looking for their enemy: us.

Every day they add recruits, everywhere they go men flock to join them. Their army swells, they grow stronger, they pay wages with money voted to them by the towns that they march by. The mood of the country has swung against the queen and her puppet king. The people want a leader they can trust to hold the country to peace and justice. They have come to think that Richard, Duke of York, will be their protector and they fear the queen for the danger and uncertainty that comes in her train.