‘Jacquetta!’ she says.

‘Margaret.’ We hold each other, arms wrapped around each other, cheeks warm one to the other. I feel the energy of her joy and optimism coursing through her slight body. I smell the perfume in her hair and her fur collar tickles my chin.

‘I have had such adventures! You will never believe the journeys I have made. Are you safe?’

I can feel myself still trembling with shock from the violence in the bedroom. ‘Richard had to kill one of your men,’ I say. ‘He came in my bedroom window.’

She shakes her head disapprovingly, as at a minor foible. ‘Oh! They are hopeless! Good for nothing but killing people. But you must see our prince,’ she says. ‘He is a young man born to be king. He has been so brave. We had to ride to Wales and then take ship to Scotland. We were robbed and wrecked! You’ll never believe it.’

‘Margaret, the people are terrified of your army.’

‘Yes, I know. They are tremendous. You will see, we have such plans!’

She is radiant, she is a woman in her power, free at last to take her power. ‘I have the lords of Somerset, Exeter and Northumberland,’ she says. ‘The north of England is ours. We will march south and when Warwick comes out to defend London we will crush him.’

‘He will be able to raise London against you,’ I warn her. ‘And the country is terrified of your army, not welcoming at all.’

She laughs aloud. ‘I have raised the Scots and the north against him,’ she says. ‘They will be too afraid even to lift a weapon. I am coming like a wolf into England, Jacquetta, with an army of wolves. I am at the very height of the wheel of fortune, this is an unbeatable army because nobody will dare to take the field against them. People run from us before we even arrive, I have become a bad queen to my people, a scourge in the land, and they will be sorry that they ever raised a sword or a pitchfork against me.’

* * *

We ride south with the queen’s army, the royal party at the head of the marching men, the pillaging, looting and terror going on behind us in a broad swathe that we know about, but ignore. Some of the men ride off from the main column to forage for food, breaking into barns, raiding shops and isolated little farms, demanding a levy from villages; but others are madmen, men from the north like Vikings going berserk, killing for the sake of it, stealing from churches, raping women. We bring terror to England, we are like a plague on our own people. Richard and some of the lords are deeply shamed and do what they can to impose some order on the army, controlling their own levies, demanding that the Scots fall in and march. But some of the other lords, the queen herself, and even her little boy, seem to revel in punishing the country that rejected them. Margaret is like a woman released from the bonds of honour, she is free to be anything she likes for the first time in her life, she is free of her husband, she is free of the constraints of the court, she is free of the careful manners of a French princess, she is free, at last, to be wicked.