The road is crowded with men, so many men, so bedraggled in their livery or working clothes that I cannot tell one from another and their sheer numbers and misery force me off the road so I stand in a gateway and gaze at them as they go by. It seems as if it will never end, this procession of men who have escaped death but are still bloodstained, and bruised, and wet with snow.

‘Lady Mother? Lady Mother?’

I can hear his voice, and for a moment I think I am imagining it. ‘Anthony?’ I say disbelievingly. I slide down from my horse and stumble forwards until I am almost submerged in the sea of wounded men who barge towards me and jostle me. I pull at their arms and look into their shocked grey faces. ‘Anthony? Anthony!’

From a group of men he steps out. My gaze rakes him from head to foot in an instant, taking in his weary eyes, his grim smile, his unharmed body. He is holding his arms out to me and his hands, his precious hands, are whole, he is not missing a finger, his arms are not slashed to the bone. He is standing upright. His helmet is off and his face, though grey with weariness, is unmarked. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask incredulously. ‘My son? Are you all right? Have you got through this unhurt?’

His smile has lost its joyous light. ‘I’m safe,’ he says. ‘I thank God who guarded me the whole long night an day. What are you doing here? It’s like hell, here.’

‘Looking for you,’ I say. ‘And . . . Anthony, where is your father?’

‘Oh!’ he exclaims, realising what I am thinking. ‘Oh no, don’t, Mother. He is fine. He’s not injured. He’s just . . .’ He looks around. ‘Here he is.’

I turn and there is Richard. I would hardly have recognised him. His breastplate is dented across his heart, his face blackened with smoke and blood, but he walks towards me, as he always walks towards me, as if nothing could ever separate us.

‘Richard,’ I whisper.

‘Beloved,’ he says hoarsely.

‘You’re safe?’

‘I always come home to you.’

We go west, to get away from the road to York which is choked with men falling to their knees and crying for water, and lined with those who have fallen out to die. We ride cross-country across the broad plain of York until we find a farmhouse where they allow us to sleep in the barn, wash in the stream, and sell us food. We eat farmer’s broth: a speck of overstewed mutton with gruel and carrots, and we drink their small ale.

When he has eaten and is looking less drained I ask, tentatively for I fear his reply, ‘Richard, the queen is going north to regroup, and then on to Scotland to raise more recruits, and then she says she will come back. What are we going to do?’