There is a silence. Anthony and my husband exchange a long look as if they have been dreading what they are about to say.

‘What is it?’ I look from one to the other. ‘What has happened?’

‘We’re finished,’ Anthony volunteers. ‘I am sorry, Lady Mother. I have handed in my sword. I have sworn loyalty to York.’

I am stunned. I turn to Richard.

‘I too,’ he says. ‘I would not serve the queen again, not in such an army, not under such a command. But anyway, we lost on the battlefield, we handed in our swords and surrendered. I thought Edward would have us executed but –’ He has a ghost of a smile. ‘He was merciful to us. He took our swords from us, I am dishonoured. I am no longer a knight, I am sorry. We swore fealty to him, and it is over for us. I cannot take arms against him. I was defeated, I surrendered my sword. I am sworn to the House of York. I cannot serve Henry or Margaret: they are outlaws now to me.’

It is his use of their names that shakes me as much as anything, that tells me that everything is over, and everything is changed. ‘Henry,’ I repeat as if saying the name for the very first time. ‘You call the king Henry.’

‘The king’s name is Edward,’ my husband says as if repeating a lesson. ‘King Edward.’

I shake my head. Even though I had ridden all day against the tide of wounded men, I had not thought of our cause as lost. I have been with Margaret for so long that I can think only in terms of battles. I thought that we had lost another battle, but that there would be yet another battle after this. Now, as I look at my husband’s weary face and the hollow eyes of my son, say, ‘You think that Henry and Margaret will never win back the throne?’

He shows me his empty scabbard, where his beautifully embossed sword used to be. ‘I cannot help them to it, at any rate,’ he says. ‘I have surrendered my sword to the new king. I am sworn.’

‘We are no longer of the House of Lancaster?’ I am still incredulous.

Anthony nods. ‘It’s over,’ he says. ‘And we are lucky to have escaped with our heads on our necks.’

‘That’s all that matters,’ I say, grasping at a truth. ‘That must be all that matters, at the very end. You are alive, and your father. At any rate, that’s what matters most to me.’

* * *

We lie, that night, like a poor family, in the straw together under our heaped capes for warmth, our small troop of men in the stable with our horses. Richard’s arm is around me, all the night long. ‘We’ll go to Grafton,’ I whisper as I fall asleep. ‘And we will be squires again, and we will think of all of this as a romance, a story that someone might write one day.’