Richard stretched out his aching back, dismayed by the increasing discomfort. “’Tis true that she was in Rouen as Louis’s guest, but I could not say if Warwick actually spoke to her,” he hedged. Edward had made it clear that no one outside the privy chamber must know that the two had met and talked. Richard had been so honored to have been included in the private conversation with Hastings and Bishop Stillington, the new lord chancellor, that he would never divulge this information, not even to his closest friend. Richard was learning not to trust anyone in this world of politics and power. Later in his life, breaking this rule would have disastrous consequences.

He frowned now when he thought of Edward’s parting words: “I would that you return to my lord of Warwick, say nothing of why I summoned you, and report to me anything that even hints at disloyalty. Will you uphold me in this, brother?” Richard had nodded and placed a hand on his heavy heart. “I will.”

Richard shook off the memory as his eye was drawn to something metallic in the hedgerow. “Look yonder,” he said pointing. “What is it?” He signaled to one of the escorts to fetch the object, and they all recognized a half-rusted sallet. The man also found a broken sword and, buried in the grass and earth, a halberd, its wooden pole so rotten, it fell apart in the soldier’s hand.

“Good Christ,” Richard exclaimed, watching Traveller disappear through the hedge. “What is this place?”

“Towton,” Rob shouted from farther down the road, where a crude sign pointed the way to the village. “We are at Towton field.”

They all crossed themselves, and Richard dismounted and walked to a gap in the wall and stared down the long, steep field to the beck at the bottom, where more than five and twenty thousand Englishmen had given their lives six years before. He whistled to Traveller, not wanting the dog to disturb the dead.