And as though the Almighty had heard his plea, a cry went up from the enemy’s ranks, “Montagu is fallen! Warwick flees!” and trampling over their dead comrades and throwing down their weapons, the Lancastrian soldiers took flight. A shout of triumph erupted from the center of the melée, and Richard heard the words in his heart of hearts he had dreaded hearing. “Warwick is slain!” You could have avoided this, cousin, he thought grimly. But then he recognized his brother’s jubilant voice: “The battle is won, lads! God is with us!” and all thoughts of Warwick were put aside as he and his exhausted soldiers took up Edward’s cheer.

Richard, too, praised his men: “Thanks to you, the battle’s won. Thanks to God for taking our side.” He walked slowly through their ranks, a smile here and a slap on the back there, asking his men to hold their dead comrades in their prayers, and sending up an ave for John Milewater and the others he had lost that day. And then he sought medical help for his own flesh wound. Where is Constance when I need her?

It was on the march back to London that Richard asked Edward: “And what of Warwick, Ned. How did he fall?”

Edward’s face was stern. “I had given the order to take the earl, not murder him,” he growled. “Some enthusiastic lads took matters into their own hands when they saw him running for his horse and brought him down. They disobeyed my order and will be punished, I can assure you. I was too late to save him, and when I did arrive on the scene, the man was already stripped naked.”

Richard was silent. For some reason, he was imagining Anne Neville’s sadness upon hearing of her beloved father’s death. “Did they have to despoil him? Such an undignified end for such a noble man.” He shuddered, praying his own misshapen body would never suffer that ignominy.

“He was a traitor, Richard!” Edward snapped. “Had I caught him, he would have been publicly executed.” He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his hand and looked surprised when it came away scarlet. “We must be thankful George was not among them, or I would have been faced with condemning him as well.”

Richard glanced back over his shoulder to where a weary George was riding with his own cronies further back in the cavalcade. He frowned. “Knowing you as I do, Ned, I feel sure he would have found forgiveness from you yet again. Certes, you must be a better man than I, because I know I would not have forgiven him. Of all of mankind’s failings, surely disloyalty is the most abhorrent.”