Dickon shivered in the cool evening air, and George, guessing his brother was afraid and not merely cold, put his arm around him. “I hope there is a fire in the hall,” he said, cheerfully, “we’ll be warm there.” Unused to the kind gesture and certain he would be called “babykins” if he accepted the offered corner of George’s cloak, Dickon hesitated. It was enough to irritate George, who snapped, “Suit yourself,” and walked off.

George’s mercurial temper was roused again the very next day when he argued with Meg over a chess move she had made. Dickon, with Ambergris at his feet, looked up from his whittling of what he hoped would be a fair facsimile of Traveller, and was glad it was Meggie for once who was the victim of George’s outburst. “You cheated!” George accused her, leaping to his feet. “I was looking out of the window, and you moved your bishop before you moved that pawn.” Dickon cast his eyes back to his carving and waited: he knew one did not accuse Margaret of York of cheating.

“Take back that slander this instant,” Meg demanded, standing up to emphasize her height. “You are a poor loser, George Plantagenet, and you always have been. I do not have to cheat to beat you, you stupid boy. I could do it blindfolded!”

George never had a good answer to Meg’s sharp retorts, and he did not have one now. Instead he upended the entire board, and the brightly colored figures flew in all directions, startling Ambergris, who began to bark. Meg’s attendant Beatrice got to her feet “tut-tutting” and commanded George to pick everything up and apologize. George simply stormed off, pushing his sister aside.

“Holy Mother of God,” Meg swore. “I do not like George sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Dickon muttered to his block of wood, but he put it down and went to help Beatrice pick up the chess pieces. As he righted the board, he glanced past Meg to the window and gasped.

“S…soldiers!” he stammered. “Look! They are coming over the hill.”

Beatrice shrieked and got up from her knees so quickly she knocked her high hennin askew. “Dear Lord have mercy, it must be the royal army. Quick Dickon run and alert your mother. Meg come with me.”

Dickon obeyed as fast as he could, dashing through the castle passages that ran inside the curtain wall to the solar in the Northwest Tower. But his mother wasn’t there. “She went up on the ramparts with Edmund,” Cecily’s chief attendant, Gresilde, told the boy, her face pale when she heard Dickon’s news. “She must have seen them, too.”

Not waiting for further instructions, Dickon scampered up the circular stairs to the roof of the tower. There he saw his mother and brother staring horrified at the thousands of troops massing across the Whitcliff hill, the royal pennants and banners as thick as any forest.