A whole day went by, and the mood in the castle turned somber as the reason for the tolling bells and the duchess’s collapse filtered along the long passageways, into the kitchens, and through the stables and to the castle’s garrison. But although the whisperings had permeated the servants’ quarters, the news failed to crawl its cruel way up into the children’s apartments, where they resided separately from their parents. After the three children had left the hall and Meg had bullied the boys into their chambers, only Nurse Anne and Beatrice were left to see to their needs. Gresilde and Cecily’s other ladies tended to their mistress, and no one thought to inform the children of the tragedy at Wakefield.

“We shall stay here until Mother tells us otherwise,” Meg instructed her brothers sternly. “So refrain from squabbling, and let us wait for her peaceably.”

“What do you think is the matter?” Dickon asked. “Our cousin of Warwick did not look normal.”

Meg shrugged, although she, too, had a knot in her stomach.

“You should have let us stay to listen,” George complained, and Dickon heartily concurred.

“Sweet Jesu, don’t you think I wish I had, too?” Meg snapped back. “Do not blame me—you saw my lord Warwick’s glare. I was not about to gainsay it. I have never seen him look so forbidding.” Dickon had no response to that truth and continued marshaling his toy soldiers. George went to his sister and hugged her. “You are right; you had to obey him. I wish I knew where Mother was though.”

When Cecily eventually entered the cozy, fire-lit chamber in time for the late-morning meal, they were shocked by her appearance, which verified that disaster had struck the family. Gresilde helped her mistress into the high-backed arm chair and fussed with Cecily’s drab, gray overdress—a color reserved for dowagers and spinsters, not their fashionable mother. Cecily’s face was blotched, and her eyes—usually a blue that matched the gentian flower of her native Raby—were swollen and bloodshot. Her fingers were wringing a lace kerchief, a sign of nerves the children had never seen from their imperturbable mother before.

They guessed her news before she opened her mouth: either beloved father or Ned was dead. None of them moved until Cecily had composed herself.

“Come here, my dears,” she said, tears willed away as she faced her three youngest. “Why don’t you sit on the cushions. Closer, come closer.” She nodded an acknowledgement to Nurse Anne and Beatrice to sit, while she kept Gresilde standing by her, the older woman’s hand steadying her shoulder. Then she drew a deep breath and told them all of the Yorkist defeat at Wakefield, which would not have happened but for an inexplicable, rash maneuver on her husband’s part. Giving her audience the facts was easier; it was the personal details she would have loved to avoid.