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.

“I know no other way to give you these terrible tidings, children, except plainly. Your beloved Father was killed in the battle, and Edmund…” she choked on his name, and Meg gave a little scream when she told them, “…Edmund was slain fleeing the scene.”

“Not Edmund,” Meg stammered, as tears overwhelmed her. “N…not sweet Edmund.”

Cecily nodded bleakly. What else could she say? Instead, she reached out her arms and caught Meg and George, who sought her comforting embrace. Meg sobbed and George whimpered, and over their heads, Cecily saw Dickon’s face, ashen white, staring in disbelief.

“Father is d…dead?” he whispered. He tried to go to his mother, but his legs gave way and he fell to his knees, finally releasing a wail that clawed at Cecily’s heart. George turned and took his brother’s thin, shaking body into his arms and rocked him like a baby, a simple gesture that finally undid Cecily, and, unashamed, she allowed her own tears to darken Meggie’s golden hair.

It was not until Cecily had fully recovered that she told her children the details of their father’s and brother’s ends. As any mother knows, the unknown is more fearful for children than the known, and Cecily was not foolish enough to think Meggie, George and Dickon would be spared the rumors, lies and fantastical imaginings that would be circulating about the events at Wakefield.