‘It changes everything,’ he says. ‘Up until now we’ve been fighting to rid ourselves of the bloodsucking leeches that hang around the court, the sort of men who let us down in France. Men like Buckingham and Somerset; men like goddamned Giles Riven. Thieves, murderers, swindlers and the like. We were trying to restore good governance and the rule of law, weren’t we? So that a man might walk the roads without fear of being robbed, or that he might go to law without the fear of being manhandled by his opponents, or that he might leave his own household to go over the sea to fight for his bloody country and come back to find it still his.’

‘And we were right to do so,’ Richard says. ‘Everyone can see the country was in a parlous state and that the wars in France have ended in defeat and shame.’

‘Yes. Yes,’ Sir John agrees, flapping his hand. ‘But that’s all changed now, don’t you see? If what we hear about York is right, it will seem that we have been fighting to get rid of the King. To depose him. And replace him. With the Duke of York. I did not answer old Fauconberg’s call to do that, and I do not imagine that many others did either.’ He shakes his head. ‘Worst of it is that it will come as a rallying cry to the lords in the north. We’ve had a peaceful summer of it, haven’t we? Fixed the roof, got the harvest in, got a few girls pregnant too, I dare say, but that’s only because young Warwick knows he hasn’t the power to interfere with what goes on up north, so he hasn’t tried. He’s been in Calais, for the love of all that’s holy! And that’s suited all those northern bastards – begging your pardon, Thomas. They don’t mind one way or another what Warwick does in Kent and London, so long as he doesn’t bother them. But now York arrives and he wants to be king? They’ll be up in arms.’

Richard looks thoughtful. They travel on.

‘Do you suppose’, he says at length, ‘that Riven has heard the news?’

‘About York? Of course.’

‘I wonder what he will make of it.’

It is Sir John’s turn to look thoughtful.

‘He will weigh up where his advantage lies,’ he eventually says, ‘and jump accordingly.’

Richard nods.

‘As should we, surely?’

Sir John looks at his son for a long moment, then shoos a fly from his face and turns away.