Then a messenger with a candle in a lantern comes for them, and they step apart.

‘You the bloke who’s just come from Wales? Get your things and follow me,’ he says. ‘Earl of March wants to see you.’

He leads them up some steps in a tower and along a stone corridor to where three soldiers stand with bills at a door. Through it they can hear the flute and the singing. It is quite unlike any of the singing he’s heard in Mass. One of the guards opens the door and ushers them in. A fire is piled scandalously high in the middle of the floor and five or six men are sitting at a board where food and drink are being served by attendants. The flautist and the singer stop and are ushered away behind a screen by a fat man with a linen cloth.

Each of the men at the table looks up from their dishes. One is Edward of March, now the Duke of York since his father’s death; he whom they’d last seen the summer before, that time at Westminster.

When he sees Thomas, he gets to his feet, incredulous.

‘Dear God in heaven,’ he says. ‘You.’

‘My lord,’ Thomas mumbles.

But he can hardly take his gaze off the breasts of the glazed bird that steams on a dish held by one of the servants. The smell makes his mouth water.

‘What in the names of all the saints are you doing here?’

‘It is a long story, sir.’

‘And one best told with wine, I bet, and something to eat.’

This is from William Hastings, who’s risen to his feet and has come around to shake Thomas’s hand.

‘It is good to see you Thomas – ah – Everingham, isn’t it?’ he says.

Thomas nods. Hastings’s gaze flicks to Katherine, and then flicks back again.

‘But tell us,’ he says. ‘Who is this?’

He bows his head in mock salute to Katherine. For a moment Thomas thinks Hastings will recognise Kit, the boy who saved Richard Fakenham’s life. And Katherine says nothing. She is suddenly ill, pale as a sepulchre, with glazed eyes that seem to roll into the back of her head. She does not answer. The silence only deepens as Hastings and March take in her filthy face, the stained dress, the grubby headdress with the linen coif tugged down to cover her cropped ear. The other men at the table lean in on the conversation, even the servers are poised, mouths open, loaded spoons in their hands, staring.

Thomas can stand it no more.

‘Lady Margaret Cornford,’ he says. ‘Daughter of the late Lord Cornford.’

As he says it, he knows he has crossed some line. That there is no way back now. Katherine looks at him feverishly, and he wonders if she is grateful, or fearful.