Hastings blows through his lips. ‘My lady,’ he says, and he lets go of Thomas’s hand and takes hers. He leads her to his chair at the board. The men there – in fur-collared coats, one with a chain of gold around his neck, another a priest – stand.

‘Friends,’ Hastings says, addressing them. ‘My lady has had a long and discomforting journey, so I trust you will not begrudge her a place at our table. There is precious little room in the castle to which she may retire, and for those of us who hold Lord Cornford’s memory dear, we should extend every courtesy to his bloodline.’

The men nod, but frown. A woman at such a table? Katherine takes her place, grateful only to sit on the chair, her narrow fingers shaking as she drinks hot wine and then gnaws at bread. March, meanwhile, takes Thomas to one side.

‘So you have come from Wales?’ he asks. ‘Have you seen Tudor’s army?’

Thomas nods.

‘All the talk is of them being Irish mercenaries,’ March goes on as if talking to himself, ‘with a few Frenchmen for good measure. I cannot decide just how poor they will be when it comes to it. The weather has been bad, I hear?’

‘It has been cold, my lord, with snow.’

‘I hope they have suffered cruelly,’ March says. ‘They are camped tonight just off the road to the south of here, where the Captain of the Watch tells me you were picked up. My sources suggest they are short of food and ale?’

‘There was precious little to be had on the way,’ Thomas confirms.

‘We can thank John Dwnn for that,’ March says. ‘He’s warned everyone in Wales to bury their food and take to the hills.’

Dwnn. Thomas hears the name like a slap. John Dwnn will know Katherine is not Lady Margaret Cornford.

‘Is John Dwnn here now, sir?’ he asks.

‘Dwnn? No. He is out; harassing the enemy, he calls it. Murdering their scouts, I’d call it, and thank him for it.’

He raises his cup in thanks to John Dwnn before drinking. Thomas thinks to ask about the battle outside Wakefield, but how can you ask a man about his father and brother being killed?

‘So,’ March says. ‘There will be fighting tomorrow. I hope you will join us? You are my lucky talisman.’

Thomas nods, but he is far from certain. He drinks deeply, burning his tongue but hardly caring. Great God, it is good.

‘Tomorrow will be a different sort of fight,’ March says, raising his voice, broadening the conversation to include everyone in the room. ‘In the past we have always urged our men to spare the commons and to kill only the gentles, but hereafter . . . hereafter we want them all dead.’

This sinks in.

‘But, Edward – your grace,’ Hastings says. ‘You are talking about the lives of Englishmen. The deaths of Englishmen, I should say.’