‘Two things,’ he says. ‘First is that having Henry of Lancaster with them will only slow them down. They’ll have to defer to him now, and he has never yet been known to make up his mind on any matter you care to name. Do I hold it with my right hand or left hand? See? Second thing is that it has forced our hand, shall we say. Henry’s broken with the Act of Accord, which specifically states he must do nothing to harm either Edward or his father, and I think any sane man – or woman – would recognise the breach.’

‘So?’

‘So now he has forfeited his right to the throne.’

‘Ah. And in his place, Edward?’

Hastings smiles.

‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘That is as the Act has it. It clarifies things, hmmm?’

They walk on for a moment.

‘Did you delay here waiting to see that exact thing happen?’ she asks.

He looks at her sharply, but then smiles.

‘No, no,’ he says. ‘The army is tired. We have no arrows or food. We cannot march on London so soon.’

He lies so smoothly, so engagingly, she finds herself enjoying it.

‘It seems strange that the Earl of Warwick took the King with him to the battle. Almost as if he wanted him to be taken.’

Hastings laughs now.

‘My lady,’ he says, ‘you suppose us far too clever.’

‘And by not coming to his aid when you could, you have not only enhanced your own authority and reputations, you have left the Earl of Warwick looking less than invincible, too.’

This time Hastings is delighted. He claps his hands together and shuffles the steps of a jig.

‘I know you do not mean to, my lady,’ he says, laughing, ‘but you have cheered me immeasurably. Until we coincided here, I had imagined the debacle at St Albans exactly that, a debacle. Now though? Now I see it as a shining victory.’

She cannot stop herself smiling at his pleasure.

‘All you need do now is proclaim Edward as king,’ she says, ‘and all will be well. Save, of course, the small matter of the Queen’s army.’

Hastings’s smile fades. He pulls on the tip of his nose.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘There is that.’

They walk in silence for a few more paces.

‘And what of you?’ he asks as they near the castle drawbridge.

Katherine does not know.

‘It is the lot of women’, he says sadly, ‘to depend on men.’

On that note she asks him about Thomas. She does not quite know how to couch the question, since she is unsure how to express the relationship she has with Thomas. Is he her servant, bringing her back to the man to whom she is betrothed? She supposes he is.