‘Everingham?’ Hastings says. ‘I’ve not seen him. I have offered him a place with me, but I understand he has obligations to you and of course to Sir John Fakenham. We are all concerned for Sir John. I have sent for news, you know? But so far, none.’

Katherine says nothing. They walk a few paces further.

‘Everingham tells me you are betrothed to Sir John’s son, Richard?’ Hastings continues.

She feels a jolt of pain, as if someone has pressed on a bruise, but she is surprised to hear Thomas has lied to Hastings about her, in support of her claim to be Margaret Cornford. And at some cost to himself, she realises.

‘I am,’ she says.

‘Then I wish you joy of it,’ Hastings says. ‘I can only hope the boy is alive. I heard he was summoned along with his father to Sandal, before the old Duke of York was killed, but there is now some doubt about him ever arriving.’

‘I have heard nothing,’ she says. ‘But I should dearly love to know.’

‘I think we all would,’ Hastings agrees. There is something unsettling in his manner, as if he is after the same thing, but for a different reason. She thinks again of Grylle and the attentions he has been paying her.

‘I should like to ride to Marton Hall and see for myself,’ she says.

Hastings looks at her.

‘Strange,’ he says. ‘Thomas Everingham asked the exact same thing.’

She is surprised again. Thomas has been busy on her behalf.

‘But I cannot spare him,’ Hastings says. ‘He is too useful, and Edward – who will soon be crowned king, you know? He has come to think of your Thomas Everingham as some sort of charm. A talisman.’

Katherine bites her tongue to prevent herself saying what she thinks of this.

‘You are of course free to go wherever you please,’ Hastings goes on, ‘but I should counsel against it. This rabble the Queen has gathered, they are as vicious a crowd you are likely to meet this side of the gates of hell itself. And, for the meantime, they own the land north of London, including your land at Cornford.’

He adds this almost as an afterthought, and then he trails off. She can see him looking at her, calculating quickly, that spark in his eye replaced by something altogether more serious, and she realises with a jolt what he is doing. He is calculating her worth. Why has she not thought this through? As Margaret Cornford she has now become an extravagantly attractive proposition.

In fact, she now realises, Thomas is right. She is just the sort of proposition that men might kill to possess. She recalls Lord Cornford, her supposed father, stabbed in the eye for the ownership of the castle and its manors, and now here she is, heir to that burden.

‘Excuse me,’ she says. ‘I must go.’