In 1459 the Queen summoned the Duke of York and his allies to court in Coventry, where she was strong, and, fearing for his life, the Duke once more raised his banner and summoned his allies. The Queen – in the King’s name – did likewise and on the eve of St Edward’s Day in October that year, the two sides once more took the field, at Ludford Bridge, near Ludlow, in the county of Shropshire.

But the Duke of York and the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury were betrayed, and so, finding their position hopeless, they fled the country: the Duke of York to Ireland, the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury across the Narrow Sea to Calais.

And so now while those of the Queen’s faction strip the land of all that is left, men in England are waiting, waiting for the spring to come, waiting for the exiles to return, waiting for the wars to start once more.

PART ONE

Priory of St Mary,
Haverhurst, County of Lincoln,
February 1460

1

THE DEAN COMES for him during the Second Repose, when the night is at its darkest. He brings with him a rush lamp and a quarterstaff and he wakes him with a heavy prod.

‘Up now, Brother Thomas,’ he says. ‘The Prior’s asking for you.’

It is not time for prime yet, Thomas knows, and he hopes if he is asleep, the Dean will let him alone and wake one of the other canons: Brother John perhaps, or Brother Robert, who is snoring. A moment later his blankets are thrown back and the cold grips him fast. He sits up and tries to gather them to him, but the Dean casts them aside.

‘Come on now,’ he says. ‘The Prior’s waiting.’

‘What does he want?’ Thomas asks. Already his teeth are chattering and there is steam rising from his body.

‘You’ll see,’ the Dean says. ‘And bring your cloak. Bring your blanket. Bring everything.’

In the lamp’s uncertain glow the Dean’s face is all heavy brows and a crooked nose, and the shadow of his head looms across the ice-rimed slates of the roof above. Thomas untangles his frost-stiffened cloak and finds his worsted cap and his clogs. He wraps the blanket about his shoulders.

‘Come on, come on,’ the Dean urges. His teeth are chattering too.

Thomas gets up and follows him across the dorter, stepping over the huddled forms of the other canons, and together they go down the stone steps to the Prior’s cell where a beeswax candle shivers in a sconce and the old man lies on a thick hay mattress with three blankets drawn up to his chin.

‘God be with you, Father,’ Thomas begins.

The Prior waves aside the greeting without taking his hands from under his covers.

‘Did you not hear it?’ he asks.

‘Hear what, Father?’