At about four o’clock, as the daylight begins to leach away, there is a let-up in those thought likely to survive, and for the first time since waking she thinks of Richard. She finds him sitting where she left him that morning. The moon-faced simpleton is staring at him from a distance of only a few inches, and Katherine chases her away.

‘Did you know she was there?’ she asks.

He shakes his head.

‘I thought I sensed something,’ he says, ‘and I shouted out, but there has been so much coming and going, so many different sounds, that I could not be sure. Your man Mayhew has just asked me to piss in a cup for him, which I do gladly, but is there any other way I can help? I am frozen to the marrow out here.’

Before she can think of some soothing answer there is a thunder of hooves. A great party of men is coming towards the barn. They ride under a saltire flag.

‘Dear God,’ she breathes. ‘The Earl of Warwick.’

‘He is here?’ Richard asks, struggling to his feet.

‘He comes now.’

‘Is he wounded?’

‘It may be.’

‘Don’t let that bastard of a physician see him. Save him yourself. It will be the making of you.’

She glances at him. Whatever does he mean?

Warwick’s household men tear across the fields to the barn and the first arrival leaps from his horse before it has stopped moving.

‘A surgeon!’ he cries. ‘My lord of Warwick is wounded.’

The physician is still absent. Mayhew appears.

‘Is it bad?’ he asks.

‘An arrow. In his thigh.’

‘Is he bleeding?’ he asks.

The man looks at him. He has lost his helmet and has blood on his livery coat.

‘Of course he’s fucking bleeding, begging your pardon, my lady.’

‘Is he bleeding a lot?’ Mayhew emphasises.

The man-at-arms gestures with exasperation.

‘Here he comes. Look for yourself.’

Warwick is on another man’s horse, leaning back in the saddle, the broken stub of an arrow sticking from the inside of his right thigh. His proud face is screwed up in pain and with every jounce of the horse he winces and mutters something ungodly.

Mayhew is struck dumb by the sight. It is as if he is looking at a saint or a martyr and not only does his touch desert him, but his voice too.

Katherine intervenes.

‘Get him down,’ she says.

The men-at-arms help their lord down off the horse and he puts his arms around two of them and hobbles into the barn.

‘Where’s my physician!’ he shouts, his voice rising into a scream on the last syllable. ‘Get him!’

‘Lay him here,’ she says, kicking aside the bowls of blood. They lower him on his back in the space the physician has reserved for those able to afford bleeding.