‘I am glad you are back, my lady Miles will be glad. It was a nasty business last night.’ De la Bere, a bandage round his forehead, lumbered up the Manor of the Red Rose’s spiral stairs behind Heloise’s hastening feet. ‘Poor old Brian, gone to his Maker.’ He nearly collided with Heloise as she turned.

‘The archer, Brian, dead?’ She crossed herself, her eyes watering. Dear God, this was a deadly game they were playing now.

‘Aye, and several other good fellows who raced up from the back. We took the brunt of it at the front, or rather Miles did.’

‘Defending his grace?’

‘Yes and no,’ de la Bere panted. ‘Happened so fast but it was as if … as if they tried to close Miles off from the rest of us. Three of ’em tried to drag him from the saddle and one of the knaves cut Traveller’s girth. Miles’s foot was caught in the stirrup and he fell badly. It should not have happened, my lady. And what is more, the lousy watch were tardy coming to our aid. Swear those ribalds would have heard the brawl as far as St Paul’s. Adder deaf they were. Ha! And no doubt richer, come this morning. Need more men to safeguard us in this city, Lady Rushden, no doubt about it. I am right glad that my Lord Protector has sent to York for reinforcements. Through here, please.’ She stepped into a chamber, furnished with no more than a folding chair and a small table stacked with ready-cut parchment, several stubby candles and a couple of pipe-roll cases. He overtook her and unlatched the door beyond. ‘Your pardon for the untidiness,’ he muttered, snatching a saddlepack out of her way.

‘Jesu Mercy!’ Heloise clapped her hand to her lips as she entered. It was the ewer of bloody water standing upon the bedsteps that appalled her.

‘Sorry!’ whispered de la Bere, dumping it outside the door. With a finger to his lips, he drew aside the bed curtain.

At first she thought someone had set a coif upon Miles’s head but, as her eyes adapted to the shuttered dimness, she saw it was a wad of linen tethered by a bandage beneath his chin. His entire face showed bruising and a fist must have driven up beneath his lower jaw, for his top lip was cut and badly swollen. Why had there been no portent? She, of all people, should have been able to warn him. Gently, she took up his hand. At least his pulse was regular. There was no fever yet, thanks be to God.

‘It is a good sleep,’ murmured de la Bere.

‘Where is the blood from?’ Her calm was undermined by despair.

‘Reckon that in the melee he must have caught his head on one of the iron candelabrum set up for St John’s Eve. A glancing blow, see, across there. The duke’s leech has cleansed and stitched it. Swears he will be as good as new and even his mother will not see the embroidery. At least the whoresons missed his lungs, by Christ’s mercy. And Dr Argentine came over from the Tower at the duke’s summons. Fellow is supposed to be a magician at bone-setting. Said to tell you it was a clean break.’ De la Bere demonstrated on his own leg. ‘Here, just above the right ankle bone. Reckons you are not to worry, so long as you keep Miles off his feet. No need to tell you that.’ But he urgently drew her back into the outer chamber and pushed the door to. ‘I do not know what is amiss between the pair of you, my lady, but surely you will stay. Miles was asking for you, needs you, and, believe me, we want him hale again. Only one of us able to bridle Harry. Was that a nod? That’s the spirit. I will have a palliasse put up for you in here and shift my gear.’

He followed her back into the bedchamber and opened the upper lights. ‘May I leave you, then, to bark at visitors?’

‘Yes, right fiercely.’ The housewife in her gazed in astonishment at the clothing strewn across the floorboards. A variety of muddy male boots in differing sizes obstacled the surround of the bed whilst the corner of the room looked like a collapsed armourer’s stall with bits and pieces in a hurly-burly mess. Sword belts added menacing interest to the wallpegs and a laundry pannier, awaiting collection, overflowed on the chest at the foot of the bed.

‘Mostly my gear, sorry. Didn’t like to disturb him.’

He left her picking up Miles’s bloodstained finery. She ran her fingers pensively across a vicious tear before she laid the cote aside and stooped to retrieve the Trinity chain. No end of belongings had been kicked beneath the bed and a platoon of papers sprawled out from a satchel as if they were trying to escape. She pushed them back in and secured the strap. A scrunched-up document had ventured further than the rest, and softly unwrinkling it, she carried it to the shutters.

Chinks of light showed her Latin numbered phrases! Some sort of notes – no, arguments! Arguments for making Gloucester king, written in her husband’s hand! ‘You shall need to pause here. Estimate how this is received. If not, omit VIII and go to IX.’ Upon her soul, these were instructions for a speech! She bit her lip and stared at her sleeping husband anew. They tried to cut him off from the rest of us, de la Bere had said.

God ha’ mercy! Margery was right. Miles Rushden was playing at kingmaking. Had the attack last night been made in opportunist vengeance by Hastings’s friends? Or did someone intend it as a deadly warning to Buckingham’s men of what they could expect if they continued to support Gloucester? Jesu! If ever the queen regained her power, these notes were sure evidence of treason. Wearily, Heloise put the paper in her purse. She would burn it later. It was frightening how little she knew the man who lay there in such rare silence. With sadness, she carried Miles’s hand to her cheek.

‘Changeling?’ It was a weak half-growl, half-purr, but he seemed pleased to see her, or at least one eye and half his mouth was. ‘I-I have not the strength to pat you yet.’

‘Oh, Miles.’ Tears threatened but it was needful to be practical. ‘Shall I see the extent of what they have done to you?’

Let in, the morning light was not flattering as Heloise coaxed Miles’s bandage up. The edge of the stitching was clean but a fresh dressing would soon be needed. Fresh moonwort or adder’s tongue would no longer be available, the summer heat would have withered them, but powdered root of dragonwort or shepherd’s scrip ointment from an apothecary might serve. And a daily dose of crushed Solomon’s seal, infused in wine, would speed the healing and mend the bruising. She must ask for a crucible and trivet. ‘So you foiled the Devil last night.’

‘I will not woo my appearance in a mirror yet.’ His fingers fumbled to trace the rough edge of the wound but she swiftly barred further exploration. ‘Argentine was a good fellow to tumble out so late for me, and Harry’s physician – sober to his fingertips, thank God.’

‘The scars will not show, they say. Lie back. Do you know who attacked you?’

He coughed and pointed to the leather bottle. She helped him take a swig, ‘Too many – oh, Jesu, leave it! – enemies now.’

‘But Lord Stanley is imprisoned in the Tower.’

‘But his men are not. Nor his dam, Tudor’s mother. Too many enemies now. Oouf!’

‘Stay calm. Let me see the other damage.’

‘Spare my modesty! Ouuucch!’

The furrows in her forehead diminished for she had sufficient sensitivity in her fingertips to know that the leg bone had been broken cleanly and excellently reset against the wooden splente. Her wrist was clasped as she straightened. ‘Did … did I have to go through this, changeling, to make you come back to heel?’

‘Of course.’ She kissed the purpled brow. Perhaps, after all, this was an answer to her prayers – God’s way of keeping Miles alive.

‘You are so – so beautiful, Heloise. Do not run away any more.’ He lifted a hand to knuckle her cheek and she took it within the casing of her fingers, so close to weeping for sheer joy that he was still alive. ‘Your visions, my fey …’ He swallowed and stared towards the morning sky. ‘I am just a mortal and I forgot that. I have been trying to play God, Heloise, and He doesn’t like it. But I meant it for the best. I swear to you I acted within the law. I—’

‘We will talk another time, when you are strong enough to argue.’

‘No, now. Why, changeling? Why did you fly from me?’

She let go of his hand evasively. ‘Because you are a man of secrets. Because I believed, like a dullard, that you married me for other reasons.’

‘I did. You have divine breasts.’ The chuckle was painful. Serve him right!

‘For your face?’ Briskly, she examined the jar of ointment left by the physician with a professional sniff. ‘I believe I can do better. Is there an apothecary close by?’

‘Several streets away. Pershall knows it. He will go for you if you smile.’

‘I had rather see to it myself, sir. They may not have what I need. I will confer with your physician first.’

‘If you go slapping some mash of fermented toad tongues and ground-up newt turds on my sores, I shall not be answerable for my actions.’

‘For you, sir, an infusion of arsenic in nettles strained through cheesecloth.’ But it was a poor jest. ‘I will send up your manservant to guard your virtue.’

‘Then go if you must. Wear your pattens and take Martin to squire you, but hurry back and take care.’

It needed the lodesterre to help her locate her groom. She should have used intuition instead of asking; the Red Rose servants all were at half-mast and the labyrinth of passages and bolt holes would have thrilled the Minotaur.

With a borrowed basket on her arm, feeling useful and housewifely, Heloise finally set off along the cobbled thoroughfare hoping to circumvent the Flemings’ quarter. Not that she distrusted foreigners, it was more that they would be unable to assist her if she lost her way. Martin trustingly trotted behind her, but like any countrywoman, his mistress was soon flummoxed by the lack of signposts and was close to admitting that the common belief that women had little sense of direction might be true. One instant there might be a nobleman’s house with a porter standing duty, but turn the next corner and there was a narrow, beggarly street, beset with sinister alleyways and tightly shuttered casements. Gutters oozing their fermenting contents to pleasure the soles of passers-by dismayed her further.

They retraced their steps to the Red Rose and ventured east, ill at ease, but the Hanse shopkeepers nodded in friendly fashion. It was shameful to ask directions and the unfathomable river of words confused her, but she and Martin ended up with a flaxen-headed lad guiding them for a groat.

He chattered easily, insisting they observe the famous ‘London Stone’ as they passed along Walbrook Street. Even if the stone had been there since the days of King Ethelstane (as the boy explained), Heloise was not impressed. Save for its iron casing, it looked more like the ‘pay on the nail’ stones found in most marketplaces, and surely it was most inconveniently placed, too – close to the gutter, and a hazard to passing carts. You could see the splinters of wood and the scrape marks.

Their young guide led them on to a narrow tenement hard by Oxford Place, and when they showed reluctance to leave the main thoroughfare, he pointed out the apothecary’s pestle and mortar painted on a hanging sign.

The shop’s innards gave lie to its weathered, humble exterior and Heloise’s soul sang at the powdery odours and the bundles of drying herbs tasselling the beams and tickling her headdress. No dust velveted the orderly shelves and the variety of earthen-coloured jars, labelled in spidery Latin, looked as clean and cheerful as a stall of monks on Easter Sunday.

The apprentice prattled as he weighed out the ingredients: was it not strange the coronation had been cancelled a second time? And why? he asked, tapping his nose. Gloucester wanted his nephew’s crown. And what was more, these brawls between the retainers of great lords were bad for business: honest customers stayed home.

Heloise concealed her concern as she lifted the tiny, twisted bundles into her basket. London, it seemed, was as jumpy as a dog with fleas. So was Martin, and he prevailed upon her to return to Suffolk Lane by a different route – along the broader Candlewick Street. Even there, the passers-by glanced warily at any men-at-arms.

Would Miles be safer at his father’s London house? Was it like one of these? she wondered, staring up at the carved joists of the merchant drapers’ houses. Then Martin all of a sudden plucked at her sleeve.

Across the street, her veiled sister was speaking to Sir Richard Huddleston. The pair were standing beside a shop board showing no interest in either scarlet flannel or the Italian cotton underdrawers. Was it a chance meeting?

Cautioning Martin, Heloise slowed her step. Huddleston’s gap-toothed groom, waiting a few paces away with his master’s horse, was ogling the women shoppers. It was easy for Heloise to let a spotty apprentice pluck her sleeve and garrulously lure her to test his stall’s best worsted. Dionysia’s conversation looked earnest, certainly not one of dalliance, but it was ending. Huddleston bowed and swung himself into the saddle. Once he was out of sight, Heloise caught up with her furtive sister.

‘A murrain!’ snapped Dionysia and then calmed. ‘I suppose even veils are useless against one’s family. Stop looking so outraged. We were talking about the skirmish last night, and, no, I was not flirting, I would not dare covet him, and he was on his way to Cold Harbrough. Mayhap I shall go back to the Red Rose with you.’ She coiled her arm through her sister’s. ‘At least you shall lend me respectability, for now you are come there, I may come thither also. God’s Rood, I have done with slinking in and out of Harry’s dwellings like an alley she-cat just to save old Gloucester’s blushes.’ It was tempting for Heloise to scold her, but better to be a crutch than a whip. ‘And, sister dear, you shall be the first to know that Duke Harry declares he has quite fallen in love with me. I did not intend it but I really am growing wondrous fond of him. Look at this!’ She spread her fingers to display a voluptuous sapphire.

‘Didie! We shall have every cutpurse in London after us.’

‘With you for protection, sister! Harry has told me of your exploits in Brecknock. How you threw flour at some loathsome footpad and broke his knees. Very impressive. I did not know you had such courage.’ So Miles had told the duke some details of their adventures that night. That pleased her. ‘And talking of kneecaps, how is your ill-humoured husband then?’

‘Tender.’

‘Ha! Then I had best wait a while before I make a dutiful call. Heloise, tell me, what is it like to be in love? Is it obligatory to blow hot and cold like August weather?’

‘Now how would I know?’

‘Because I can see where Cupid’s bolts have shot great holes in you. You are in love, Heloise Ballaster, and any ass can see that.’

Except Miles, who was certainly not an ass. More like a ship dry-berthed for careening, which should have given Heloise plentiful opportunity to establish a monopoly on his time and a chance to understand him better. But, no, not a whit of it: the man’s bedchamber was as busy as the sweet water conduit at West Cheap with queues pumping him for this and that.

At times stretched like a spider’s windblown web, she was nurse, alchemist, secretary and jongleuse through the days that followed, but not lover (he was not recovered sufficiently, though his eyes lied). She was frequently dispensable; whenever Buckingham’s council shifted to Miles’s bedside, the duke chivvied her from the bedchamber like a disgraced lapdog. Then her patient hit on the notion of sending her forth like a worker bee on his behalf to bring back gossip pollened from Crosby Place and other parts. In particular, he wished to know what was going on at Westminster.

With Martin and her maidservant for escort, Heloise took a boat upriver. The courts of justice were in session in the Westminster Great Hall, so she joined the queue of pilgrims to St Peter’s great abbey and lit a candle at St Edward’s marble shrine. Like the other commoners clustering at the tomb of Henry V, victor of Agincourt, she longed to stroke his gilded armour, as if his fame might seep in through her fingertips, but a priest with a leather switch stood guard, daring any visitor to be so bold. At least the poet Chaucer’s modest grave in the abbey cloister might be touched and a prayer spoken for his cheerful spirit.

It was the new curiosity at Westminster that was drawing the greatest crowd. Cordoned by kettle-helmeted White Boar halberdiers in azure and murrey jackets, the abbey sanctuary contained the beleaguered queen. Modest lodging for a great lady used to a palace! Standing on a-tiptoe, Heloise stared up at the stern embrasures, hoping for a glimpse of King Edward’s youngest son or one of the princesses. Poor children, hedged in by weaponry, how they must yearn for freedom to frolick.

The captain of the guard was examining warrants. A man in physician’s garb was waved through and so were two brawny laundresses, laden with pressed sheets. Was this slapshod security deliberate, to encourage recklessness and conspiracy? Goodness, she chided herself for thinking so suspiciously.

‘Lady Rushden, this is unexpected.’ Thomas Nandik, the Cambridge student, materialised at Heloise’s elbow as she led her servants down to the King’s Bridge Wharf. Clean shaven though little less swarthy, and with vertical scarlet satin ribbons ribbing his black broadcloth doublet, the scholar still wore a hungry visage like a dog waiting for scraps. ‘Perhaps I may escort you back to Dowgate?’

‘Thank you, I-I have other errands yet, Master Nandik.’

‘No matter.’ His long, loping stride kept pace with her swift steps.

She halted. ‘No truly, Master Nandik, I hardly think you will be interested in Rennes linen and Paris thread.’

‘On the contrary, my lady.’ The earthy eyes understood the excuse, knew she disliked him, but the wretch insisted on waving up a boat for them and helping her aboard. ‘I think we should get to know each other better, my lady. I would do much to earn your favour.’

‘I am not sure why.’ She shifted in the stern to avoid his thigh.

‘Can you not read my mind?’ His meaning was perilously plain. A perdition on the creature! If only Martin and her maidservant were not facing the other way.

‘Do not belittle the power you have over others,’ the scholar murmured, blatantly setting his hand upon her knee.

‘Go your way.’ Dislodged, his hand edged round her waist, making a stealthy foray for her breast. Biting her lip angrily, she halted that adventure, but the odious creature bent now so that his breath prickled her neck.

‘I needs must come swiftly to the precious nub of the matter though I would rather have couched this more circumspectly. I know you have a special gift, my lady, and I envy you. Despite all my charts and texts, even if I were to spend the rest of my life studying the magic arts, I will never master the forces that are already at your command. Oh madam, if Rushden has not yet broken your maidenhead, the two of us can unleash a force on Midsummer Eve that will make us rich beyond our dreams.’

‘Are you insane?’ Have carnal knowledge of this creature in the midst of some sordid pentangle! His lewd glance made her blushing flesh crawl further. ‘I have no inkling what you are babbling about, Master Nandik. Now unhand me and, not that it is any of your business, I am a wife in every sense of the word and glad to be so.’

‘More’s the pity, then. I should have warned you earlier to keep yourself unsullied.’ The earthy gaze was sour now. ‘Like taking a life, the breaking of a virgin’s hymen releases a power that can be driven against one’s enemies.’

Miles, when she later told him privily, did not know whether to roar with laughter or risk his leg and hobble down to punch the villain.

‘It is not amusing,’ Heloise repeated with a shudder and in compensation was coaxed up to nestle in the crook of his arm.

‘No, it is not,’ he agreed. ‘Do you feel safer now?’

‘With you tethered to a lump of wood? Oh yes, safe as … as a lamb baaing defiance at a full-grown wolf.’ She had been going to say as safe as the treasury had been in Lord Hastings’s hands, but that bone was best avoided.

Miles chuckled. ‘To think that I might have driven an arcane power released by your … Mercy! You cannot strike a sick man.’

‘Watch me!’

‘Hmm, what a beggar the fellow is! Can you not use your gift to drive some fear into our necromancer’s mind so he will hoof it back to Cambridge?’

‘Certainly not.’ The encounter with Nandik had taught her something: she must never use her gift for evil to control others.

‘Perhaps you should test your powers a little. Could you, for instance, make me sneeze! Try!’

‘Sneeze?’ She giggled and sobered. No, her gift was not to be squandered but she was happy to pretend. ‘Is it working?’

‘No,’ he purred, staring back. ‘I am having an entirely different reaction somewhere else. Bar the door, if you please!’

Heloise’s eyes widened. ‘You cannot possibly—’

‘Hmm, difficult, I grant you, but not impossible. Nothing else is fractured. It may require some resourcefulness on your part.’

She pensively slid the bar down into the slots and swung round. ‘I am not sure I am in that humour,’ she murmured to torment him, but his lazy smile was already willing her towards him. ‘But perhaps … yes, I think I am going to enjoy this.’

‘So am I.’ His voice was a low masculine purr. ‘Unclothe yourself, delight of my heart!’

Despite his imperiousness, it was she who had him totally at her mercy. She withdrew her feet from her little leather slippers and set her right foot upon the bedsteps, and with slow grace eased up her satined hem to uncover her garter, which she tardily untied and cast at him, before she rolled down her wool stocking with a fine and tantalising care.

‘Is it the pain in your leg that keeps making you groan?’ she asked wickedly, and seductively removed her other garter.

‘You witch!’ It was a gasp now. Slowly she removed her headdress and shook her silver hair to swing about her waist. Then she slid her inner sleeves down, unleashed her tasselled belt and let it snake around her skirt with a slither to the floor, and finally she eased her gown inch by inch upwards.

‘Ha! I make a better job of this,’ he scoffed, laughing as she was forced to seek his help. Strong hands lifted her gown free. ‘It rather spoils your game but I have you fast now.’

‘I may cause you pain.’

‘It will be sublime agony, I assure you,’ he exclaimed huskily, dragging off her chemise. ‘Wait – what are you doing? Heloise!’

‘What you did to me. Do you not like this … or … this?’

Heaven could not better this – or that – he decided, closing his eyes in divine delectation. A few months ago he did not give a fig for life – but now, with his sorceress stirring his blood to an ecstatic heat with her fingertips, he was learning other values afresh. ‘You have been waiting for a time like this to torture me, I think.’

‘Oh yes,’ she growled, moving up to tease her lips across his mouth while her fingers worked their feverish magic elsewhere.

‘I will die, you wanton. Mercy, I surrender! Heloise, if you do not get atop me now, I vow I will strangle you.’ Iron hands nested her elbows as he hauled her into place, and slowly fitted himself into her with a low cry of pleasure that ancient Pan might have envied.

For an instant, astonishment suffused her fawn’s gaze and then the centres of her eyes grew dark and wide and she rode him, driving him to such exquisite heights that he stayed her, and then it was his turn to play the sorcerer, enforce his own magic upon her and carry her with him soaring as the world shattered about them into iridescent shards.

Heloise collapsed across him with a soft huff of breath, her hair flooding about his neck and breast. Loving arms wrapped her close, as he chanted softly:

‘That is very beautiful,’ she whispered, snuggling against his breast, and he felt her tears like warm rain. ‘Definitely not Lewis Glyn Cothi.’

‘No, an Englishman.’ He was out of practice in versemaking but it was not bad for a rusty lover. ‘An excellent guess, though. The Welsh have written more about loving for their ale money than laments for their lovely, bully chieftains.’ Why was she crying?

Could he ever give her his heart? Heloise wondered. How pleasing it would be to find a litter of crumpled-up love speeches, tossed from his pillow: ‘Note IV: if this does not win her, omit VI and VII and proceed to VIII, tell her that you love her and pause here to press a kiss between her breasts. Remember to sigh loudly.’

‘What is amusing you, my adorable wife?’ Her lips were folded into a mischievous seam. ‘Secrets, hmm? Then while I recover my enfeebled power from your seductive craft, tell me what you observed today.’

Predictably the sanctuary interested him most, especially the laundresses. ‘Hmm, so there is plenty of opportunity for conspiracy.’

‘You still believe that the queen is a force to be reckoned with?’

‘I know it. But so long as she has the other little prince, the Lord Protector cannot take the throne.’

‘But if the princes are bastards -’

‘No matter. We have the proof that she was dealing with Hastings and I will wager she will smuggle her younger son out into hiding any day now as a rallying point for our enemies. There is a royal council meeting this morning and it is vital they drive their full weight against her and demand the boy, else you will be visiting me in the Tower. Curse this plaguey injury!’

‘Has the queen not suffered enough?’

‘What!’ His eyes glittered. ‘Do you not want to be a countess?’

‘Miles, it is not a game.’ Perhaps it was time for truths. ‘I found the speech you had written for Harry.’ The enigmatic gaze shifted from her face. ‘You have this all planned. We are like a giant chessboard to you.’ She watched him evade her accusation, pound the pillow and bolster as if they were scapegoats for the limits on his soaring ambition while he found words to satiate her.

‘No, Heloise, not planned. I am merely seizing every opportunity. I warned you I intended to restore my family’s honour. You cannot win the game if you do not toss the dice and, believe me, if you play for high stakes, you cannot afford to lose.’

‘But you risk attainder and a traitor’s death if aught goes amiss. Supposing Parliament refuses to accept Stillington’s testimony, you know the Woodvilles will take revenge. Your family will surely suffer.’ And so will I. What about us, Miles?

‘Take my hand and make the climb. You have the courage.’

‘I? Jesu, I see how you move Buckingham like a pawn and if he is a duke, then in God’s Name, what am I to you, how expendable?’

A bruising question. He swallowed, then reached out to wind threads of her hair onto his finger – yes, like a distaff. ‘You were an inconvenience. Jesu, when your father’s ruffians hauled me to the altar, it was risible. There was I with my lofty ambitions being handfasted to a merchant’s daughter but now, cariad …’

‘Now I am worth money to you, not just Bramley.’

‘You are my mirror, sweet heart. You show me my soul.’ He drew a caressing finger down her curves. ‘What is it you want from me, madam wife?’

‘I do not know how much you are prepared to give.’

‘What, every secret, Heloise? There will be nothing to gloat over with a miser’s satisfaction in the bedchamber at the end of the day.’

‘Miles!’

‘Yes, Heloise, I play with people. That is why I want a fool like Nandik off the board. But you, my darling witch, I keep in my pocket like a talisman to be stroked. Remember that and be content.’

Be content? When she loathed his dangerous lust for power? He was watching her now, his grey eyes wary as if he feared her condemnation. The intelligent mouth that she had begun to love quirked apologetically beneath her scrutiny. His gaze was asking for her acceptance and her trust. The suspicion and dislike of their sword-point wedding night had been utterly vanquished.

‘Oh, Miles.’ Heloise reached out a hand to touch his cheek and he turned his head and kissed her palm. She had become Miles Rushden’s talisman, despite her feyness? The warmth of being accepted suffused her with a glorious blessing. If he could welcome her into his future, then he deserved the same of her. For now, she must set aside her fears and rejoice in this wondrous absolution. Loyalty was not to be given lightly but she offered that fealty now in mind – and body. Her eyes and lips were a mirror of the passion and desire in his. ‘My lord.’

A knocking upon the arched door made her jump, cursing at the interruption, but her husband’s thumb and finger anchored her and, laughing, he drew her, now sweetly desperate for his arms about her, down for a kiss of peace.

Rumpled, dimpled and still only partially enlightened, Heloise let her sister in on Monday morning.

‘I am visiting the invalid,’ Dionysia declared provocatively, swishing her skirts as she cornered the oaken bedpost. ‘Did you know I have moved in, Sir Miles?’ Her fingers tiptoed up the shining wood. ‘I mean, well, since my darling eldest sister sleeps beneath this roof, it makes it respectable for me to dwell here too.’

‘Respectable.’ Weighed by her husband, the epithet grew furry. ‘Is she capable of being discreet?’ he asked Heloise. ‘For I, being disagreeably tethered here, unquestionably comply with Gloucester’s standards for a faithful husband. But if his northern grace discovers Harry is busy betraying marital vows and molesting virgins in his leisure time, he may believe him capable of other betrayals. Not that you were a virgin, Denise,’ he added acidly.

‘Miles!’ Heloise agreed with his sentiments, but a reproof for goading was surely her demesne?

‘Poor man. Your injuries must really be hurting.’ Dionysia delivered her sister a pitying flash of lashes before she flounced closer to the bed. ‘Is it not in your plans that Harry should fall in love, new brother?’

Miles did not answer immediately. No soft pad of humour lay beneath the message now. ‘Are you familiar with the prophet Jeremiah and the words “the abomination of desolation”, Dionysia?’ he asked her wearily. Could this frothy girl, tinselled with golden hair, steer Harry to safe anchorage when the heavens loured? ‘No? Then let me tell you that I am reminded of that phrase whenever the black moods come upon his grace. Fumblings and tumblings will not keep them at bay, mistress. At such times, he detests himself and the whole of Christendom.’

‘Pah, it is affection he needs. He told me how there was never anyone in his childhood to love, how all his kinsmen were slain in battle, and that his grandmother sold the wardship of him.’

‘That is true.’ Harry’s brother had died while still a page. As for the duke’s mother, because she had married her third husband out of love, a knight with less land than he had ability, she had seen little of her son.

‘Then let me help, brother-in-law. I can give Harry love.’

Miles leaned upon his elbow, unmoved by the appeal in the kitten eyes. ‘If you speak true, so be it, but I am warning you, Dionysia, that if he ever weighs you in his balance and finds you wanting, he will make you pay.’

‘Pooh, a fine friend you are, to be sure, for you do naught but disparage him.’

‘Go away,’ he muttered. ‘You wear me out.’

Heloise closed the door behind her. ‘Is that why you will never leave the duke – for fear of his vengeance if you do?’

‘I saved his life, Heloise, up on Pen-y-Fan, and in return he gave me his friendship and I have guided him since. I will not abuse that trust.’

‘Even if it imperils your life?’

‘Even then. With Harry’s support, Gloucester will safeguard England better than any Woodvilles. Is that so wrong? Now hush, changeling, we have company.’

An exuberant Duke of Buckingham burst in with Sir William panting behind him. The older man closed the door and leaned against it. ‘We managed it, Miles. All is done!’

‘No wonder you look so smirky, your grace.’

Harry, pleased with himself and pretty as a popinjay, raised a brow at Heloise’s presence, but Miles kept his arm about her waist. ‘So spit it out, my gracious lord.’

‘The queen has surrendered the other boy. We obtained a royal command from Prince Edward that his little brother should join him, so the royal council went by barge to Westminster. Gloucester and I waited in the Star Chamber at the palace while Canterbury and Howard went over to the sanctuary with the abbot and requested the boy. It took two hours of arguing but she gave in eventually and we gave the little lad a right royal reception at the palace – mind, there is precious left to sit on, let alone eat off – and then the archbishop escorted the child to the royal lodging at the Tower.’

‘That is most excellent. No force was used, I trust?’

‘Well, we did surround the sanctuary.’

‘Harry!’ Miles had not meant to use the familiarism he kept for his thoughts. The duke look surprised but recovered swiftly.

‘That is what forced her hand, not old Bourchier’s bletherings. She knew we could have broken the door down and grabbed the boy as soon as blink your eye.’

‘At least it has been done with the assent of the prince and the council.’

‘Sounds immodest, but I can claim the credit for that. “I have heard of sanctuary men – thieves, murderers – but not ‘sanctuary children’,” I scoffed at them. “This child is in no danger from the law, and I think if the little fellow was asked to make the decision, he would tell you that he would rather not be cooped up like a chicken. And so, if Prince Richard has not asked for sanctuary, it is not breaking the law to remove him.” They all agreed. It was wondrous pleasing.’

Watching the two men laughing together, Heloise wondered again why a clever man like Miles wasted his time with Buckingham when he might work for Gloucester, but she was at last beginning to understand; Miles was the steel in Buckingham’s backbone. He was manipulating his duke in order to give England the stability it needed. In fact, he was doing Gloucester far greater service than any of the White Boar men. Did my Lord Protector realise how much he owed to Miles’s sensible counsel? Did Buckingham?

The duke breezed back to Miles’s bedchamber later that night with Knyvett and de la Bere, armed with leather bottles and Spanish apples, skylark high in love and athirst with power. Drunk already on civic wine, Harry gleefully boasted that he had persuaded Ralph Shaa, the Lord Mayor’s famous preacher brother, to amend his Sunday sermon at Paul’s Cross and hint that King Edward’s children were bastards. Such high-handedness bothered Miles. Nor was he pleased when the duke bussed Heloise on the mouth and set her outside the chamber like washing for collection in the morning.

Nandik, hallooed from a straw mattress in the hall, arrived to pour soupy ale down his scraggy throat, and when Harry unstoppered a bottle with his teeth and spat the bung clear across the bed, Miles knew it was going to be a long night.

‘Now is the time, Nandik.’ The ducal swagger had grown wobbly. ‘I want you to cast the Lord Protector’s horoscope. Just for amusement, lad.’ A lift of jewelled hands endorsed the feeble excuse that no harm was meant.

‘For Sweet Christ’s sake, my lord,’ protested Miles, wishing they would all go.

‘No, your grace,’ Nandik replied resolutely. ‘’Tis akin to witchcraft, not to mention treason. You might as well ask me to cast the king’s too and put my head fully in a noose.’

‘Aye, that too.’

‘Harry lad!’ This time it was Knyvett sobering fast.

‘Nay, my lord duke.’ The whoreson, Nandik, adamantly shook his unkempt head. ‘My innards ripped out and my balls pulled off while all you may get is a few lousy weeks in the Tower and a dose of penance, your grace. No, I thank you!’

Harry wanted obedience. ‘Between the four of us, man, and then you may destroy it all. I will pay you well.’

‘My gracious lord, you have been generous enough but …’.

‘Forcing the price up?’ Miles took a fruit from the pewter dish upon the coverlet and dug his thumbnail beneath the marigold peel.

Nandik ignored him. ‘I can promise little accuracy or even truth.’

Harry had the bit between his teeth. ‘Gloucester’s future, Nandik. His horoscope before morning.’

Nandik’s eyes fell before Miles’s condemnatory gaze and then he lifted his head with the same crafty mien as when he had broken the news at Brecknock. ‘I have already done so. My lord, he will be king.’