‘What took you, changeling?’ exclaimed Miles, relief destroying his tense expression. ‘You did buy a seat in the stands, did you not?’ Pleased he had been concerned for her, Heloise leaned over to kiss him and waited as he struggled to unbutton the knop of her Sunday cloak. ‘Ugh! I thought witches hated water.’

‘You deserve a clout, sir! Your leg may be mending but your manners are not. There is a limit to wifely duty.’ She had just spent two hours at St Paul’s Cross, ‘I was never one for sermons, and I have not changed my mind.’

‘Not enthralling?’ Disappointment edged his voice.

‘About as inspiring as watery gruel – “These bastard slips shall not take root.”’

‘Oh.’ Distaste wrinkled the Rushden nose.

‘Yes. Not a good idea of your noble friend’s.’

‘Tell me the worst.’

‘Friar Shaa was obviously supposed to show that the princes were bastards and that Gloucester was the most English of the Yorkists.’

‘He was born in Fotheringay,’ her husband offered pedantically.

‘Yes, as opposed to Rouen or Dublin like his brothers. Anyway, my Lord Protector was so late arriving that the part where Shaa was to flourish an arm at the duke and declare that he was English and the image of his Plantagenet father, made no impact. So what does the friar do but stops in mid-sentence and waits while Gloucester and his retainers settle themselves, and then he repeats a quarter of the sermon at galloping speed so that he can do this grand gesture again. Believe me, the reasoning fell as flat as any pancake missing the frypan. The intelligent were not impressed, the stupid were even more confused and Gloucester was crimson with embarrassment.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘Do you want something to hit?’

‘Yes, preferably Harry’s jaw.’ Miles carried her hand to his lips. ‘Thank you for putting up with it and with me.’

Her muddy pattens clattered to the floor as she perched herself on the bed beside him and frowned at her toes pensively. ‘There is some sinister mischief at work. This “being English” business is fanning the shameful rumour that her grace of York slept with a Flemish archer to beget King Edward, and I can assure you, Miles – having lived in her household – that it is a wonder that she slept with anything save beads and a missal, or begat all those children.’

Miles nodded, his mind’s cogs and wheels turning. ‘And where is Gloucester now?’

‘Gone home to his mother’s to lick his wounds, and she will need soothing too, I imagine. Both dukes need their ears boxed, if you ask me.’ There had been gratification in Buckingham’s face as if he had been pleased to see his cousin discomforted.

‘Well, Harry shall do better at the Guildhall on Tuesday, I promise you, Heloise, for I have rehearsed him hard, and he is to address Parliament on Wednesday. With luck, we shall have a new king by Thursday night.’

But what of tomorrow – St John’s Eve when the Londoners caroused around their bonfires? Were the Woodville retainers planning an uprising? There had been no more glimpses of the future, but Heloise welcomed the reassuring warmth of Miles’s hand.

‘What if Buckingham gets a taste for it, Miles?’

‘Kingmaking, cariad?’

‘The power and the glory. It is heady fare.’

‘—for a lad from Brecknock? Never fear, I shall nail his feet to the floor.’

Heloise bit back an unwifely retort. The ship was in full sail now. She only hoped that Gloucester would survive the voyage.

Next evening, London was ablaze with bonfires as a crocodilus of armed men clanked its way through the carousing streets. Gloucester and his lady stood on the stone balcony of Tamer-silde, a royal pavilion flanking St Mary Bow in West Cheap, watching the torchlight procession with Lord Mayor Shaa and Juliana, his wife. Heloise, invited too, and tense to her knucklebones, was carrying a whetted dagger in her sleeve, praying that there would be no rising, fearful a vision of Miles strung up on a scaffold for the executioner’s knife might come to her.

Around her, she could feel the others’ fear. Gloucester’s henchmen sweated in breastplates hidden beneath high-necked doublets that had been tailored for a winter feast. Only Buckingham wore his shirt untethered at the neck, and the heady glitter in his eyes outshone the splendour of his golden knots and Venice buttons.

‘There is nothing amiss,’ murmured Huddleston, materialising from the backstairs to join his wife and Heloise. ‘Perhaps you should advise Anne to smile, Margery. From the street, she looks more like a lady in travail, than a happy duchess.’

Margery nodded and glided across to tug her sister’s veil, but Heloise lingered.

‘Sir Richard, a word with you, pray. Did you set Dionysia to spy on Buckingham?’ Her smile was honest, hiding the claws of the conversation.

Sir Richard Huddleston raised an eyebrow. ‘It was she who made the bargain. Does it bother you?’

‘I am his grace of Gloucester’s loyal servant, I assure you, but Buckingham, so my husband informs me, shares the Plantagenet distaste for treachery. Could you not retire her from your service straightway? If this is discovered, the duke … well, might be unforgiving.’

‘I thank you for the warning, Heloise. I have told her so, but your sister chose this path and her services do not come cheap. Ah, Margery, my mousekin, and my lord and lady.’ He bowed his head to his duke and duchess.

‘It is not like being in the north,’ murmured the duchess. ‘How glad I shall be when tonight is over.’

‘Ah, but this,’ exclaimed Buckingham, insinuating himself between the Gloucesters, an arm about either of their slight shoulders, ‘is only the beginning.’

‘Never paused to spit,’ exclaimed Sir William, reporting back to Miles next evening on Buckingham’s kingmaking speech at the Guildhall. He accepted a tankard of ale from Heloise. ‘Excellent performance, though I heard one guildsman mutter, “Who does he think he is, the angel Gabriel?” and a few of ’em had their mouths hanging open like holes for nesting gulls. Well done!’ He thumped Miles’s shoulder and handed him a celebratory drink. ‘You would have been proud of him, lad. What perverse fortune, eh, that you should be missing all the huzzahs.’

‘Tomorrow is the key,’ cautioned Miles, clinking the pewter tankards. ‘Providing Harry can persuade Parliament to petition Gloucester to take the crown, all will be lawful.’

‘Aye, it’ll need to be.’ Knyvett tugged his earlobe. ‘Someone’s peppering the rumours and it isn’t us. Old loyalties are crawling out from beneath the stones.’

There seemed to be little left of the old daub-and-wattle Buckingham showing through the newly surfaced exterior, decided Heloise; all his phrases began to sound rehearsed. He breezed in after supper to visit Miles and finalise next day’s speech, but when Heloise was allowed in afterwards, her husband’s jaw was a little more tilted, his tight-lipped frustration at his immobility more apparent. If he was unable to keep a watchful eye on his lord, Heloise was feeling the same about Dionysia.

She ran her to earth in the ducal bedchamber next morning after his grace had gone to make his speech to Parliament.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she announced, dismissing her sister’s maid and making sure the antechamber was clear of servants.

‘Would you like to check the chests and aumbries too?’ snapped her sister, snatching up the hairbrush the maid had relinquished. ‘I have an amorous goldsmith hidden beneath the mattress, and that is not a nightingale within that cage but an agent for my lord of Gloucester. Has the invalid turned you out for an airing?’

Heloise counted for six heartbeats to still her temper and then persevered. ‘Agent, strange you should say that. I was thinking of the yellow-haired spy who reports all she hears.’ Dionysia made no comment and she added, ‘Be Buckingham’s mistress if you must, but for your own safety, be loyal to him.’

Dionysia’s attention diverted to a well-snagged tress. ‘So you fathomed me.’

‘Didie, listen to me!’ Heloise put her hand down over the matted bristles. ‘If Buckingham suspects you of coaxing his confidences …’

‘If, if. What can he do to me?’ The hand mirror rose; the cherry lips were draw-stringed to a pout. A long-nailed forefinger explored whether the white-head’s hard centre might be exuded. ‘Only until the coronation, Heloise, that is the arrangement.’ The mirror tilted so the silver surface snared her sister’s face.

‘I insist you go back to Crosby Place. Your spying puts both of us at risk.’

Dionysia laid the mirror on its face and ran a finger beneath the emerald collar that encircled her throat. ‘See this, Harry trusts me. He needs me. Deep inside he is uncertain, unloved. I want to prove to him that he undervalues himself.’

‘Pigs might fly! Buckingham has not undervalued himself since Gloucester had made him ruler of Wales a month since. He probably kisses his shaving mirror when his varlet holds it up to him.’

‘I want to have a child by him, Heloise.’

‘Grow up, Didie. You are talking such utter nonsense.’

‘Am I? I want to be loved by the most powerful man in England, and Gloucester is a pious bore, so it has to be Buckingham and that pleases me well.’

‘Well it does not please me. I really fear for you.’

‘Oh, Heloise!’ She struck a pose like a Yuletide mummer, her hand a question-mark upon her brow, “Oh woe, alack I see a great black crow cast its wings across you, Dionysia, oh yes and there will be plagues of locusts in the Cotswolds.”

‘And there very well might,’ snapped Heloise, ‘and I hope they all land on you. What if I should receive a warning? What would you say then?’

‘Darling Cassandra, I love you but I do not believe in your predictions. Does anyone? “Changeling,”’ she mocked Miles’s affectionate tone. ‘Ask him if he believes one word of it. Please, do not look so put out, Heloise, I am not saying you are a charletan like Nandik – Harry keeps him like a pet ape for amusement – but I do not believe in your faeries. It is wealth that makes our dreams come true.’

Heloise closed the door of the bedchamber and leaned against it, eyes closed. An amused cough alerted her; Pershall, the duke’s servant, was sitting in the windowseat.

‘I … I was quarrelling with my sister.’

‘Were you, my lady?’ His pebble-brown eyes gave her absolution. ‘Upon my oath, I did not eavesdrop. In this house, one learns to be as discreet as a cat watching a birdtable.’

‘Pershall, you must keep him safe.’

‘Who, my lady?’

‘His grace, Pershall. If he falls, we shall all land in a heap.’

The weathered wrinkles tightened. ‘Aye, I know.’

By Thursday night, the kingmaking had been completed. Harry on bended knee had eloquently offered the crown to his cousin at Baynards Castle, and Gloucester, flanked by his wife and mother on the barbican, had looked down at the plump worm of nobles and worthies coiling into the cobbled triangle with godlike suspicion – but he had accepted. At least the coup had been bloodless, Miles congratulated himself, if one discounted the demise of Hastings and the distant executions of the hostages Rivers and Grey.

As the bells of the city pealed in the reign of King Richard III, it was Harry who decreed a repeat of the final moments of victory for his frustrated speechwriter.

Bolstered by muscadelle and pillows, Miles lay back with Heloise embellishing his outstretched arm like a serif, while upon his other side, Dionysia Ballaster sat detached, with catlike independence, her study entirely centred upon her lover.

Harry, hatless, took up his stance below Knyvett, who was poised sternly on the oaken chest like an unearthed Roman statue. De la Bere and Latimer provided the crowd.

‘My lords, gentlemen, friends all,’ Knyvett declared, trying to sound like Gloucester, ‘you do me greater honour than any man may dream of, and yet the task you wish on me is …’

‘Onerous,’ prompted de la Bere.

‘—onerous. I pray you do not ask this of me for even if Prince Edward is England’s unlawful king, he is still my brother’s child. I cannot agree to take my nephew’s crown – or words to that effect,’ Knyvett added. ‘Can I get down now?’

‘No, William, we have not finished yet.’ Harry turned to Miles. ‘Basically, I said that if he would not accept the crown, we should have to send for someone else and that there was another right willing across the water.’

‘Tudor!’ exclaimed Miles. That had not been in the speech notes.

‘Aye, it lit the powder. Oh, he went rigid.’

‘So what did he answer?’

Latimer threw a cushion to prompt Knyvett, who knotted his hands before him and declared: ‘If it is truly your desire, then I shall accept, but be sure all of you that you want me for your king, for without your love, such kingship as I may offer you rests but as on eggshells. I have no wish to be king. There was a jeer then. Just one. Someone jeer!’ Latimer obliged.

Heloise shifted uneasily beneath Miles’s arm. His wife’s hidden disapproval echoed his own misgivings at the irreverence. England needed a man like Gloucester, a man who cared about justice and consultation. Why the mockery? In vino veritas?

‘Then I must obey God’s will and yours.’ Sir William declaimed solemnly. ‘I swear before Almighty God that I shall do my best to bring peace and justice to this troubled land.’ The room was silent. Somewhere in the laneway a dog barked.

‘God save King Richard.’ Harry’s soft words caressed the unexpected quiet. He shot Miles a swift ironic smile before he turned to help Knyvett back to the floorboards. ‘I think we may dispense with the hat-tossing, huzzahs and applause at this point.’

‘I certainly received the drift of your meaning.’

Heloise felt the arm about her stiffen and raised her head, questioning. It shall not be the axe for me yet a while, his expression swiftly told her, but his eyes were brilliant as lodesterres as he studied Buckingham. For an instant, the two men stared at one another and then Miles disengaged his arm from entanglement and, palms up, offered the silent wreaths that were expected.

Buckingham gave him a mighty hug, buffeting his shoulder. ‘We are safe, Miles! We did it! You clever whoreson, this is all your doing.’

Tears ran down the panes of Miles’s soul.

Gulping back his own emotion, Buckingham withdrew his moist cheeks so that his expression might embrace them all. ‘We plaguey did it!’ The bed at that point descended into a rout of limbs until Miles yelped loudly and his apologetic friends sprang off like a volley of cannonfire.

‘You have an unexpected visitor,’ Heloise announced next day, swiftly kicking a forgotten stocking under the bed as Sir Richard Huddleston entered.

‘Is it someone’s saint’s day?’ asked Miles dryly.

‘Sir!’ rebuked his wife.

‘Not unless you are a culinary devotee of St Martha.’ His guest’s glance took in the abandoned trivet, the tray of phials and herbs and the half-played chess game. ‘We can cook you an omelette to the chanting of prayers if Lady Rushden can purvey some eggs.’ He sat himself uninvited on the bed and tossed his riding crop and gloves aside.

‘I hear your hearty northerners have arrived,’ Miles remarked smoothly, his fingers stroking a captured pawn. ‘My lord of Northumberland too. How very embarrassing, now the hurly-burly is over.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Huddleston, clearly aware that he was being baited. ‘They are to be sworn in as special constables for Coronation Day. We have ordered hat badges so they will have something to take home with them other than London curses. I am the bearer of thanks from our new king, by the way, master speechwriter. A gift of fresh quills might have been appropriate, but let us hope there is no need. Something more permanent might be arranged in due course – when the hurly-burly is over.’ Here he bestowed a light smile upon Heloise, who was resisting the temptation to bang their heads together.

‘The king’s grace desires you both to attend at the Abbey on Sunday week,’ he added. ‘I am afraid that even if we dress you in colours to match everyone else, Rushden, your palliasse will untidy the procession. Now if we had another horizontal knight to keep things tidy …’ He finished the sentence with a shrug.

Miles took up the challenge. ‘We could stab the Marquis of Dorset if we could find him, carry him in to balance appearances, and hold the funeral at the same time as the corona—’

‘His highness’s thoughtfulness is most appreciated,’ cut in Heloise swiftly, ‘but I am not certain that—’

‘Perhaps a cart the night before,’ suggested Miles, quelling her. ‘We can tidy away the bedpans before people in ermine start arriving.’

‘I will clear matters with his grace of Buckingham.’ Their visitor retrieved his movables and rose. ‘One last thing. Are the tavern rumours all from you?’

‘No.’

‘That is what I thought but …’ Huddleston had no intention of finishing the sentence before he left.

‘Well,’ exclaimed Heloise as she returned from escorting their visitor down the stairs. ‘I missed half of that, or were you growling at one another beneath the level of female understanding?’

Miles’s forehead was like a ploughman’s strip. ‘There were no growls.’

‘I hate to say it but this going to the coronation is foolish. You could spoil the mending.’

‘You think they want me permanently crippled? There’s a thought.’

Bestowing icy looks upon him was to cast water on an impervious surface. Her drake, having had a bout of feather ruffling, looked fit to curse. ‘Make sure you know where your interest lies, madam wife,’ he muttered.

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ Her hips shelved fists. One could not pummel one’s horizontal husband.

‘I thought you could read minds.’

‘Not when they are as obtuse as yours!’

‘Miles!’ bellowed an impatient voice from the stairs. ‘Curse it, lad! Do you have to have your bedchamber half … way to Heaven!’ Red-faced and panting, a large man lingered, stoppering the doorway until he was poked forward. ‘What is this I hear that you have gone and married a cursed Ballaster wench?’ There was no mistaking to whom her husband owed his ebony hair and aristocratic beak.

‘Would you like to curtsey, Heloise,’ suggested Miles suavely. ‘It might help.’

Pushed off the coverlet, Heloise blinked up at the intimidating man she had nearly encountered at Potters Field. ‘Lord Rushden.’ The sudden huskiness of her voice was lost in a rustle of skirts as she sank obediently.

‘You must admit it settles the matter of Bramley, Phillip.’ The lady who spoke materialised from behind Lord Rushden, and Heloise’s gaze met the sea-grey eyes of Miles’s mother. She raised Heloise up and kissed her on either cheek. ‘It is the right one,’ she murmured, but such a cryptic remark confused Lord Rushden. He stared puzzled at Heloise’s right cheek, and then understanding came and he reached out and pinched it anyway in a friendly manner.

‘Wear your armour to bed, do you?’

‘Not any more,’ answered Heloise cheerfully. ‘The lance-restwas a nu—’ She turned pink as a billowy sunset as Miles’s fist thumped the bed and he curled sideways laughing. It was not what she had meant.

‘It is all right.’ A large paw shook her shoulder. ‘She will do, lad. She will do!’

Miles abjured the coronation. Viewing nothing but sweaty ankles from his mattress would be too obnoxious. He was safer stewing in Dowgate, decided Heloise, crushed in the overscented throng at Westminster beside her mother-in-law, for the July sun was not cooking the abbey; it was steaming it. Paste-stiff veils were growing limp upon their wires, and ermine and gris trimmings began to heat their wearers’ tempers before the fanfares shimmered through the holy perfumed air. Drawing Miles’s mother with her, she edged through to the edge of the nave. On tiptoe she could just glimpse the scarlet platform beneath an embroidered canopy and St Edward’s chair swathed with silk imperial.

The procession of the cross and the anthem Ecco milto angelum meum hushed the congregation. The lords spiritual, from cathedrals and abbeys all over the realm, passed by, their heavy brocades fumed with frankincense. Two by two came the young Knights of the Bath, all freshly dubbed and washed the night before, hesitantly led by Clarence’s son. Heloise was curious to see the young boy, who was barred from the throne by his late father’s treason. No wonder he was forgotten, for the lad’s face was moonish like poor Benet’s.

To the chanting of the Twentieth Psalm Domine in virtute came the high nobles of England, bearing the ceremonial weapons and jewelled regalia. Howard, the freshly minted Duke of Norfolk, carried within his hands St Edward’s crown, its golden buttresses shining as it passed beneath the shafts of sunlight. The great lords did not falter in their steps but the ceremonial cushions shook a little. Only Lord Stanley, freed from the Tower to encourage reconciliation, had difficulty in timing his stride to match the rest.

Richard of Gloucester was magnificent in his crimson, miniver and gold but his face reminded Heloise of a devout priest about to be ordained as though it was not the crowning but the anointing with the holy oil that meant so much to him. Four barons held the tasselled cloth of estate above his head and two bishops flanked him: Durham and, as was customary, Bath and Wells. Stillington, mitred, splendid in fine wool and glistening tartaryne, met his nurse’s study. The crowsfeet eyes bestowed a conspiratorial blessing, the dried lips a smile. Heloise knuckled the telltale tears away. She was proud of Gloucester, her duke, and happy for England.

Careful, but perhaps tempted to tread upon the king’s long train of Roman purple, Buckingham, in blue cloth shot with gold wrought with pearl droplets, followed bearing the white wand of office. He had insisted on being made High Steward of England for the occasion. The black velvet lining the mulberry train whispered at his heels, dusting the tiles before the earls bearing the queen’s crown and sceptre.

Queen Anne also walked beneath a canopy, tasselled at each corner by a golden bell. She looked frail under the heavy robes, her milky skin outfaced by the rose red that had never suited her. Corn-hued hair, so rarely visible, caped her to the thighs. She turned her head as Heloise willed her attention. The smile came from the new queen’s heart but pain like a torturer’s iron band fastened inside Heloise’s ribs. Oh, your grace, God keep you!

Jesu forfend! Heloise recoiled, instinctively suspicious of the stranger who bore Queen Anne’s train. Behind an enigmatic smile, the woman’s heavy-lidded eyes were making an inventory of who was there and who was not. The shrewd gaze paused on Miles’s mother and the jewelled coronet dipped in acquaintance.

‘Who is she?’ Heloise gasped, her mind buffeted by a willpower more formidable than anything she had encountered in her life.

‘Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond.’ Henry Tudor’s mother! As if sensing that Heloise carried the wrong allegiance, the countess tightened her gloved hands upon the purple velvet, her gaze passing on. But with all the fey power that she could muster, Heloise slit through the mind behind the high-boned cheeks like a surgeon and laid it open. What she discovered was a putrescent envy of immense proportions; in Margaret Beaufort’s mind, it was her son’s face beneath the crown.

She scarcely noticed other noblewomen passing by until Lady Margery Huddleston sent her a beaming smile and the world righted itself again. And there was Miles’s father too, among the lesser barons, giving her a broad wink as he passed.

The Latin anthems soared upon the organ’s winging sound, for King Richard’s love of music was great indeed. Only those clustered round the throne might witness the anointing, the oath to England sworn for the first time in English, the final lowering of the crown and assess Buckingham’s expression as the shouts rang forth –

God’s will was manifest but Heloise felt uncomfortable as she watched the duke follow his new sovereign down the nave. No longer cousins nor peers, but king and subject. And how would Miles’s Harry feel about that?

Thunder rolled and shook the city as Heloise, her clothes still wafting incense fumes, excitedly regaled Miles with her account before the others trooped back, sloshing with claret and malvesey. She had decanted some hackled peacock, great carp in foile and close tart indorred for him to savour and he was grateful, but he lay awake beside her in the early hours, desperate for flight like a tethered hawk, grieving that he had had the journey but not the arrival.

His new wife, as if wakened by his mind’s call, slid her hands over the breastplate of dark hair and pressed her body questioningly against him. Encouraged, she used her new learning to please and his yearning flesh hardened hungrily within her hand.

‘By the saints, I could not have endured this without you, changeling.’

‘Harry could have hired you a trio of Winchester geese to ease your problem.’

‘You,’ his lips told her hair, ‘are not supposed to know of such creatures. Nor of the Hereford whores or—’

A woman’s scream split the silence like a lightning strike and a howl of anguish followed.

‘Christ!’

His lady would have grabbed her robe and followed the sound but Miles’s fingers fastened round her wrist. ‘No! leave it to Knyvett!’

‘It is—’

‘Your sister. Yes, I know. Wait! Wait!’ Bridling a wildcat might have been simpler, but he held on grimly to Heloise as Dionysia’s voice rose in argument. They heard the sound of heavier feet hurrying up the stairs and Sir William’s rumbling tone, then a smack of bone and a woman’s keening wail, sad and lost.

‘No!’ Miles muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Stay here! It is not your quarrel!’

‘She is my sister!’

‘Heloise, no!’ In kindness, he forced her back against the pillow, his hands upon her wrists like iron staples. ‘Let her learn to manage the darkness in him.’

‘She loves him.’

‘Love!’ he scoffed. ‘Dionysia? Do you need spectacles, cariad?’ It was a risk to loosen her in such a humour. Starlit hair hid her face from him as she sullenly rubbed her wrists, legs sideways beneath her like a mermaid tail.

‘You would not know love if it buffeted you between the eyes,’ she hissed. ‘You buried your heart six foot deep two years hence.’

Astounded at the lash of words, he gazed at her and then said quietly, ‘Give me a crutch and a spade and I will go and look for it.’

‘You have to dig for it?’ Indignation fired the words at him like hostile crossbolts as she sprang off the bed. Thank God she lacked the beehives.

He swallowed, devastated that he had somehow unleashed a Fury. ‘I have given you the protection of my name, Heloise; I have given you the loyalty of my body and—’

She tossed a scathing look at his injured leg. ‘Ha, that has yet to be tested.’

‘You shrew,’ he exclaimed, ‘I married you because—’

‘Because it amused you to annoy both dukes and because I was suddenly wealthy and you did not have my father to disgrace you. Oh, answer me, is not that the truth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ohhhh!’ The candlestick was seized. He ducked. Jesu, he was becoming good at ducking.

‘Perhaps you should know, madam,’ he threw back as haughtily as he could from the horizontal, ‘that I saved you from persecution.’

‘That was self-interest and you know it – naught but drunken Welsh poe—’

‘No, Dokett.’

‘Dokett! Gloucester would not have let—’

‘You are mistaken. Dokett was all ready to speak with Canterbury. He wanted you pincered, sweet heart.’ Ah, that silenced her. His tone shed the sarcasm. ‘I will have your gratitude, madam, and you may keep your rebukes scabbarded in future. It seems to me there is much you have to learn.’

‘I! Well, thank you, sir, for your charity and condescension. There is more to a marriage than being your concubine and nursemaid, but I doubt you are capable of learning something so simple, you arrogant dolt!’

‘Dolt!’ No one had ever –

‘I-I am going back to … to Bramley until you—’

‘Heloise.’

He nearly fell with the pain as he stumbled after her, but she caught him in time and heaved him back against the bed. With no words left to lean upon, he let her help him back into the prison of sheets.

‘Heloise, you are not going anywhere, please.’ His hand opened upon the coverlet palm uppermost in peace. ‘I married you because I wanted you alive. Beside me.’

She left the chamber. He heard her moving things in the outer room and closed his eyes tightly, trying not to imagine how empty the world would be without her.

‘Here.’ Metal touched the side of his hand. ‘It will ease the pain.’ Relieved, he dragged himself up against the bolster and took the cup.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and he thanked God too as his slender wife climbed back beside him.

Dionysia had vanished when Heloise sought her out next morning. The servants shrugged, disclaiming knowledge, and Buckingham and his retinue had gone to Mass with the king at Westminster.

Miles did not share her sisterly concern. ‘I warned you she expected too much. I’ll wager she has bolted back to Crosby Place. Probably pulling up irises in a huff.’

‘You are not going to like what I have to say, sir.’

Miles suppressed a husbandly groan. He did not remember Sioned being this difficult.

‘I believe Dionysia was just a whipping boy last night. Hurting her was the only way your friend Harry could vent his jealousy.’

‘What in God’s name are you saying?’

‘I am saying, Miles, that he covets the crown.’ The words spattered between them like foul droplets contaminating the air.

Her lord’s expression was as chill as Purbeck marble. ‘Christ Almighty, Heloise, as you value your life, hold your tongue!’ The ensuing silence was bitter even though she sensed the man’s anger cool. ‘Come here.’ He held out his hands.

‘It is true—’ But his mouth came down on hers, staunching the truth. ‘It is true,’ she repeated, wrenching her face away. ‘He cannot live with himself. He has to prove he is better than anyone and now it will be King Richard who must be taught that lesson.’

Miles turned his face away, breathing hard. Heloise sprang off the bed and sought refuge at the window, her fingers clenched against her breastbone.

Please help my sister, her heart cried out, but no sparkle of wings caught the moon’s cold light. Instead, Nandik’s face floated through her mind like a reflection rippling upon dirty water. Was it he who had set the mischief threading through Buckingham’s mind like a fungus? She could feel the evil insinuating itself like a monstrous fog. What had become of Dionysia?

In desperation Heloise set out for Crosby Place, but the household had moved to Westminster Palace, and it was past noon when she managed to steal Margery away from the new queen’s presence and beg her help.

‘Sweet Heaven, Heloise, your sister could be anywhere, on her way back to your family, perhaps?’

‘No, I do not believe so. Buckingham has found out she has been informing on him. I am certain of it. Ask Sir Richard to find her, please, Margery. I know she is in peril.’

‘Of course, of course, we can start with Buckingham’s closest manors, but it will take many days. Since your husband knows of the quarrel, could he not broach the matter directly with his duke?’

If Miles was speaking to her! She found him playing chess with Knyvett when she returned. Both men were looking grave.

‘Is there news? Can you tell me where my sister is, Sir William?’ she pleaded, drawing off her gloves. ‘What happened last night?’

‘A bad business.’ Knyvett shook his silvering head. ‘I hit Harry because I thought him in the wrong, but it seems your sister was a paid informer.’ Oh Jesu!

‘Who says so?’ she asked with sisterly disbelief.

‘Nandik.’

‘Nandik!’

‘Aye, apparently Harry set him secretly to mind her. See that she came to no harm. Nandik saw her meet each day with one of the king’s henchmen.’

‘But, naturally, she is acquainted with king’s men, Sir William. She was at Middleham. Oh, for pity’s sake, where there is a will to do evil, anything will serve. I beg you both, ask his grace what is become of her.’

The older knight pulled a wry face at Miles. ‘Harry will not be speaking to me the rest of the day. If you want my advice, my lady, keep away from him. Certes, I shall.’ Then his expression chilled. ‘I hope your sister’s duplicity was news to you, madam.’

‘Of course my wife knows nothing of this,’ Miles answered for her. ‘So where is Dionysia now?’

Knyvett’s lower lip curled. ‘Pranced off in a womanly sulk? When Harry’s temper has cooled, we may learn something. I will see you later, Miles.’

‘Dear God!’ Heloise whirled round on her husband. ‘Could you not ask the duke outright?’

‘Let this rest! His grace will tell me when he is ready.’

‘Dionysia is afraid, Miles. I know it.’ Her temples ached. ‘You do not care, do you?’

‘To be frank, no. I disliked your sister on first acquaintance, and I like her even less now.’

‘Then you will not help me, sir?’

‘Sir.’ Miles’s servant interrupted. ‘There is a gentlewoman come who desires speech with you. She would not give her name.’

Heloise said a prayer it might be word of Dionysia.

‘Show her up,’ muttered Miles grimly. ‘And I promise you I will help you, cariad.’

Black Mechlin gauze shrouded the visitor’s face. A widow, perhaps, with a petition, save that she carried no scroll or folded parchment. Virtuous certainly, for the blue-black robe embroidered with sable daisies enveloped her to the throat and her fingers clad in gloves of soft, expensive leather rose to fold at her waist with nun-like briskness.

‘Thank you,’ exclaimed the woman brusquely, as if Heloise was only a servant. ‘Now, leave us, if you please. I wish to speak with Sir Miles alone.’

Only after the door closed, did she set back the veil to uncover a finely boned face of intelligent rather than beauteous mien. Her nose was not to his taste, and her upper lip was far too furrowed. The hollow cheeks hinted at asceticism but the lady’s roundish, small eyes examined him with a disconcerting worldliness. Two score years and childless, he hazarded, noting the lean hips and flat belly.

‘Y Cysgod.’ It was said correctly as if she was familiar with matters Welsh, and of course she was. The hammer struck the anvil in Miles’s mind – Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor’s mother! She had buried Buckingham’s Uncle Harry some ten years since before taking on Lord Stanley as a husband. Miles looked afresh at her now, reminded of a raptor by the way the woman smiled.

‘Not a cysgod at the moment, my lady,’ he replied wryly, glancing meaningfully to where his toes made contours of the coverlet.

‘May I congratulate you on Harry’s speech at Baynards Castle, Sir Miles?’

No, you may not, he thought, wondering how in Hell she had found that out. He watched in irritated helplessness as Tudor’s mother explored his demesne, glancing at his papers. ‘Why are you here, my lady?’ If word reached King Richard that Tudor’s maman had visited him at the Red Rose, the White Boar men would be watching him like hungry kites – if they were not already.

Margaret Beaufort paused in her peregrinations. ‘You know, I always wondered what my nephew’s – well, nephew by marriage’s – capabilities are. I can see now.’ Was that supposed to flatter him? ‘A pity you are immobile, Sir Miles, and no longer have your hand upon Harry’s leading rein.’ A bony finger prodded at the plate that had borne his dinner and raised the jug to sniff its contents. ‘Like fat, riches and fame can ruin a person, if one does not have the backbone.’

When she turned her back, he was able to glare at her, desirous of escorting her out.

‘A pity, yes,’ his tormentor continued, ‘and just when you have reached the top of the mountain – well, almost.’ Miles held his temper, barely. Anchored by his injuries, he felt like a mouse being pawed by a cat. ‘I am told Pen-y-Fan is usually stifled by fog and most days you cannot see a thing from the top – just like Harry. Does he merely want to rub the Woodvilles’ noses in the mire? What was it that heretic Wycliffe wrote about the higher an ape climbs?’

– the more you could see the filth of his hind parts. Miles’s fingers itched to seize the handbell that lay behind his pillow, but you could not throw things at a countess with the bastardised blood of John of Gaunt in her veins and a claim to the throne. She came back to regard him from the foot of the bed, coiling her fingers round one of the bedposts. ‘I know the story about you and Harry. He owes you his life, does he not?’

‘And I owe him my livelihood, madam.’

‘What was it you actually saved him from on Pen-y-Fan – the cold?’ Jesu, the woman could distort an act of quick-wittedness that other people respected into something to smirk at. ‘I truly am sorry about your leg.’ It was the way she said it. Everything this creature said had a layer beneath it.

And he reached the lowest layer. Christ protect him! So it had not been Hastings’s people but her villains garbed as Hastings’s retainers who had attacked him! What in God’s name did she want? Suddenly he was afraid of being alone with her but – Jesu mercy, what was the matter with him? He could deal with any woman if he had to.

‘Poor Hastings,’ she mused, as if she read his thoughts. ‘What an inconvenience he was to us all.’ Needle-stitching fingers stroked the pectoral cross of pearls set in gold that leaned obliquely upon her slight chest.

Miles had had enough. ‘Do you want an amnestia for your son, my lady? I can raise the matter with his grace.’

‘Oh, that is already done. Harry and I met, quite by chance, at the Red Pale, Caxton’s printing works, you know.’ She was at the window now.

‘Yes, I know,’ he muttered. Did she think him a country lout?

As if she were timing matters, she swung round, leaning back against the mullion. ‘You were clever to nose out Stillington and you certainly presented very good arguments in your speeches, Sir Miles. A pity there is not more employment for kingmakers, but if ever you are impoverished, do let me know.’ Then she added, ‘You see, I do not believe that Gloucester’s friends really want Harry’s interference, so I should be much more careful in future, if I were you.’ Her glance slid from his face down the outline of his body.

Was she saying now that it had been Gloucester’s men who had tried to kill him? Miles felt as though he were being forced to somersault his mind through hoops. Who in Hell had tried to rid Harry of his shadow and why?

‘One day, Sir Miles, perhaps you will come to my way of thinking. There are so many wicked rumours around. So unfair to him. King Richard III is such a good man – his speech on justice quite remarkable. In fact, I doubt we could have a better king, but some of the dirt must inevitably stick. The rumours are outrageous, are they not? As if our new and noble sovereign has murdered those poor little boys!’

Miles forced his fists to stay unclenched.

‘And the odious gossip about him slowly poisoning his wife. And yet that is what they are saying in the alehouses. “Calumniare fortites, et aliquid adhaerebit.”

‘Ah, you are so fortunate in having time to think at the moment. Make the best of such leisure, sirrah. Perhaps you would like to question your wife about who may have caused your injuries. She is very thick with Gloucester’s henchmen. You know, I suppose, that it was Lady Huddleston who talked your wife into going to Brecknock and persuaded the fair-haired sister to insinuate herself ’twixt Harry’s sheets.’ How much more putrescence could this woman ooze?

It took all his considerable willpower to ask calmly: ‘How would you know that?’

‘Because I interest myself in the activities of Margery Huddleston and her green-eyed husband. Ask your wife, eh? Adieu.’ A cold hand touched his. He did not waste any gallantry upon it. ‘I trust you will not suffer any other misfortune, Sir Miles.’ At the door she paused. ‘Either you are not clever enough, or you chose the wrong horse to saddle. I suspect both. Good day to you.’

Miles buried his face in his pillow and swore sufficiently to make a stablehand embarrassed.

‘How dare she treat me like a menial!’ Heloise swept in, the epitome of outraged virtue. ‘What did that woman want with you? Jesu, you look like a wrung-out cloth.’

‘We need to talk, madam.’ His heavy tone needled her further.

‘Dear God, is there much worth saying?’ He watched her angrily pour out some mead and take a gulp.

‘Jesu!’ He flung himself from the bed, and seizing her chin, stuck his fingers down her throat and forced her forwards. ‘Bring it up! In God’s name, bring it up!’

A few minutes later, he drew her to his breast, wiping away the moisture from her eyes and lips. ‘It was meant for me, changeling.’

Eyes wild with fear stared up at him from her ashen face. Wordlessly, she sniffed the pewter goblet before she slewed its contents onto the tray. No powdery slurry coated the goblet’s pit nor showed within the golden spill.

She dabbed her third finger in it and licked the moisture cautiously. ‘There was nothing wrong with it, sir.’ She poured more from the jug and carried the goblet to the daylight. ‘It smells well enow.’

Avoiding further misuse of his damaged leg, Miles hobbled back to his hateful bed, cursing if he had spoilt the mending. ‘Fetch me the map of the south-east shires, pray.’

Clearly, nothing pleased her, but his lady obediently brought him the folded parchment from the coffer in the antechamber and he lay back upon the bed and unfolded the map across the sheet. It showed the locations of Harry’s holdings.

‘What is that?’

Heloise was running some kind of fur memento through her fingers. ‘Dionysia’s rabbit’s foot. Pershall found it on the stairs. She kept it for luck, Miles. It was always on her belt.’ Accusation whetted her voice.

He returned his attention to the map. ‘Tonbridge, Bletchingley.’

‘Bletch – Show me, Miles.’ The duke’s holding lay east of Reigate, beyond Redhill, upon the pilgrims’ route that wended from the east to Maidstone.

Closing her eyes and surrendering her mind, Heloise ran her finger back from Reigate towards the Thames. ‘Here,’ she opened her eyes. ‘Str—’ The rabbit’s foot in her other hand was making her fingertips pulsate.

‘Streatham.’ Miles stared at her in amazement.

‘Common meadow land,’ she whispered, closing her eyes, ‘a broad field stretching away from the king’s highway and then beyond it a hill rising steeply into woods.’

‘Imagination. The same might be said of many hamlets.’

Her eyes snapped open and she rubbed her hand across her throat as though her windpipe ached. ‘No. I must go there. I must.’

‘You will go nowhere. Not without me, lady mine. Are you lunatick?’

‘Then send someone, I beg you.’ Her other hand joined its fellow at her throat. She swallowed painfully and sank upon the bed, her face grieving.

‘All the way out there?’ His peace of mind was shaken beyond his liking.

‘Miles.’ Her voice was raw. ‘Please, please.’

Her desperation chilled him to the very marrow. ‘Very well, send your man, Martin.’

‘It would ease my mind. Thank you.’

Miles folded the map, his own throat dry now. He knew the highway. There was indeed a common in the vale, south of the straight descending hamlet with its numerous inns and a Norman church, dedicated to the patron saint of prisoners. Aye, he and Harry had once stopped for Mass there; he recalled it had a crusader’s tomb and a fine Rood screen. And yes, he vaguely remembered thick woods rimming a great hill that rose east of the common and the shouts as an ox cart lost its flour sacks on the thin ascending track that edged the field.

Two days later, Martin rode back with dire tidings: charcoal burners had found a woman of great beauty hanging from a tree in the woods between the hamlets of Streatham and Norwood. The priest of St Leonard’s had buried her outside the churchyard in unhallowed clay. There had been no jewellery but beneath her silken shift, they had found a paper scrawled in charcoal with the words, Harrye, I love you and I alweys shalle.

‘Is it her writing, my lady?’

Heloise nodded, the tears splashing down her cheeks and trickling down her bodice as she felt the terrified pain in the parchment.

‘I sent her to Bletchingley.’ His grace of Buckingham, High Constable of England, Grand Chamberlain, Justiciar of North and South Wales and recipient at last of the vast Bohun inheritance, strode into the room. The charming artifice of the last weeks had been cast off, or was this, too, a disguising? ‘I loved her, madam.’

Heloise could only stare at him blankly. The wreath of words dropped truth like wasted flower petals.

‘Did you hear what I said, madam?’ Buckingham’s livid face seemed to float headless before her eyes. ‘I said that though your sister lay nightly in my arms, in the mornings she regurgitated what I had said like vomit.’ The duke paced to the window and turned, nostrils flared, the Plantagenet lip curled back in a lion’s snarl. ‘How could she! I would have given her the world if she had asked it of me. I needed her. I thought that at Bletchingley …’ The ducal chin rose with a mummer’s timing. ‘Her escort said she stole away from them when they stopped for dinner. She should have trusted me.’

The void was empty of comfort. Heloise’s stare did not absolve him and the duke needed retaliation. ‘How did the groom know where to find her?’ he hurled the question at Miles. ‘I know you disliked the woman’s influence, thought her an indulgence on my part but … but the fellow says you told him where to search.’ The accusation hung across the air like a pointing finger.

‘By Christ!’ The oath spewed forth, drawn like entrails from a prisoner. Heloise watched Miles’s hackles rise and lower. How could her husband buckler himself without confirming her arcane gift?

‘Unhallowed ground!’ protested Heloise, casting herself between them. ‘Unshriven! I-I pray you let there be Masses for her soul, my lord.’

The distraction worked. Buckingham inclined his head, his understanding clear. ‘Certainly, my lady. Miles.’ Then he was gone.

Heloise let out a breath and turned.

The man upon the bed lay very still. ‘Were you afraid I would choose?’

‘Yes.’ Her breath would have scarcely stirred a feather. ‘Yes.’