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son-in-law on the shoulder.
    ‘I did,’ he lied cheerfully. ‘He was mortally weak from his imprisonment, but I told him of your service to me and he agreed. When there is a new Lancaster seal to set to a bill, you will be made second heir to the throne, after his son, Edward of Lancaster.’
    George of Clarence was twenty years old and had witnessed the death at sea of his firstborn only months before. He blamed his brother King Edward for that death, with a clean anger that suffused and filled him to the edges, so that it seemed at times that there was room for nothing else. He bowed his head at the news.
    ‘Thank you, sir. You have honoured our agreement.’
    ‘Of course,’ Warwick replied. ‘My daughter’s husband! I need you still, George! Not least for the men you can put in the field. You are the Duke of Clarence. Your brother – well, if he is no longer the king, he is still the Duke of York for now. I will not mistake his threat. Every day we lose here is one more for Edward to raise an army. And I would rather ride out with half the men and catch him unprepared than fight another Towton. God save us all from that.’
    Warwick saw his son-in-law’s expression grow distant as the younger man imagined meeting his brother once more. There was a depth of hurt and rage there, all focused on the man who had called him a traitor and forced them to run. Warwick’s daughter Isabel had given birth in sea spray and lost her daughter to that cold. Warwick saw no forgiveness in George, Duke of Clarence, and for that he was thankful.
    ‘Be patient,’ Warwick said, his voice lower. George looked across at him, seeming to understand. Bringing the true and rightful king of Lancaster from his captivity was like a mummer’s scene performed for the crowd – a glowing brand to hold above the city and set alight the torches of the mob. Now it was done, they could race north and catch Edward, out of place and out of luck.
    Queen Elizabeth of York gasped, pursing her mouth to a small moue and breathing hard, almost whistling as she rushed along the path close by Westminster Abbey. Herdaughters scurried alongside, the three girls looking afraid and close to tears, taking their cue from their mother.
    The queen’s pregnancy was so far advanced that she had to support her swollen womb with a hand and roll her gait, more like a drunken sailor than the wife of King Edward. Her breath was harsh and cold in her throat, but she still used part of it to curse her husband at intervals. The child kicking in her womb would be her sixth. She knew how perilously close she was to giving birth and she puffed as she lurched along, feeling again the differences that told her it would be a boy. Her daughters had all grown in perfect serenity, but when she bore sons, Elizabeth vomited so hard each morning that she had tiny starbursts of blood in her eyes and mottling along her cheeks. She dared to hope for a prince and an heir.
    Her mother, Jacquetta, looked back every time she overheard Elizabeth hiss an angry word, tutting and frowning at her in reproof. Thin-haired and pale at fifty-five, she had outlived two husbands and borne fourteen children, but in the process lost neither the manners nor the accent of her childhood in the duchy of Luxembourg. Elizabeth rolled her eyes in exasperation, biting her tongue.
    ‘We are nearly there, my pigeon,’ her mother said. ‘Just another hundred yards, no more. We will be safe, then, until your husband comes for us.’
    Elizabeth had no breath to reply. She looked ahead to the squat building of grey stone built in the grounds of the Abbey. Sanctuary. It frightened her, looking like a fortress or even a prison, despite the ivy that covered the walls. She had hardly noticed its existence before, but it had suddenly become her only chance for safety.
    She had kept her wits as Warwick arrived in the capital with an army of brigands and foreign soldiers. Without fussor fanfare, Elizabeth had summoned her