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barge and brought her children and her mother to the river’s edge, taking to the water to be rowed upstream, just as Warwick entered the Tower to free King Henry. It made her heart thump painfully to think of how close it had been – and what a prize Warwick would have made of her. Yet she had not panicked and, as a result, she had reached the only place they dared not come.
    The little fortress had not been built to give hope, but only the barest comfort in the direst need. Yet the protection of the Church was what Elizabeth desperately required, with a child so close to being born and her fool of a husband out of place and unable to defend her. Elizabeth hissed a longer breath at that thought, pausing to rest her hands on her knees and just gasp, feeling the heat build in her face. A drop of sweat ran along her jaw and darkened the stone of the path. She could only stare at it.
    ‘We are almost there now,’ her mother cooed to her. ‘Just a little further,
ma cocotte
, my little hen. See, there is a young brother waiting at the door. Come, dear. For your father’s memory.’
    The monk’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of the queen, her mother and three young princesses in little dresses, all panting as if they had run a mile. His gaze drifted over the great bulge of Elizabeth’s womb and he blushed and looked at his feet, radiating warmth.
    ‘I claim sanctuary,’ Elizabeth said formally, between breaths, ‘for myself, my mother and my daughters. Grant us entrance.’
    ‘My lady, I must summon my master, from where he prays in the Abbey. Please remain here while I run to him.’
    ‘
Non!
’ Elizabeth’s mother said forcefully, poking him in the chest. ‘You are the brother of the door. Write our namesin your book, allow us to enter! After that you may fetch whomsoever you desire.
Now,
monsieur!
’
    Elizabeth closed her eyes, feeling dizzy and relieved that she could let her mother’s temper handle the details. She leaned against the doorpost as the young monk stammered and acquiesced, bringing out a large leather tome with ink and a quill. Handing them to Jacquetta, he scurried back in for a desk.
    Elizabeth looked up, her senses sharpening at a shout from the river. It could have been a boatman hailing the shore. Or it could have been pursuers, tracking her from her rooms that morning. Perhaps they had not expected a queen of England to move so quickly, without servants or bags. She was ahead of them and so close to safety she thought she might weep or faint.
    ‘Mother, they come,’ she said. Her mother dropped the book to the ground and half tore pages as she flicked through the vellum sheets, the record of centuries. When she found a blank page, the old woman dipped a quill and scattered droplets of black in her haste as she scrawled the names and titles of their small party of five. As she wrote, the monk came out with a writing desk on a pedestal, struggling under the weight of cast iron and oak. He stared nonplussed at the small woman sitting like a child on the grass to write, then put the table down and accepted the book from her.
    Elizabeth heard another shout and looked up to see a group of running men, all in mail and bearing swords on their hips.
    ‘Sanctuary has been granted now, yes?’ she demanded of the monk without taking her eyes off the approaching men.
    ‘As long as you remain on consecrated ground, my lady, yes, from now until the end of time. No man may enter here, from this moment.’ He spoke the last in full awareness thathis voice could be heard by the group who had slowed and fanned out around them. Elizabeth ushered her daughters and mother inside the open door before she looked back from the gloomy interior. The young monk showed surprising courage, she thought, as he continued to speak. His faith made him brave, perhaps.
    ‘Any man who breaches holy sanctuary will be made criminal and excommunicated from the Church, never to take the Sacred Host, or marry, or be