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to flop forward. He was shaken out of his slumber by the rough hand and voice of Salisbury.
    “Jesus,” York muttered as his vision was filled by Salisbury’s leathery features, “what the hell do you want, Richard? Are the Lancastrians moving?”
    “Much worse than that,” Salisbury said urgently.  “Trollope and the Calais contingent have defected to the King!”
    The shock jerked York out of his chair. “How? When?” he demanded as he stumbled outside.
    “Maybe half an hour ago,” Salisbury replied, hobbling after him. “They crossed over the barricade under cover of darkness, and the King’s troops hailed their approach. There must have been some prior arrangement.”
    “Of course there was,” York snarled. “The treacherous dogs intended to betray us all along.”
    He stopped and looked around at the camp-fires glimmering in the darkness. A fine mist was rising, cloaking his soldiers as they sat quietly in groups and picked at their meagre suppers. The occasional dull boom sounded as a Yorkist gun fired, their crews having received no orders to stop.
    “Go and find my sons,” said York, keeping his voice low so the soldiers wouldn’t overhear, “and fetch them back to my tent, with our horses and esquires.”
    Salisbury nodded, clearly understanding the duke’s intention, and limped away into the night.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    5.
     
    For Richard Bolton, the weeks following the battle at Blore Heath were a haze of pain and delirium. His lucid periods were few and far between, and these were marked by such agony to make him long to slip back into his semi-conscious state.
    He was vaguely aware of the indistinct shapes of people flickering in and out of his sick chamber, fussing over him and talking in low, concerned voices that buzzed like distant wasps in his ears. They piled more blankets on him when he was cold, spooned gruel that tasted like warm paste into him, cleaned up his mess and changed his small-clothes. Richard was grateful for their care, but virtually incapable of expressing it.
    At times he suffered from terrible waking dreams, in which his blurred memories of the battle conjured up images of blood-slathered ghosts locked in combat. The mangled corpses of men and horses were re-animated and performed a stiff, jerky dance before his terrified eyes, like puppets on strings.
    Richard would scream and struggle to get out of bed before the demons claimed him. Firm hands pushed him back, and the soft twanging of a lute calmed him, until the visions faded and he sank back into a drugged sleep.
    Music was his life-line. The gentle four- or five-note melodies, like childish lullabies, never failed to lull him and still the pain that spread like fire from his lower abdomen.
    During one brief moment of lucidity, he glanced blearily to his left and saw Mauley. The old soldier was perched on a window-seat and frowning as he carefully picked out notes from a battered old lute on his lap.
    “You make an unlikely angel of mercy, Mauley,” Richard croaked, wincing at the dryness in his throat.
    Mauley started at the sound of his voice, put aside his lute and hurried over to the long table beside Richard’s bed.
    “Dame Anne told me to play to you,” he muttered, looking embarrassed as he poured a measure of wine from a fluted jug and carefully placed the cup in Richard’s trembling hand. “God knows why, but the noises I make seem to have a calming effect.”
    Richard smiled and lifted the cup to his lips. The wine had a strange herbal taste, and he guessed it was laced with some pain-dulling narcotic. He shifted uneasily on his bed, gasping as pain speared through his vitals.
    “My father…” he managed, but Mauley was already dissolving before his eyes as the powerful drug took effect, and he sank back into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
    When he emerged again it was to find his mother and sister sitting either side of his