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sighed.
    She told him about the Battle of Wakefield, the heads on Micklegate Bar, Queen Marguerite’s triumphal entry, the raid on Eriswater. She spared him nothing. Katherine only half listened, clinging to the feverish warmth of her father’s body. His face grew grey and haggard as her mother spoke. She hugged him all the harder.
    “Richard of York… dead,” he whispered.
    After a long time, he spoke again. “Eleanor,” he said softly, clasping her hand. His voice was frail. “I am so sorry. I would not have brought you this trouble for anything.”
    Her mother’s eyes blazed with fire and tears. “I don’t blame you. I blame only these warring cousins and their houses.”
    Katherine wanted to tell her father about Raphael, but her parents forgot she was there. They pressed their hands to each other’s cheeks, looking only at each other.
    Kate’s father had been ill for a long time. He was going to die; they all knew, which made every moment with him precious. So they clung to him, and poured the power of Blue Mother Mary and Dark Mother Auset into him, and willed him to stay alive.
    ###
    Eleanor was glad of winter, in the weeks that followed. While curtains of snow folded over the moors and muffled the paths, no unwelcome strangers would come. There was pleasure in sitting with her husband and daughter at the fireside, retelling stories until they took on the quality of legend. John demanded every detail.
    There was no pleasure, though, in watching him shed tears for the Duke of York. Eleanor half-hated the duke for commanding her husband’s devotion. He and John had almost bankrupted themselves fighting King Henry’s wars in France, only to receive no thanks or recompense from the jealous queen. When the duke had finally risen up against Queen Marguerite – and then King Henry himself – John had fought unquestioningly beside him. Thus he had received the wound that crippled him, turning him from a spirited knight into this dozing, fading invalid.
    Eleanor cursed John’s loyalty, and loved him for it. For months she’d been preparing herself for the inevitable parting and the peril it would bring. Winter felt safe, a suspended time when nothing could penetrate the thick soft veils of snow.
    She started up from a reverie, one dark afternoon when no one should be abroad. Something was pounding and scratching at the outer doors. Eleanor had been reading to John, so softly that she’d almost put herself in a trance. Now the book slid off her knee and hit the flagstones. Katherine was already opening the door. Eleanor rushed to stop her, too late.
    A beggar woman: so Eleanor thought, as the poor creature collapsed across the threshold into her arms. A dead weight of bones, sparrow-thin. Clouds of snow billowed around her. Eleanor was about to call Martha, when Katherine cried out.
    “Mama? It’s Lady Hart, Raphael’s mother.”
    It was only then, in horror, that Eleanor recognised her.
    “Sanctuary,” gasped Edith. Tears rolled down her waxen face. “Sanctuary, Eleanor, I beg you.”

Chapter Two . 1461: Edith
    RICHARD
    I’ll drown more sailors than the Mermaid shall;
    I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk…
    I can add colours to the chameleon,
    Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
    Tut! were it further off, I’ll pluck it down.
    Henry VI Part 3 Act III scene 2
    Raphael was dreaming. His body lay inert, heavy with sleep. In his deep torpor, the chill ache of damp chained him, weeds licked his hands like cold flames, rusty saws carved at his chest. Yet it was happening to someone else; a distant irritation. He was in two places at once, memories assaulting him like shouts. Two layers of reality wove together. His body lay cushioned in green undergrowth, yet his real self rode with the winter wind in his face, dreaming one dream inside another…
    As they drew close to the grey house, Raphael nodded on his