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huge figure, by far the largest man in his army. He blotted out a fair section of the sky and the two speakers froze as they became aware of the silent apparition just standing there, looming dark against dark, outlined by stars.
    ‘Who are you to tell me? Eh? How to show my sorrow?’ Edward demanded, slurring.
    The men reacted in utter panic, turning away as one and scrambling over the crest of the hill and down the easier slope on the other side. Edward roared incoherently behind them, staggering a few steps and then falling as he turned his foot on some unseen stone. Vomit spilled fromhis mouth, old wine and clear spirit mixed in acid so rough that it stung his broken skin.
    ‘I’ll find you! Find
you
, insolent whoresons …’
    Rolling on to his back, he slipped into sleep, half aware that he would not know them again. York snored noisily, with a Welsh mountain under him, anchoring him to the earth as the sky turned above.
    It was raining as Margaret’s lords gathered, the downpour hissing on the canvas and making the poles creak with the weight of sodden cloth. Derry Brewer folded his arms, looking across the faces of the queen’s most senior commanders. Henry Percy had lost more than anyone else in that great pavilion. The Earl of Northumberland wore his family on his face, the great blade of the Percy nose marking him out in any group. The price the Percy family had paid gave the young earl a certain gravity among them – in Derry’s eyes, the loss of his father and brother had matured him, so that he rarely spoke without thought and wore his dignity like a cloak around his shoulders. Earl Percy could easily have led them against Warwick, but it was the even less experienced Somerset who had been put in command. Derry allowed himself to glance over at the queen sitting so demurely in the corner, still rose-cheeked and slim. If it was true she had turned to Somerset in the months of her husband’s absence, she had been remarkably discreet about it. Somerset remained unmarried at twenty-five, which was sufficiently rare to raise eyebrows on its own. Derry knew he should counsel the duke to marry some willing heifer and produce fine, fat babies before too many tongues wagged.
    Half a dozen minor barons had gathered at the queen’ssummons. It pleased Derry that Lord Clifford had been placed among them on the benches, where they sat like squirming schoolboys called to their lessons. Clifford had killed York’s son at Wakefield and then waved a bloody dagger at the father in spiteful triumph. It would have been hard to like the man after that, even if he’d been a paragon of virtue. As it happened, Derry thought Clifford was both pompous and weak – a hollow fool.
    It was strange how far and fast the story of York’s son being cut down had spread, on its own wings almost, so that Derry’s web of informers had reported being told it many times since. The queen was also coming south with an army of howling, barking northerners, accompanied by painted savages from the Scots mountains. She had apparently taken heads and marked her men with the blood of York, delighting in the destruction of innocent boys. The stories were well planted and Derry could only wonder if there was a mind like his behind them, or if it was just the careless cruelty of rumour and gossip.
    Derry’s clerk had finished reading the long description of Warwick’s forces, culled from a dozen men like Lovelace to build a picture Derry believed was fairly accurate. Positions would change, and certainly the movement of armies could alter an entire battle before it began, but for once he was confident. Warwick had dug in. He
could
not move again. The spymaster nodded to his man in thanks, waiting to discuss or defend his conclusions.
    It was Baron Clifford who chose to reply, the man’s braying voice enough to make Derry grit his teeth.
    ‘You would have us move the army like pieces on a board, Brewer? Is that how you think war should be