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Vaughan’s fingers closed around the hilt of his knife. He did not draw. His shrewd eyes took in the armed men closing around him, and then fixed on Richard and Buckingham.
       “There will be a reckoning for this, my lords,” he said quietly, “depend on it.”
       He offered no resistance as the soldiers seized his arms, and allowed himself to be led away.
       Richard feared Edward might intervene, but the boy said and did nothing. His demeanour changed when he spotted Rivers, still in his night-shirt and tied up like a common felon.
       “What’s this?” Edward demanded, taking a step towards the prisoner, “my lords, what is the meaning of these arrests? Release my noble uncle, at once! I command it!”
       “Alas, Your Grace,” Richard said sorrowfully, “that cannot be. Your uncle has deceived you. He and his family are not morally suited to serve you as royal ministers. They have conspired to murder you, and your brother, and deny me the protectorate.”
       Edward’s beardless cheeks flushed with angry blood. “Lies!” he shouted, “Earl Rivers is my faithful kinsman, and one of the noblest men alive. He would never betray me. What proof have you of these vile accusations?”
       Richard dealt with the question by ignoring it. “Where is Sir Richard Grey?” he demanded of the ashen-faced halberdiers on the door.
       “Inside, my lord,” one of them ventured. Richard snapped his fingers, and four of his retainers stormed into the inn, calling for Sir Richard Grey to give himself up.
       Grey was the son of Elizabeth Woodville, old King Edward’s queen, by her first marriage. As close kin to the Woodvilles, and another friend and confidante of Rivers, he also had to be dealt with.
       “All three birds in the pot,” Buckingham cried, “a fine morning’s work.”
       Edward looked distraught, and in fear for his life. From inside the inn came the sound of voices raised in heated argument, followed by the crash of breaking furniture and a body tumbling down the stairs. 
       “Never fear, sweet nephew,” said Richard, placing his arm around Edward’s shoulders, “you are in my care now.”
     
         Chapter 4
     
    Southwark, London, 4 th May 1483
     
    They called her Maud the Knife. A fellow whore once named her Lady Maude, in mockery of her graceful table manners. She stilled the girl’s laughter by cutting out her tongue. Nobody laughed at her after that, or made any reference to her past.
       She had other nicknames, among them Doll Stand-up, after her preferred method of copulation (a safeguard against pregnancy), and Quaffing Jilly, after her ability to match the male patrons of The Cardinal’s Hat cup for cup. She once out-drank John Turnbull, a night soil man and hardened imbiber, until he was sick over his boots.
       “At least it improves his smell,” Maud remarked at the time, much to the amusement of her sisters.
       No-one in the brothel knew her real name. The last person to call her Elizabeth was her mother, more than ten years gone.
       When she couldn’t sleep, usually thanks to the snoring of some wine-sodden customer lying next to her, Maud often thought of her mother. A pale, sad-faced woman, she recalled, with much to be sad about. Mary Bolton, once the lady of Heydon Court. She was probably dead by now, sleeping alongside her ancestors in the blessed peace of the cemetery at Cromford. 
       At these times Maud would clench her fists, and try to force out a few tears. To no avail. She had done all her weeping long ago. Just twenty years old, she had spent half her life as a whore, servicing the depraved needs of men. Weepers didn’t last long in The Cardinal’s Hat: so-called for no religious reason, but because the said item of headgear resembled the shape and colour of an erect penis.
       On the morning of the fourth of April, Maud was at her post on the step of the brothel. The law stated that whores were permitted to sit at