Jonas regarded me over his shoulder, scratching his nose with a black-nailed finger.

‘You mark my words, m’lady. Bloody insurrection!’

‘Well, don’t tell the diary maids,’ I called after him. ‘They’ve enough to gossip about without this. Cheese is the last thing on their minds as it is.’

The foundations of the world I knew had begun to shake.

My sister Philippa had ultimately left me to return to Duchess Constanza’s service, with some relief on both sides. Constanza had decided that she approved Philippa’s companionship more than she detested her as the sister of the ducal whore. I wished Philippa well. She would be far happier at Tutbury or Hertford—or anywhere the Duchess chose to live apart from the Duke—than at Kettlethorpe. Their estrangement continued, meeting only for ceremonial and family purposes.

Yet I was not lonely for female companionship, for I had the other Philippa, the Duke’s lovely daughter now grown to adulthood, for company. Usually a confident young woman, self-possessed behind the facade of her striking features, she had decided to put distance between herself and her sister Elizabeth, who although the younger daughter, had recently engaged in a dynastic marriage with the youthful Earl of Pembroke. It had made Philippa restless for her own future.

And then the rumours began to reach us. At least they took our collective mind off Elizabeth’s crowing, Philippa’s disappointment and the loud demands of my new son, Thomas, born in the depths of a wintry January with a voice fit to raise the dead.

At first we listened in disbelief, strengthening into sheer denial.

Surely the stories were mere fabrications, magnifying out of all proportion a spark of disgruntled opposition over a tax demand that would be quickly stamped on by local magistrates. I would not give the rumours credence.

Yet the news continued to be carried by every group of travellers passing our door, of trouble-making peasants massing in Kent and Essex. I listened and worried but in a mild way. Kent was far from us in Lincolnshire, where the days passed in unrelenting monotony with no unrest other than a squabble over the slaughter of chickens by an unleashed hound. What had this uprising to do with me? What damage could they do to us? We were safe, isolated and unnoticed, as we always were. No need for us to jump at every shadow.

Besides which, I informed my household, the defences of London were strong enough to stop a parcel of peasants even if their complaints sounded horribly familiar. Had they not been voiced at any time over the past dozen years? Hatred of the poll tax, failure to win battles in France, restrictions on wages when labour was in demand after the Pestilence. What was so different now?

My reassurances had their effect, leaving my mind free to follow the Duke. It was a month since I had parted from him at Leicester. He was going to Scotland. With the Scottish truce about to expire, Richard had sent the Duke to open negotiations. He would probably now be at Knaresborough or Pontefract or even at Berwick, so he would be in no danger.

The distant clatter of hooves on the road took my attention.

I sighed, handing sleeping Thomas over to Agnes, taking Joan by the hand. ‘Another party to spread fears of death and destruction, if Jonas has not done enough…’

I walked slowly, through the door into the courtyard, shielding my eyes from the sun, keeping Joan firmly anchored, to her annoyance, and any complacency vanished. A small escort of soldiers had muscled their animals, dusty and well-lathered from hard riding, into the confined space before me. I stiffened, pushing Joan behind my skirts, for there was no identifying mark on them. Had I been careless in believing us to be safe in the depths of Lincolnshire? Then as the leader, obvious by the quality of his half-armour and weaponry, dismounted and strode up to me, I recognised the face beneath the shadow of his helmet.

One of the Duke’s captains.

I exhaled my relief, retrieving Joan to lift her up into my arms, but my relief was short lived when the man gave the briefest of bows and barely paused for breath.

‘An order from my lord of Lancaster, my lady.’

An order? I smiled and extended my hand. ‘Come within. There will be ale for you and your men. You look as if you need it—’

‘No!’ He shook his head as if to deny his abruptness, and I realised that he had kept his troop mounted. ‘No, my lady. You are to pack up what you need—only enough to be carried on horseback—and come with me.’ He cast an eye on Joan who, unexpectedly shy, hid her face against my neck. ‘All of you. You need to take refuge. The country’s in the hands of rebels and your safety cannot be ensured here.’

‘Tell me—’ I gripped his sleeve as the warnings of the past days rushed back in full vigour, yet still I would not believe that I stood in any real danger. I needed proof if I was to agree to a full-scale upheaval.

‘No time,’ he replied, and as if he had read my mind: ‘My orders are to be gone from here within the hour. You are in danger.’

It did not make sense. The countryside lay about us, basking at peace in the June heat. All I could hear was the usual clamour of a household at work and Thomas’s lusty yells.

‘But why? Why am I in danger?’

‘It’s the Duke who’s in danger,’ the captain responded with an impatient exhalation at women who would not obey a simple order. Then even more brusquely: ‘And all who belong to him. My lord says he cannot risk your staying here if the rebels’ accusations turn into actions.’

So the rebels were flinging their accusations at the Duke. I frowned at the captain. Had the Duke not weathered all the past storms with Parliament, despite the nagging problems of taxation and failure to win any notable victory in France? Would he not mend the toppling fences once again? I saw no need for my own household, including all the children, to be uprooted.

‘But why can I not stay here? We are isolated enough. Or if you consider us too vulnerable, we could go to Lincoln.’

Now the captain grunted in frustration. ‘Have you had no word of the uprising, my lady? You’re a marked woman. You are known here for your…your closeness to my lord.’ His skin flushed but his gaze remained direct. ‘And in Lincoln too I warrant. You are to come with me to Pontefract.’ Then he added, as if this made all beyond argument: ‘By my lord’s orders. You must lie low at Pontefract, until things change.’

I looked round at those who, alerted by the voices and crush of soldiery, had followed me out into the courtyard. Philippa standing anxiously at my shoulder, holding tightly to Henry. Agnes carrying the baby Thomas whose cries had subsided. John who had emerged from the stable, smudged with charcoal. Were we truly in danger?

And then there was my other family. Thomas would be well protected in the Duke’s own retinue. Margaret would be safe enough surely, within the convent at Barking.

Still I was reluctant to accept that my life was in any real danger. Was not the Duke the most powerful man in the country? No one would dare to lay his hands on me. The rabble, stirred up by Walsingham, might deplore my lack of morality as a royal mistress, but I could never accept that they would attack me or my family. I said as much.

‘Do you say?’ responded the captain with laconic patience fast running out. ‘They are at this moment murdering Flemings in London—and elsewhere. You are labelled foreigner. Will your fate be any better, lady?’

‘I am not a Fleming. I am from Hainault. It is no secret.’

‘They’ll not stop to ask the difference, as I see it. Fleming or Hainaulter, you will be a target for their hatred.’ He shook his head. ‘All I’ll say—look to yourself and your own family, lady.’

I stared at him. ‘You are not wearing Lancaster livery,’ I accused.

His reply was immediate, his hand clenching on his sword hilt. ‘No. Nor will I. And if you want to waste even more time knowing why, I’ll tell you—you’ll not be seeing the young squire Henry Warde again. It’s death to those marked as Lancaster’s men who fall into rebel hands.’

‘What?’ It came out as a whisper. I knew Henry well, a stolid lad with dark hair and a quick turn of foot.

‘Picked out by the mob in Essex, he was, as one of Lancaster’s men, and done to death, for my lord’s mark on him.’ He must have seen my shock, for his voice gentled. ‘But I will serve my lord well, with or without livery, to the day of my death. Which might be sooner rather than later if you don’t make haste, my lady! And my lord sends you this as a sign of his regard.’ He cleared his throat roughly. ‘In case you should consider ignoring his advice.’

He gestured to one of his men at arms who, with a sly grin, unstrapped from his own saddle a wool-lined pannier. A perfect size for carrying a six-month-old child on a long journey over difficult terrain. And I smiled too despite the rumble of fear in my belly. The Duke might shower his dependents with silver hanaps but he gave me what he knew I needed.

‘Well, my lady?’

‘We will come.’

The Duke knew me very well, the pannier tipping the balance, and I was persuaded, acknowledging in that moment of shining clarity that I must protect his children. The Duke had enough to contend with, without my intransigence.

Within the hour we were packed with the little that we would need, and incongruously, foolishly, a little silver chafing dish, a new gift from the Duke, elegant with its three legs and handle, chased with a pattern of ivy, that I could not bear to leave behind. And then we were gone, a flight through the night. An unnerving ride when dangers seemed to lurk behind every bush. Agnes and the children and Philippa, Thomas packed snugly into the pannier, the other children passed between us. We stopped briefly to take a cup of wine, a snatched mouth of bread, but the captain urged us on. And through it all my thoughts were with Duchess Constanza and Elizabeth and my sister. Safe, I prayed, in Hertford. As I and my companions would soon be in Pontefract, the Duke’s headquarters in the north, strong enough to repel any attack with its towers and walls and great barbican.

Yet still my mind would not accept. This was not real. This rioting was merely a stirring-up by this man Wat Tyler. King Richard’s advisers would take the right steps. Tyler and his cohorts would be pacified with promises and sent back to their villages. All would be well.

Would it not?

Of course it would, I reassured myself, as we flew through the night, and were refused entry by the Duke’s cautious Constable at Pontefract until our credentials were vouchsafed. We were safe until better times.

Yet ensconced in Pontefract, I could allow my anxieties about the Duke to escape my control. Thank God he was safe behind the stout walls at Berwick.

Oh, how I raged when the news first reached me. And then, in private, I wept. A sign of a shallow mind, some would say, to waste such emotion on the works of man, the dross of earthly wealth. Why would I weep over the destruction of gold and silver, of fine jewels and even finer tapestries, when men and women ran in fear of their lives? And some lost them.

The guards at The Savoy had lost theirs.

I wept because these elements of wealth and power, the beauty and grandeur of The Savoy, were an integral part of my memories of the Duke and the bonds that pinioned us. And with their destruction, my memories, of such inestimable value, had become tainted with horror. With terror of what was to come.

‘How is it possible? Could no one stop it?’ Philippa asked, eyes dark with dismay.

The Savoy Palace, John’s glorious, magnificent, luxurious home on the banks of the Thames, that superb masterpiece of craftsmen’s art where we had first expressed our love, was no more. Laid waste; utterly ruined. All destroyed, stamped on, brutally razed to the ground by Wat Tyler and his rebels, the contents flung in the river or burned in vast glowing pyres as the great swathe of rioters breached the gateways and walls, invading the public audience chambers, the chapel, the Great Hall, the private parlours. The intimate bedchambers.

All I could do was sit and stare in shocked disbelief, to the unease of the itinerant friar, allowed through the gates after close questioning, who had revelled with what seemed to me an unholy enthusiasm in its telling. At first I had refused to believe it, that the King’s own uncle, a royal duke, should be so despised, that his property should be the subject of such vitriol, but now, as the details flowed on and on, I must. As I must accept the scarcely credible events in London where the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer had been hauled out for execution on Tower Hill.