“You will have to summon your courage,” I say briskly. “Be brave, you are doing God’s work. You have to go back to her and tell her to be of stout heart. Tell her that I am certain that the princes are alive. Remind her that when we attacked the Tower, we heard the guards taking them back from the door. They were alive then, why would Richard kill them now? Richard has taken the throne without killing them, why would he put them to death now? Richard is a man who does his own work, and he is hundreds of miles away from them now. Tell her that I will double my people in the Tower and that I swear to her, on my honor, that I will protect them. Remind her that the uprising will start next month. As soon as we defeat Richard the king, we will set the boys free. Then, when she is reassured, when she is in her first moment of relief, when you see the color come to her face and you have convinced her-in that moment quickly ask her if she has her son Prince Richard in safety already. If she has him hidden away somewhere.”

He nods, but he is pale with fear. “And are they safe?” he asks. “Can I truly assure her that those poor boys are safe and we will rescue them? That the rumors, even in your own household, are false? Do you know if they are alive or dead, Lady Margaret? Can I tell their mother that they are alive and speak the truth?”

“They are in the hands of God,” I reply steadily. “As are we all. My son too. These are dangerous times, and the princes are in the hands of God.”

That night we hear news of the first uprising. It is mistimed; it comes too early. The men of Kent are marching on London, calling on the Duke of Buckingham to take the throne. The county of Sussex gets up in arms, believing they cannot delay a moment longer, and the men of Hampshire beside them rise up too as a fire will leap from one dry woodland to another. Richard’s most loyal commander, Thomas Howard, the brand-new Duke of Norfolk, marches down the west road from London and occupies Guildford, fighting skirmishes to the west and to the east, but holding the rebels down in their own counties, and sending a desperate warning to the king: the counties of the south are up in the name of the former queen and her imprisoned sons, the princes.

Richard, the battle-hardened leader of York, marches south at the fast speed of a York army, makes his center of command at Lincoln, and raises troops in every county, especially from those who greeted his progress with such joy. He hears of the betrayal of the Duke of Buckingham when men come from Wales to tell him that the duke is already on the march, going north through the Welsh marches, recruiting men and clearly planning to cross at Gloucester, or perhaps Tewkesbury, to come into the heart of England with his own men and his Welsh recruits. His beloved friend, Henry Stafford, is marching out under his standard, as proudly and as bravely as once he did for Richard; only now he is marching against him.

Richard goes white with rage, and he grips his right arm, his sword arm, above the elbow, as if he were shaking with rage, as if to hold it steady. “A man with the best cause to be true,” he exclaims. “The most untrue creature living. A man who had everything he asked for. Never was a false traitor better treated; a traitor, a traitor.”

At once he sends out commissions of array to every county in England demanding their loyalty, demanding their arms and their men. This is the first and greatest crisis of his new reign. He summons them to support a York king; he demands the loyalty that they gave to his brother, which they have all promised to him. He warns those who cheered when he took the crown less than sixteen weeks ago that they must now stand by that decision, or England will fall to an unholy alliance of the false Duke of Buckingham, the witch queen, and the Tudor pretender.

It is pouring with rain, and there is a strong wind blowing hard from the north. It is unnatural weather, witch’s weather. My son must set sail now if he is to arrive while the queen’s supporters are up and while Buckingham is marching. But if it is so foul here, in the south of England, then I fear the weather in Brittany. He must come at exactly the right moment to catch the weary victor of the first battle and make them turn and fight again, while they are sick of fighting. But-I stand at my window and watch the rain pouring down, and the wind lashing the trees in our garden-I know he cannot set sail in this weather, the wind is howling towards the south. I cannot believe he will even be able to get out of port.

The next day the rains are worse and the river is starting to rise. It is over our landing steps at the foot of the garden, and the boatmen drag the Stanley barge up the garden to the very orchard, out of the swirling flood, fearing that it will be torn from its moorings by the current. I can’t believe that Henry can set sail in this, and even if he were to get out of harbor, I can’t believe that he could safely get across the English seas to the south coast.

My web of informers, spies, and plotters are stunned by the ferocity of the rain, which is like a weapon against us. The roads into London are all but impassable; no one can get a message through. A horse and rider cannot get from London to Guildford, and as the river rises higher, there is news of flooding and drowning upstream and down. The tides are unnaturally high, and every day and night the floods from the river pour down to the inrushing tide and there is a boiling surge of water that wipes out riverside houses, quays, piers, and docks. Nobody can remember weather like this, a rain storm that lasts for days, and the rivers are bursting their banks all around England.

I have no one to talk to but my God, and I cannot always hear His voice, as if the rain is blotting out His very face, and the wind blowing away His words. This is how I know for sure that it is a witch’s wind. I spend my day at the window overlooking the garden, watching the river boil over the garden wall and come up through the orchard, lap by lap, till the trees themselves seem to be stretching up to the heavy clouds for help. Whenever one of my ladies comes to my side, or Dr. Lewis comes to my door, or any of the plotters in London ask for admittance, they all want to know what is happening: as if I know any more than them, when all I can hear is rain; as if I can foretell the future in the gale-ripped sky. But I know nothing, anything could be happening out there; a waterlogged massacre could be taking place even half a mile away, and none of us would know-we would hear no voices over the sound of the storm, no lights would show through the rain.

I spend my nights in my chapel, praying for the safety of my son and the success of our venture, and hearing no answer from God but only the steady hammer of the torrent on the roof and the whine of the wind lifting the slates above me, until I think that God Himself has been blotted from the heavens of England by the witch’s wind, and I will never hear Him again.

Finally, I get a letter from my husband at Coventry.

The king has commanded my presence, and I fear he doubts me. He has sent for my son Lord Strange too and was very dark when he learned that my son is from his home with an army of ten thousand men on the march, but my son has told nobody where he is going, and his servants only swear that he said he was raising his men for the true cause. I assure the king that my son will be marching to join us, loyal to the throne; but he has not yet arrived here at our command center, in Coventry Castle.

Buckingham is trapped in Wales by the rising of the river Severn. Your son, I believe, will be held in port by the storm on the seas. The queen’s men will be unable to march out on the drowned roads, and the Duke of Norfolk is waiting for them. I think your rebellion is over; you have been beaten by the rain and the rising of the waters. They are calling it the Duke of Buckingham’s Water, and it has washed him and his ambition to hell along with your hopes. Nobody has seen a storm like this since the Queen Elizabeth called up a mist to hide her husband’s army at the battle of Barnet, or summoned the wind to blow him safely home. Nobody doubts she can do such a thing, and most of us only hope she will stop before she washes us all away. But why? Can she be working against you now? And if so, why? Does she know, with her inner sight, what has befallen her boys and who has done it? Does she think you have done it? Is she drowning your son in revenge?