It’s petty, of course, she knows it; a slap across the face that John Beaufort will never feel. But the pleasure of giving it sets her fingers tingling and has her smiling for an hour or more.

By the time she’s churched and returned to the world there’s further cause for glee. Talbot’s first letter from home tells them that John Beaufort is late leaving England for France and that the King’s patience with him wears thin.

‘All to the good,’ says Cecily, smug as she scrutinizes the flatness of her belly in the glass.

‘There’s more.’ Richard raises a brow, as he reads from the page. ‘Talbot writes that the fat wife Beaufort took for himself last year has given him a child.’

Cecily turns her shoulder to look the inevitable question at him.

He can’t help but smile. ‘A puling girl, Talbot says. Named Margaret, for its mother.’

Cecily throws back her head and laughs.

He puts the letter aside. ‘But I have even better news than Talbot’s. Of more import. It seems the French king is of a mood to talk peace again.’

Now Cecily is impressed, and leaves her mirror to sit close at Richard’s side. ‘Perhaps our truce with Burgundy has given him pause?’

Richard shrugs. ‘Or, it may be intended to blind us to the offensive Henry’s spies speak of …’ He laughs when Cecily frowns. ‘Who can guess? Besides, it may come to nothing. We’ve seen feints enough in this long French game.’

Nevertheless, at Richard’s request, Brittany’s Duke Francis has offered himself as mediator and sent his brother to England to understand whether, if Charles will talk, Henry will listen. Richard gives his hands into Cecily’s. ‘And so I have done what the King asked of me. I have opened a window through which peace might enter, if the warmongers on his council don’t bar the way.’

Cecily’s scowl betrays her opinion of a king who cannot bend his council’s will to his own. ‘We shall see. It may, at the very least, be enough to make him kennel John Beaufort again.’

It’s not. In August, John’s unwelcome army lands in Cherbourg; in Normandy, where he has been ordered not to set foot. Richard’s captain there rides to Rouen with news of the arrival, but can say nothing of the duke’s plans.

‘All I can tell you is that he rides south. Towards Maine, I suppose. And that he pays nothing for the supplies he demands from Norman towns and villages to feed his army.’

Cecily watches as the poor captain twists his hat in his hands, anticipating censure from his pacing lord. She narrows her eyes as, imploringly, the man holds out his hat to Richard’s retreating back.

‘He is the Duke of Somerset, my lord! He carries the King’s warrant. I could hardly stop him.’