The man gestured him towards the duke’s private quarters, up the beautiful staircase which had cost him such a fortune. John went up the stairs at a run. The duke’s apartments were in uproar, the doors wide open, the duke sprawled neglected on his bed, still in his riding boots. Dozens of men and women were running in and out with coals for his fire and fresh straw for the floor, warming pans, cooling drinks, someone opening the windows, someone closing the shutters. Amid it all was Kate, the young duchess, weeping helplessly in a chair and half a dozen apothecaries quarrelling over the bed.

‘Quiet!’ Tradescant shouted, too angry at the sight of such chaos for his usual politeness. He took a couple of footmen, spun them around and pushed them out of the room. He closed the door on them and then pointed to the maids who were sweeping the floor and the men who were stacking logs on the fire. ‘You! Out.’

The room slowly emptied of complaining servants, and Tradescant turned his attention to the apothecaries. ‘Who’s in charge here?’ he asked.

The six men, all bitter rivals, burst into noisy argument. Kate, hunched in her chair, wailed like a child.

Tradescant opened the door. ‘Her Grace’s ladies!’ he shouted. They came at the run. ‘Take Her Grace to her own chamber,’ he said gently. ‘Now.’

‘I want to be here!’ Kate cried.

Tradescant took her arm and half-lifted her from the room. ‘Let me see that he is comfortable and you can come when he is ready to receive you,’ he suggested.

She fought against him. ‘I want to be with my lord!’

‘You wouldn’t want him to see you weeping,’ John said softly. ‘With your nose all red, and your eyes puffed up so plain.’

The appeal to her vanity struck her at once. She ran out of the room and John closed the door on her and rounded on the apothecaries. ‘Which of you is the oldest?’ he demanded.

One man stepped forward. ‘I,’ he said, thinking that the prize was to be awarded to seniority.

‘And which the youngest?’

A young man, barely thirty, stepped forward. ‘I am.’

‘The two of you get out,’ Tradescant ordered brutally. ‘The other four of you agree on a treatment in whispers, at once.’

He opened the door and the two dismissed men hesitated, caught one fulminating look, and stepped outside. ‘Wait there,’ Tradescant said. ‘If these can’t agree you’ll be employed in their place.’

He shut the door on them and went back to the bed. The duke was as white as marble, he looked like a statue carved from ice. The only colour about him was his dark eyelashes sweeping his cheeks and the blue shadows, the colour of violets in springtime, under his eyes.

The eyelids fluttered and he looked up at John. ‘Splendidly done,’ he said softly, his throat hoarse. ‘I just want to sleep.’