The groom released the reins and the horse took three steps back. With his bruised muscles aching, John leaned forward against the pain and sent his horse at the gentlest canter he could command, back down the road to London.

The countess was at her son’s grand London house. John went to the stables first and ordered them to harness the carriage for her, and then went into the house. She was a powerful old woman, dark-eyed like her son, but completely lacking his charm. She had been a famous beauty when she was a girl, married for her looks and jumped from servitude into the gentry in one lucky leap. But her struggle for respect had left its mark, her face was always determined; in repose she looked bitter. John recited his message in a whisper, and she nodded in silence.

‘Wait for me downstairs,’ she said shortly.

John went back down to the hall and sent a maidservant racing for some wine, bread and cheese. Within a few moments Lady Villiers was sweeping down the stairs, wrapped in a travelling cape, a pomander held to her nose against the infections of the London streets, a small box in her hand.

‘You will ride in front to guide my driver.’

‘If you wish, my lady.’ John got stiffly to his feet.

She walked past him but as she got into the carriage she made a quick gesture with her hand. ‘Get up on the box, your horse can be tied behind.’

‘I can ride,’ John offered.

‘You are half-crippled with saddle sores,’ she observed. ‘Sit where you will be comfortable. You are of no use to my son or to me if you are bleeding from a dozen bruises.’

John climbed up to sit beside the driver. ‘Perceptive woman,’ he remarked.

The driver nodded and waited for the carriage door to shut. John saw that he was holding the reins awkwardly with each thumb between the first and second finger: the old sign against witchcraft.

The roads were bad, thick with mud from the winter. In the heart of London, beggars held out beseeching hands as the rich carriage went by them. Some of them were pocked with rosy scars where they had recovered from the plague. The driver kept to the line of the track at a steady pace, and left it to them to leap clear.

‘Hard times,’ John remarked, thinking with gratitude to his lord of the little house at New Hall and his son and wife safely distant from these dangerous streets.

‘Eight years of bad harvests and a king on the throne who has forgotten his duty,’ the driver said angrily. ‘What would you expect?’

‘I don’t expect to hear treason from the duke’s own household,’ John said shortly. ‘And I won’t hear it!’