‘I shall pressgang them,’ he cried. ‘I shall buy them. I shall take them out of the gaols, and out of the hospitals for the mad. I shall order them to come on pain of treason. I shall take boys from their school desks, I shall take farmers from their ploughs. Does anyone doubt that I can force my will on this whole kingdom? And if I want to wager half of England to avenge this slight on my honour, I can do it!’

John felt as if he were clinging to a runaway horse that nothing could stop. He laid a rough hand on his lord’s sleeve and pulled him close so that he could whisper in his ear. ‘My lord, I beg you, this is no way to plan a campaign. It’s too late in the year, we will meet the autumn storms at sea, when we get there the weather will be bitter. You remember the island, there was no shelter, there were the stinking marshes and the constant storms. They will have reinforced the citadel, and it cost us four thousand lives last time and we still came home in defeat. My lord, don’t take us there. Please, I beg you, think again. Think in silence, think when you’re sober, not when you have a room of puppies barking at your every word. Think, Villiers. Before God I would die rather than see you there again.’

Buckingham turned in John’s grip but he did not throw off his hand, as he could have done. Just as he had done in the long-ago fruit garden beside the warmed peach trees, he put his own hand on top of John’s and John could feel the warmth of the long soft fingers and the hardness of the rings.

‘We have to go,’ he replied, his voice low. ‘A victory is the only thing which will pull me clear with the country. I would have to go if it took the life of every man in England.’

John met his lord’s dark determined gaze. ‘You would destroy this country for your own triumph?’

Buckingham put his mouth very close to John’s ear. The silky curls tickled John’s neck. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘A thousand times over.’

‘Then you are mad, my lord,’ John said steadily. ‘And your country’s enemy.’

‘Then cut me down like a mad dog,’ Buckingham dared him with a wolfish grin. ‘Behead me for treason. Because my madness will run its course. I have to win the Isle of Rue, John. I don’t care what it costs.’

It was John who drew his hand away first, it was John who broke their interlocked gaze. Buckingham let him go and snapped his fingers at one of his companions, and took his arm in John’s place. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I must get my hair curled and then I shall sail for France.’