‘Royalty and poverty do not fit comfortably together, do they, Jasper?’ she observed, her lips curling in a thin smile. ‘I imagine Lord Warwick’s apparel is immaculate.’

I shrugged. ‘A little salt-stained, your grace. Their crossing from England was perilous.’

Her smile widened and her deep violet eyes flashed wickedly. ‘So I heard. How unfortunate.’

Her gleeful expression belied the sympathy of her words. Unsurprisingly, after eight years in exile she had become cynical. We had been born in the same year, but if my mirror did not lie, Marguerite showed her age more than I did. She had suffered much tribulation since my brother had been forced from his throne and was living in relative penury. Fine lines traced the contours of her face and there were no funds for costly new gowns to draw attention away from them.

‘Unfortunate indeed,’ I echoed, ‘especially for the young Duchess of Clarence, who lost her first child at sea, during the height of the storm. It must have been a terrifying experience for her.’

Marguerite’s face fell. ‘King Louis did not tell me that,’ she said, creditably shamefaced and making the sign of the cross. ‘Poor Isabel, may God sustain her.

‘Has Louis convinced you to make a deal then?’ I asked.

The queen bridled. ‘I have agreed to hear Warwick’s proposal, that is all. And he will have to crawl to me on his knees to make it.’

This statement startled me into incredulous laughter. ‘Ha! You cannot mean to humiliate the man so?’

‘Can I not?’ she responded coldly. ‘Watch me.’

* * *

At high noon the great hall of Chateau Angers was bright with sunlight, streaming in through the parade of long, mullioned windows that afforded a panoramic view over the River Maine. Alive with dust motes, the sunbeams brilliantly illuminated the spectacular scenes on the hangings, which lined two of the other three walls. When he had heard where the meeting between Queen Marguerite and the Earl of Warwick was to take place, King René had ordered a section of his father’s famous Apocalypse Tapestry to be brought from storage in the cathedral crypt and hastily hung where it might act as a backdrop to the crucial encounter. Under the warmth of the sun it exuded a musty aroma of damp canvas, which mingled with the earthy scent rising from the new rush matting covering the uneven stones of the hall floor and the flowery herbs strewn about to disguise it.