Henry’s brow creased deeply and at first I thought it was in anger. I steeled myself for his reprimand but instead he drained his cup and then replaced it with careful deliberation on the table. ‘She obviously already trusts you with her confidences, Jasper, and I am going to do the same,’ he said. ‘And what I am going to tell you must never be repeated to anyone, not even your brother and certainly not Marguerite. Do I have your word on that?’

The solemnity of the moment was striking. I pulled from beneath my doublet the reliquary I wore: it held a trace of the blood of Saint Thomas Becket and had been given to me for protection by the Abbess of Barking when we left her charge to begin our training as knights. The saint’s sister Mary Becket had been a nun at Barking and had received the martyred Archbishop’s bloodstained garments following his murder at Canterbury Cathedral. They had become an object of pilgrimage to the abbey and the tiny scrap of bloodstained cloth that the abbess had snipped from them was my most sacred and treasured possession. ‘You have my oath on holy Becket’s blood, my liege.’

What he saw in my eyes seemed to satisfy him. ‘Good. Then I will reveal to you that I have never liked the process of procreation. It does not come naturally to me as it does to other men and my late lamented confessor, Bishop William Ayscough, encouraged me to steer my energies instead towards the worship of God and his saints. Like Saint Thomas, the bishop was also murdered by evil men you know, outside one of his own churches after he had celebrated Sunday Mass. He was like a father to me.’ He faltered, as though there were a lump in his throat.

I risked a supplementary point. ‘And he was the priest who married you to the queen. Did he not speak as well of the obligations of the marriage contract? Even I, though not yet wed, am aware that between man and wife there is a debt each owes to the other in the marital bed. Is it fair, or even legal, to fail your wife in this debt and expose her to the unjust censure of your subjects when no heir is conceived?’

I was not sure if Henry heard me because he only asked if there was more wine in the flagon. He put the cup to his lips the instant it was full, and it occurred to me then that perhaps an inebriated husband was exactly what Queen Marguerite had in mind when she suggested that I get Henry to enjoy himself a little. Certainly I was not entirely sober myself.