So I’m thinking you’ll maybe not like it in Scotland. Maybe you’ll be wanting to visit France. I wouldn’t mind that. I’ll follow you to France no bother. I’m told the French have meat in sauces and soft wines that taste like the food and drink in paradise.

We eat stones in Scotland.

JOAN. You do not!

MEG. It’s the truth. Our earth is so poor we have to suck the stones out of the fields instead of growing corn. We make a sauce of mud.

We’ve nothing sweet to eat at all. Do you like apples?

JOAN. Yes of course.

MEG. Well, there’s no orchards in Scotland.

JOAN. No orchards?

MEG. We only dream of apples. You might get a lick of one at Christmas but it’ll have a worm in it.

They won’t have a crown for you, I’m telling you, we’re poorer than beetles in a rotten log. They’ll just have to give you a rather nice hat.

It’ll be second-hand.

The Queen of France will let you have it out of pity. We’d be better going to stay with her.

JOAN. Are you trying to talk me out of this marriage?

MEG (sighs). No. You’re right. We can’t go to France.

Truth is you can’t get out of this marriage. You’ve been promised.

JOAN. I could refuse.

MEG (reaching out to JOAN’s dress). Is that real silk?

JOAN. Yes.

MEG. Oh. Beautiful.

Your lady-in-waiting has one just like it, eh?

JOAN. You’re saying no one in Scotland has the sense to make jam? Nothing sweet?

MEG. Alright, so we’ve lovely rowan trees. I can make a nice jelly out of rowan berries. And there’s no much honey but it is good honey.

JOAN. Is it?

MEG. The best.

JOAN. Better than honey here?

MEG. Och, you’re eating honey here all the time. You don’t know what sweet is, your mouths are so full of sweetness you just think it’s the taste of the air itself.

JOAN. What’s the best thing?

MEG. The best thing about home?

Thinks about it.

You can understand folk better. What they say.

JOAN. But will I?

MEG. You make me out well enough, don’t you? And the skies are bigger.

JOAN. How?

MEG. There’s more light in them and you can see higher up into them. And the fish is fresher.

JOAN. I hate fish.

MEG. That’s because you eat five-week-old herrings with salt. Our fish tastes like sweet white bread and clear water.

And the dancing’s better.

JOAN. How?

MEG. More… (Searches for the right words.) Nobody sits down when the music gets going, you dance the soles off your shoes. Oh, I miss the dancing…

Maybe I do want to go home.

I do want to go home.

Will you go, lady? Will you say yes?

JOAN.…I’ll understand the people…

MEG. You’ll know what they mean.

JOAN.…There will be rowan trees and tall skies and fresh silver fish and dancing…

MEG. And King James will love you like you’re the Queen of Heaven itself, all the days of your life.