‘Did my lord command you to see her?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Do you have that under his seal? Did he write the order?’

I shake my head. ‘He just sent her to me. And you saw her. That time in the stable yard when you came with the message from Luxembourg, and she was leaving with the wagon.’

Richard clenches his hands into fists. ‘I can swear that my lord commanded that she serve you . . . but this isn’t good, it’s not good. But perhaps we can glide over this. Perhaps nobody will bring it up, if it was just making a herb bed. At least you never consulted her. You have never ordered her to attend you . . . .’

I glance away.

He groans. ‘No. Oh no. Tell me, Jacquetta.’

‘I took a tincture to prevent a child. You knew about that.’

‘The herbs? That was her recipe?’

I nod.

‘You told nobody?’

‘No-one but you.’

‘Then nobody will know. Anything else she made for you?’

‘Later . . . a drink to get a child.’

He checks as he realises that this was the conception of our daughter, Elizabeth, the baby that forced him into marriage. ‘Good God, Jacquetta . . .’ He throws back the covers and gets out of bed, pulls back the curtain and strides to the fireside. It is the first time he has ever been angry with me. He thumps the bedpost with his fist as if he wishes he could fight the world. I sit up, gather the covers to my shoulders and feel my heart hammer with dread at his rage.

‘I wanted a child and I wanted you,’ I say unsteadily. ‘I loved you, and I wanted us to be married. But I would not have cast a spell for it. I used herbs; not witchcraft.’

He rubs his head, making his hair stand on end, as if these distinctions are beyond him. ‘You made our child with a witch’s potion? Our daughter Elizabeth?’

‘Herbs,’ I say steadily. ‘Herbs from a herbalist. Why not?’

He casts a furious look at me. ‘Because I don’t want a child brought to life by a handful of herbs from some old witch!’

‘She is not some old witch, she is a good woman, and we have a beautiful child. You are as bad as this witch-hunt with your fears. I took herbs to help me to be fertile. We made a beautiful child. Don’t you ill-wish us now!’

‘For God’s sake.’ He raises his voice. ‘I am afraid of nothing but you being mixed up with the most notorious witch in England, who has been trying to kill our king!’

‘She is not! She would not!’ I shout back at him. ‘She would not!’

‘She is accused.’

‘Not by me!’

‘By the Lord Chief Justice! And if they look for her associates they will find you, another royal duchess, another woman who dabbles in the unknown, another woman who can call up a storm or capture a unicorn.’