‘What is it?’ I ask.

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know, my lady. Something . . .’ He pauses. ‘Too quiet,’ he says, speaking to himself. ‘Hens shut up before sunset, shutters closed on the cottages. Something’s not right.’

I don’t need to be told twice. Something is wrong. My first husband the duke used to say that if you ride into a town and feel that something is wrong it is usually because something is wrong. ‘Close up,’ I say. ‘We’ll get inside the City before the gates close, and we’ll go to our London house. Tell your men to be alert and look about them. We’ll go on at a canter.’

He beckons the men to close up and we ride towards the City gates. But almost as soon as we are through Moorgate and in the narrow streets I can hear the swell of noise, people cheering, laughing, trumpets tooting and the banging of a drum.

It sounds like a May Day procession, it sounds like joy unleashed, but there must be hundreds of people on the streets. I glance at my men, who draw their horses closer to mine in a defensive square.

‘This way,’ the captain says, and leads us at a swift trot through the winding streets till we find our way to the great wall that runs around my London house. The torches, which are always kept burning either side of the gateway, are missing from the sconces. The gates themselves, which should be either barred for night or flung hospitably wide, are half-open. The sweep of the cobbles approaching the house is empty; but there is a scattering of litter and the front door is ajar. I glance at George Cutler, the captain, and see my unease in his eyes.

‘Your ladyship . . .’ he says uncertainly. ‘Better that I go in, and see what’s amiss here. Something has gone wrong, perhaps . . .’

As he speaks a drunken man, no servant of mine, weaves out through the half-open gates and shambles past us, disappearing down the lane. Cutler and I exchange glances again. I kick my feet out of the stirrups and swing down from my horse, and throw her reins to one of the guard.

‘We’ll go in,’ I say to Cutler. ‘Draw your sword and have two men behind us.’

They follow me as I walk across the cobbles to the house, my London home, that I was so proud to receive and so pleased to furnish. One of the front doors is thrown off the hinges, there is the smell of smoke. As I push the other door open and go inside, I can see that a mob of people has run through the rooms, and taken whatever they thought was of value. There are pale squares on the walls where my tapestries, the Duke of Bedford’s tapestries, once hung. A huge wooden sideboard, too heavy to carry off, has been stripped of the pewter ware that it held, carved doors left banging. I go to the great hall. All the trenchers and wine jugs and drinking vessels are gone, but, absurdly, the huge beautiful tapestry which was behind the great table is still there, untouched.