‘I never saw anything that made much sense to me,’ I say.

He nods. ‘Will you scry for me?’

I hesitate. ‘What if I see something which is against the law?’

He looks at the queen.

‘I say it is allowed,’ she rules. ‘Anything.’

His smile is gentle. ‘Only you and I will see the looking glass, and I will keep it secret. It shall be as a confessional. I am an ordained priest; I am Father Jefferies. No-one will know what you see, but you and I. I will tell Her Grace only the interpretation.’

‘Is it to find the spell which will heal the king? It is to do good for him?’

‘That is my intention. I am already preparing some waters for him, I think that your presence at the moment of distilling will make the difference. He is well now, he can stay awake now, but I think he has some deep wound inside. He has never grown away from his mother, he has never truly become a man. He needs to transform. He needs that change from a child to a man, it is an alchemy of the person.’ He looks at me. ‘You have lived at his court, you have known him for many years. Do you think this?’

I nod. ‘He is of the moon,’ I tell him unwillingly. ‘And cold, and damp. My lord Bedford used to say he needed fire.’ I nod towards Margaret. ‘He thought Her Grace would bring fire and power to him.’

The queen’s face works as if she is about to cry. ‘No,’ she says sadly. ‘He has all but put me out. He is too much for me. I am chilled, I have all but lost my spirit. I have no-one who can make me warm any more.’

‘If the king is cold and wet the kingdom will sink beneath floods of tears,’ the alchemist says.

‘Please do it, Jacquetta,’ the queen whispers. ‘We will all three swear never to tell anyone about this.’

I sigh. ‘I will.’

Father Jefferies bows to the queen. ‘Will you wait here, Your Grace?’

She glances to the half-open door of his house. I know she is longing to see inside. But she submits to his rules. ‘Very well.’ She wraps her cloak around herself and sits on the stone bench.

He gestures to me to go inside and I step over the threshold. In the room on the right there is a great fireplace in the centre with a fire of charcoal warming a big-bellied cauldron. In the cauldron, in warm water, is a great vessel with a silver tube which passes through a cold bath; at the end of the tube is the steady drip of an elixir made from the steam. The heat in the room is stifling, and he guides me to the room on the left where there is a table and a great book and beyond it: the scrying mirror. It is all so familiar, from the sweet smell of the elixir to the scent of the forge outside, that I pause for a moment and am back in the Hôtel de Bourbon at Paris, a maid and yet a bride, the new wife of the Duke of Bedford.