When dawn comes the goodwife gets up and cautiously opens the door and peers outside. When it seems safe she goes out and I hear her clucking to her hens and releasing the pig to roam around the village and eat the rubbish. I get up from the bed and scratch the swelling insect bites on my arms and neck and face. My hair is falling down from the careful coiled plait on the top of my head, I feel filthy, I am afraid that I smell; but I am alive. I did not stand and misdirect the invading lords as the queen asked me to do, I hid like a serf in a peasant’s cottage and was glad of their kindness. I ducked out of sight when I heard the horses in the night and I lay down on dirty straw. In truth, I would have given anything to stay alive last night, and I would give anything to know my husband and sons are alive this dawn. I am fearful and low. I don’t feel much of a duchess this morning.

The girl gets up, shakes out her petticoat which serves as both underwear and nightgown, pulls on a dress of coarse fustian over the top, rubs her face on the corner of a dirty apron and she is readyn the othethe day. I look at her and think of the scented bath that is waiting for me at Eccleshall Castle and the clean linen that I will put on. Then, before I grow too confident of my own future comforts, I remember that I can’t be sure that the court will be at Eccleshall Castle, nor that my son and husband will come home to me.

‘I must leave,’ I say abruptly.

I go outside and the smith is tacking up my horse. His wife has a mug of small ale for me, and a heel of stale bread. I drink the ale and dip the bread in it to make it soft enough to eat, then I give them my purse. There is silver in it, and some copper coins, a fortune for them, though it was next to nothing for me. ‘Thank you,’ I say, and I wish I could say more: that I am sorry for the ruin that this king and queen have brought upon them, I am sorry that they work hard and yet cannot rise from the poverty of their home, I am sorry that I have slept on linen all my life and seldom thought of those who sleep on straw.

They smile. The girl is missing a rotting tooth at the front of her face and it gives her a gap-toothed grin like a little child. ‘D’ye know the way?’ the woman worries. It is all of nine miles, she has never been so far from her home.

‘You go to Loggerheads and they will set you on the road there,’ the smith volunteers. ‘But take care, the soldiers will be making their way home too. Shall I send the lad with you?’