I look through the haze of the fire to our window in the castle, and I see the maid, Elizabeth, looking down. She sees me look up at her and our eyes meet, blank with horror. Slowly, she stretches out her hand and makes the sign that Joan showed us that day by the moat in the hot sunshine. Elizabeth draws a circle in the air with her forefinger, the sign for the wheel of fortune, which can throw a woman so high in the world that she can command a king, or pull her down to this: a dishonoured agonising death.

CASTLE OF ST POL, ARTOIS,

SPRING 1433

After a few more months with my uncle John, and then a year-long visit to our Brienne kinsfolk, my mother regards me as sufficiently polished to return home while they plan my marriage, and so I am living at our castle in St Pol when we hear the news that Anne Duchess of Bedford has died and the duke is lost without her. Then a letter comes from my uncle Louis, the duke’s chancellor.

‘Jacquetta, this concerns you.’ My mother summons me to her rooms where I find her seated, my father standing behind her chair. They both look at me sternly and I make a rapid review of my day’s doings. I have not completed the many tasks that I am supposed to do, and I skipped attendance at church this morning, my room is untidy and I am behind with my sewing, but surely my father would not come to my mother’s apartment to reprimand me for this?

‘Yes, Lady Mother?’

My mother hesitates, glances up at my father and then presses on. ‘Of course your father and I have been considering a husband for you and we have been looking at who might be suitable – we hoped that . . . but it does not matter, for you are lucky, we have had a most advantageous offer. In short, your uncle Louis has suggested you as a wife for the Duke of Bedford.’

I am so surprised that I say nothing.

‘A great honour,’ my father says shortly. ‘A great position for you. You will be an English duchess, the first lady after the king’s mother in England, the first lady bar none in France. You should go down on your knees and thank God for this oportunity.’

‘What?’

My mother nods, confirming this. They both stare at me, expecting a response.

‘But his wife has only just died,’ I say weakly.

‘Yes indeed, your uncle Louis has done very well for you, to get your name put forwards this early.’

‘I would have thought he would have wanted to wait a little while.’

‘Didn’t the duke see you at Rouen?’ my mother asks. ‘And then again in Paris?’

‘Yes, but he was married,’ I say foolishly. ‘He saw me . . .’ I remember that dark predatory look, when I was little more than a girl, and my stepping behind my aunt to hide from it. I remember the shadowy hall and the man who whispered in my ear and then went out to order the burning of the Maid. ‘And the duchess was there. I knew her too. We saw her far more than we saw him.’