My father shrugs. ‘At any rate, he liked the look of you and your uncle has put your name in his ear and you are to be his wife.’

‘He’s very old,’ I say quietly, directing this at my mother.

‘Not very. A little over forty,’ she says.

‘And I thought you told me he was ill,’ I say to my father.

‘All the better for you,’ my mother says. Clearly she means that an elderly husband may be less demanding than a young one, and if he dies then I shall be a dowager duchess at seventeen, which would be the only thing better than being a duchess at seventeen.

‘I had not looked for such an honour,’ I say feebly to them both. ‘May I be excused? I fear I am not worthy.’

‘We are of the greatest family in Christendom,’ my father says grandly. ‘Kin to the Holy Roman Emperor. How would you not be worthy?’

‘You cannot be excused,’ my mother says. ‘Indeed, you would be a fool to be anything but delighted. Any girl in France and England would give her right hand for such a match.’ She pauses and clears her throat. ‘He is the greatest man in France and England after the King of England. And if the king were to die . . .’

‘Which God forbid,’ my father says hastily.

‘God forbid indeed; but if the king were to die then the duke would be heir to the throne of England and you would be Queen of England. What d’you think of that?’

‘I had not thought of marriage to such a man as the duke.’

‘Think now then,’ my father says briskly. ‘For he is coming here in April, to marry you.’

* * *

My uncle Louis, who is Bishop of Therouanne as well as the duke’s chancellor, is both host and priest at this wedding of his own making. He entertains us in his episcopal palace and John Duke of Bedford rides in with his guard in the English livery of red and white, as I stand at the doorway of the palace in a gown of palest yellow with a veil of tissue of gold fting from my high headdress.

His page runs forwards to hold his horse’s head, and another kneels on the ground alongside and then drops to his hands and knees to form a human mounting block. The duke climbs down heavily, from the stirrup onto the man’s back, and then steps down to the ground. Nobody remarks on this. The duke is such a great man that his pages take it as an honour for him to stand on them. His squire takes his helmet and his metalled gauntlets, and steps aside.

‘My lord.’ My uncle the bishop greets his master with obvious affection and then bows to kiss his hand. The duke claps him on the back and then turns to my father, and my mother. Only when the courtesies with them are complete does he turn to me, and he steps forwards, takes both of my hands, pulls me towards him, and kisses me on the mouth.