The man says something in reply, I cannot understand a word of it. ‘I am of the House of Lancaster!’ I say again. I try in French: ‘Je suis la duchesse de Bedford.’

‘Get ready to stand aside,’ Richard says quietly behind me. ‘Jump to your right when I say . . . Now.’

I fling myself to the right as he lunges forwards and the man folds over Richard’s sword with a terrible gurgle. Blood gushes from his mouth, he staggers, hands out towards me, as he falls to the floor, groaning terribly. Richard puts his booted foot on the man’s belly and pulls out his sword; there is a flood of scarlet blood and the man screams in pain. His comrade disappears out through the window as Richard bends down with his dagger and quickly cuts the man’s throat as he would slaughter a pig.

There is a silence.

‘Are you all right?’ Richard asks, wiping his sword and dagger on the curtains of the bed.

I feel the vomit rising in my throat. I gag, and I put my hand over my mouth and run to the door.

‘Do it there,’ Richard says, pointing to the fireplace. ‘I don’t know if the house is safe.’

I retch into the fireplace, the smell of my vomit mingling with the smell of hot blood, and Richard pats my back. ‘I’ve got to see what’s happening outside. Lock yourself in here, and bolt the shutters. I’ll send a man to guard the door.’

He is gone before I can protest. I go to the window to swing the shutter closed. Outside in the winter darkness I can see a couple of torches around the barn but I cannot tell if they are our men or the Scots. I bolt the shutters. The room is pitch black now but I can smell the dead man’s blood oozing slowly from his wounds, and I feel for the bed and step around him. I am so afraid that he will reach out from hell and grasp my ankle that I can hardly get to the door and then I bolt it as Richard ordered, and, horribly, the fresh corpse and I are locked in together.

There is shouting outside and the sudden terrifying blast of a trumpet, and then I hear Richard outside the door. ‘You can come out now, the queen is arriving, and they have the men back in ranks. Those were her scouts, apparently. They were on our side.’

My hands are shaking as I unbolt the door and throw it open. Richard has a torch and in its flickering light his face is grim. ‘Get your cape and your gloves,’ he says. ‘We’re falling in.’

I have to go back into the room past the dead man to get my cape, which was spread over the bed for warmth. I don’t look at him, and we leave him there, unshriven, dead in his own blood with his throat cut.