My lord gives me several days of freedom to find my way around my new home, to discover the former duchess’s jewel box, and her dressing room of furs and fine gowns, and then he comes to my room after Matins and says, ‘Come, Jacquetta, I have work for you today.’

I follow him, trotting like a puppy at his heels, as he leads me through the gallery where tapestries of gods look down on us, to a double door at the end, two men at arms on either side, and his squire, Woodville, lounging on the windowsill. He jumps up when he sees us and gives me a low bow.

The men at arms swing open the doors and we go inside. I don’t know what I am expecting; certainly not this. First there is a room as big as a great hall but looking like a library in a monastery. There are shelves of dark wood and on them are scrolls and books, locked away behind brass grilles. There are tall tables and high stools so that you can sit up at a desk and unfurl a scroll and read it at your leisure. There are tables made ready for study with pots of ink and sharpened quills and pages of paper ready for taking notes. I have never seen anything like it outside of an abbey, and I look up at my husband with new respect. He has spent a fortune here: each one of these books will have cost as much as the duchess’s jewels.

‘I have the finest collection of books and manuscripts outside the Church in Europe,’ he says. ‘And my own copyists.’ He gestures to two young men, either side of a stand, one of whom is intoning strange words, reading from a scroll, while the other, painstakingly, writes. ‘Translating from the Arabic,’ my husband says. ‘Arabic to Latin and from there to French or English. The Moors are the source of great knowledge, of all mathematics, all science. I buy the scrolls and I have them translated myself. This is how I have put us ahead in the search for knowledge. Because I have tapped the source.’ He smiles, suddenly pleased with me. ‘Just as I have with you. I have gone to the very source of the mysteries.’

In the centre of the roomis a great table, painted and sculpted. I exclaim in delight, and step closer to examine it. It is enchanting, like a little country, if one could view it from above, flying high over it like an eagle. It is the country of France; I can see the outer wall of the city of Paris, and the Seine flowing through, painted bright blue. I can see the Ile de Paris, a little maze of buildings shaped like a boat itself, set in the river. Then I can see how the land is divided: the top half of France is painted white and red in the colours of England and the bottom half is left blank, and Armagnac flag shows Charles, the pretend king, in his lands at Chinon. A series of scratches shows where the little flags were stabbed, furiously, rapidly, in the plan marking the triumphant march of Joan of Arc, halfway across France, victorious all the way, and then up to the very walls of Paris, only two years ago.