‘I shall send for the physician from Paris,’ Woodville says to my husband. ‘Fear not, I will send for him now.’

‘Yes,’ he says heavily. ‘There is a weight in my chest, a weight like lead. I can’t breathe.’

‘Do you think you could sleep?’

‘If you raised me up in the bed; but I can’t lie flat. I’m tired, Richard, I am as tired as a beaten dog.’

‘I will sleep outside your door,’ Woodville says. ‘The duchess can call me if you wake.’

‘She had better go to another room,’ my husband says. ‘This is no place for her.’

They all look at me as if I am a child who should be spared any distress. ‘I shall stay with you,’ I say. ‘And in the morning I will get some lemon and parsley, and make you a drink that will restore your breath.’

My lord looks at me. ‘You are my greatest treasure,’ he says again. ‘But go to your lady’s room for this night. I don’t want to wake you again.’

I wrap my night cloak around me and put some slippers on my fet. ‘Call me if my lord is taken ill again,’ I say to Woodville.

He bows. ‘I will, my lady. And I will sleep on the pallet bed on the floor beside him, so I can watch over his sleep.’

I move to the door but my lord delays me with his hand raised. ‘Stand there,’ he says.

I stand as he bids me, before the open window, and the frosty air comes into the room. ‘Put out the lights,’ my lord says. The men snuff the candles and the moonlight shines a clear white light into the room, falling on my head and shoulders and illuminating the white of my nightgown. I see Woodville steal a glance at me, a longing glance, and then he quickly looks away.

‘Melusina and the moon,’ my lord says quietly.

‘Jacquetta,’ I remind him. ‘I am Jacquetta.’

He closes his eyes, he is asleep.

* * *

Two days later he is a little better. They bring him news of the Calais garrison and he opens the letter and reads it in silence while we are seated at breakfast in the great hall. He looks around for Woodville.

‘Trouble at Calais,’ he says. ‘You had better get back there, lick the men into order, then come back to me.’

‘Are they under attack?’ Sir Richard asks coolly, as if he were not being ordered to ride into unknown dangers.

‘Their wages haven’t been paid again,’ my lord says. ‘I’ll give you a draft on my own treasury. Try to satisfy them. I will write to England for funds.’

Woodville does not look at me at all. ‘Will you be able to continue on to Rouen?’ he asks.

‘I’ll manage,’ my lord says.

‘I will help him,’ I say. It is as if I have not spoken. Neither man pays me any attention.

‘Go then,’ my lord says shortly.