Woodville grips my lord’s hand as if he would hold him, and then turns to me for the briefest of moments. I notice once more how very blue his eyes are, and then he has bowed and gone away. He hardly said goodbye.

* * *

We go on by gentle stages to Rouen. My lord is not well enough to ride, he travels in a litter and his big war horse is led beside it. It goes uneasily, unhappy with an empty saddle, its head drooping as if it fears the loss of its master. My lord lies in the grand litter that he commissioned for me, drawn by white mules, but he can get no rest in the jolting of the long journey. It is like watching a great plough horse coming wearily to the end of a field, at the end of a long day. My lord is drained of energy and, looking at him, I can almost feel his deathly fatigue in my own young bones.

ROUEN, FRANCE,

SEPTEMBER 1435

All through the long summer at Rouen my lord summons his lawyernd the councillors who have served him, and helped him to rule France for the thirteen hard years of his regency. Each day the envoys come and go from the peace conference that they are holding at Arras, each day my lord has them come to him and tell him of the progress they have made. He offers the young King of England in marriage to a French princess to resolve the conflict over the crown of France, he offers to leave the whole of the south of France under the rule of the Armagnacs; he cannot yield more. But they demand that the English leave all of France, deny our right to the throne – as if we have not spent nearly a hundred years fighting for it! Each day my lord suggests new concessions, or a new way of writing the treaty, and each day his messengers take the high road to Arras as he watches the sunset through the windows of the castle at Rouen. Then one evening I see the messenger gallop from our stable yard and take the road to Calais. My lord has sent for Richard Woodville, and then he sends for me.

His lawyer brings his will to him, and he commands that they make alterations. His entailed property will go to his male heir, his nephew, the young King of England. He smiles ruefully. ‘I don’t doubt he needs it badly,’ he says. ‘There is not a penny left in the royal treasury. And I don’t doubt he will waste it. He will give it away too readily, he is a generous boy. But it is his by rights, and his council will advise him. God help him between the advice of my brother and my uncle.’ To me he leaves my dower share: a third of his fortune.

‘My lord . . .’ I stammer.

‘It is yours, you have been my wife, you have served me as a good wife, you deserve no less. Everything will be yours, while you carry my name.’