I can’t help but giggle at the emphasis. ‘What d’you call the other duchess?’ I ask.

‘I call her the royal duchess,’ she says. ‘And so I please you both. She prefers the thought of the crown to anything. All I can do for her is put her closer to the throne; but what can I do for you?’

I shake my head. I don’t want to speculate about the succession, it is treason even to suggest that the young king is not strong and healthy; and he is both. ‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ I say. ‘I want a herbal drink to make a baby.’

She slides a sideways look at me. ‘You want a baby though you have no husband?’

‘It’s not for me,’ I lie quickly. ‘It’s for a friend.’

‘And is the friend the same age and build as you?’ she asks impertinently. ‘I have to know, for the herbs.’

‘You can make it as if you were making it for me, and give me the recipe.’

She nods. ‘It will be ready tomorrow. You – your friend – should drink it every evening.’

I nod. ‘Thank you. That will be all.’

She hesitates at the doorway. ‘Any woman who dares to make her own destiny will always put herself in danger,’ she remarks, almost at random. ‘And you, of all people, might foresee this.’

I smile at her warning, and then on impulse I put out my hand to her and make the gesture, the circle drawn in the air with the forefinger: fortune’s wheel. She understands, she smiles in reply and goes.

* * *

I wait a month, two months, then quietly, at midnight, at the end of summer, Richard lets himself into my room and I slip into his arms.

‘I have news for you,’ I say. I pour him a glass of the best wine from Gascony. There is a bubble of laughter inside me at the words. I could laugh aloud at my sudden sense of daring, at my joy, at the intensity of my happiness.

‘Good news?’ he asks.

‘Good news,’ I say. ‘My love, I have to tell you; but now I come to it, I hardly know how to tell you – I am with child.’

The glass falls from his hands and cracks on the stone floor. He does not even turn his head to see the damage, he is deaf to the noise and oblivious to the cost. ‘What?’

‘I am with child,’ I say steadily. ‘A good month into my time.’

‘What?’

‘Actually, I think she will be a girl,’ I say. ‘I think she will be born early next summer.’

‘What?’ he says again.

The giggle in my heart threatens to burst out, his appalled expression does not frighten me. ‘Beloved,’ I say patiently. ‘Be happy. I am carrying your child. Nothing in the world could make me more happy than I am tonight. This is the start of everything for me. I am a woman of earth at last, and I am fertile ground, and a seed is growing inside me.’