Dinner goes on and on. After everyone has had a slice of the pie castle and eaten all the rest of the meat and the fish, in come the sweetmeats and the puddings, serving after serving of sugar maps of France and marchpane models of the king’s war courser. Fruit, dried and stewed, comes in pies and sugar baskets and great bowls. The voider course of dried fruits and nuts is placed on every table and sweet wines from Portugal are brought in for those who can bear to go on drinking and eating.

The king’s appetite is prodigious. He eats as if he has not had a meal since he left England. He eats and eats as his face grows redder and redder, and he sweats so much that a page stands at his side with a clean linen napkin and mops his brow and damp neck. He calls for more wine to be poured into his huge glass, he beckons dish after dish to come back to him. I sit beside him and nibble on little things so that we are dining together, but this is an ordeal that lasts all day.

I am afraid he is going to make himself ill. I glance across at the royal physicians and wonder if they dare to suggest that he finish this giant meal. All of the court have pushed back their plates, some have dropped their heads on the table, too drunk to stay awake. Only the king goes on eating with relish, and sending out the best dishes to his favorites, who bow and smile and thank him, and have to serve themselves and mime their delight at yet another dish.

Finally, as the sun is setting, he pushes back his plate and waves the servers away. “No, no, I have had enough. Enough!” He glances towards me and wipes the glistening fat from his mouth. “What a feast!” he says. “What a celebration.”

I try to smile. “Welcome home, lord husband. I am glad you have dined well.”

“Well? I am choked with food, my belly aches with it.”

“Did you overeat?”

“No, no. A man of my stature likes a good dinner. I need a good dinner after what I have endured.”

“Then I am glad that you had one.”

He nods. “Are there masquers? Will there be dancing?”

Of course, now that he has finished gorging himself he wants something else to happen, and he wants it to happen immediately. I think for a moment that Edward, aged only six, dining quietly in his rooms, has more patience than his father, who has to eat to the point of nausea and then wants to know what will happen next, immediately next.

“There will be dancing,” I reassure him. “And there is a special masque to celebrate your victory.”

“Will you dance?”