The names of the battles that follow are lost on her but Sir John survived them all, though only just, and was captured and ransomed at one, where the French used cannons and someone of whom Katherine pretends to have heard was killed and beaten so badly with an axe handle while he lay trapped under his horse that his herald only recognised his body from a distinctive gap between his teeth.

After that the impoverished Sir John had returned home to England to find his manor house near Lincoln seized by a local knight, who claimed some legal right to it, but in reality had none save he knew he could count on the support of the Duke of Somerset should Sir John try to reclaim it.

‘Sir John appealed to his cousin, who was Lord Cornford, wasn’t he? He hoped he might do something for him at court, seeing as Sir John’d managed to betroth young Richard there to Lord Cornford’s daughter. But there wasn’t much Cornford could do for him while the Duke of Somerset was so strong at court, was there? And then any hope was lost when old Cornford found himself on the wrong end of dagger at Ludford Bridge last year. Stabbed in the eye, he was, poor old bastard, and after the battle, such as it was, was ended.’

The coincidence is impossible.

‘Who stabbed him?’ Katherine asks, though she knows the answer.

‘The self-same man who stole Marton Hall. A man called Riven. Sir Giles Riven, though no one knows when he became a knight. If you’re from Lincoln, you’ll know of him.’

Katherine nods.

‘Notorious throughout Lincolnshire, Riven is,’ Geoffrey goes on, ‘and beyond now, since he’s not only managed to get himself into Lord Cornford’s castle at Cornford, but he’s gone and made Cornford’s daughter his ward.’

‘What does that mean?’

Geoffrey is puzzled by how little she knows.

‘Only that he has broken off the planned marriage between Richard and the girl!’

Katherine is little the wiser.

‘Which means old Sir John’s lost his manor, and young Richard doesn’t get his hands on Cornford Castle.’

Geoffrey spits in disgust.

‘And so there is Giles bloody Riven,’ he goes on, ‘sitting in the castle, in the lap of bloody luxury, with an army of archers, kept warm by the thought that his son will inherit the place with an income forever, while here we are, sick as pigs out on the Narrow Sea, just fifteen of us, attainted and stripped of everything we own, including our names, and me with my wife and daughter still at home.’