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.’

‘I did not expect . . . ’

‘No, nor I. Truly, I did not expect to be making my will so soon. But it is your right and my wish that you should have your share. But more than this, I will leave you my books, Jacquetta, my beautiful books. They will be yours now.’

These are treasures indeed. I kneel at his bedside, and put my cheek to his cold hand. ‘Thank you. You know I will study them and keep them safe.’

He nods. ‘In the books, Jacquetta, in one of them, somewhere is the answer that all men seek. The recipe for eternal life, for the pure water, for the gold that comes from soot, from dark matter. Perhaps you will read and find it when I am long gone.’

There are tears in my eyes. ‘Don’t say it, my lord.’

‘Go away now, child, I need to sign this and then sleep.’

I curtsey and slip from the room, and leave him with the lawyers.

He does not allow me to come to him till the afternoon of the next day and even in that short time I see that he has lost a little more ground. His dark eyes are duller, the great beak of his nose seems bigger in his thinner face; I can see he is failing.

He sits in his great chair, a chair as big as a throne, facing the window so that he can see the road to Arras, where the peace talks are still bickering on. The evening sunlight shines in the window making everything glow. I think this may be his last evening; that he may be setting with the sun.

‘This is where I first saw you this very castle, d’you remember?’ he asks, watching the sun go down into clouds of gold, and a pale ghost of a moon rise in the sky. ‘We were in this castle, in the entry-hall of this very castle, for the trial of the Maid?’

‘I remember.’ I remember only too well, but I have never reproached him with the death of Joan, though I do reproach myself for not speaking out for her.

‘Odd that I should be here to burn one Maid, and then find another,’ he says. ‘I burned her as a witch, but I wanted you for your skills. Odd, that. I wanted you the moment I saw you. Not as a wife, for I was married to Anne then. I wanted you as a treasure. I believed you had the Sight, I knew you were descended from Melusina, I thought you might bring the Stone to me.’

‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘I am sorry I was not more skilled . . . ’

‘Oh . . . ’ He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘It was not to be. Perhaps if we had more time . . . but you did see a crown, didn’t you? And a battle? And a queen with horseshoes on backwards? The victory of my house, and the inheritance of my nephew and his line going on forever?’

‘Yes,’ I say to reassure him, though none of this was ever clear to me. ‘I saw your nephew on the throne, and I am sure that he will hold France. It won’t be him who loses Calais.’

‘You are sure of that?’

At least I can promise him this. ‘I am sure it won’t be him who loses Calais.’

He nods, and sits in silence for a moment. Then he says very quietly, ‘Jacquetta, would you take off your gown?’

I am so surprised that I flinch a little and step back. ‘My gown?’

‘Yes, and your linen, everything.’

I feel myself glow with embarrassment. ‘You want to see me naked?’

He nods.

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean in this daylight?’

‘In the sunset, yes.’

I have no choice. ‘If you command it, my lord.’ I rise up from my chair and I untie the lacing on my top gown and let it drop to my feet. I step out of it, and shyly put it to one side. I take off my ornate headdress and shake the plaits out of my hair. My hair falls over my face as a sort of veil to shield me, and then I slip off my linen petticoats and the fine under-petticoat of silk, and I stand before him, naked.

‘Raise your hands,’ he commands. His voice is calm, he is looking at me without desire but with a sort of thoughtful pleasure. I realise that I have seen him look at pictures, at tapestries, at statues like this. I am, at this moment, what I have always been to him: an object of beauty. He has never loved me as a woman.

Obediently, I raise my hands over my head, like a swimmer about to dive into deep water. The tears in my eyes are now running down my cheeks at the thought that I have been his wife and his bedfellow, his companion and his duchess, and even now, though he is near to death, still he does not love me. He has never lovedme. He never will love me. He gestures that I should turn a little to one side so the last rays of golden sunlight shall fall on my bare skin, turning my flanks and belly and breasts to gold too.

‘A girl of flame,’ he says quietly. ‘A golden maid. I am glad to have seen such a thing before I died.’

I stand obediently still, though I can feel sobs shaking my slight body. At this moment of his death he sees me as an object transmuted into gold; he does not see me, he does not love me, he does not even want me for myself. His eyes go over every inch of me, thoughtfully, dreamily; but he does not notice my tears, and when I get dressed again, I wipe them away in silence.

‘I’ll rest now,’ he says. ‘I am glad to have seen such a thing. Tell them to get me into bed, and I will sleep.’

His servants come in, they make him comfortable in his bed, and then I kiss his forehead and leave him for the night. As it happens, that is the last time I see him, for he dies in his sleep that night, and so that was the last he saw of me: not a loving wife but a statue gilded by the setting sun.

They call me at about seven in the morning and I go to his room and see him, almost as I left him. He seems peacefully asleep, only the slow low tolling of the single bell in the tower of Rouen cathedral tells the household and the city that the great Lord John is dead. Then the women come to wash and lay out his body, and the master of the household starts to make the plans for his lying-in at the cathedral, the joiner orders wood and starts to make his coffin, and only Richard Woodville thinks to draw me aside, stunned and silent as I am, from all the bustle and work, and takes me back to my own rooms.

He orders breakfast for me, and hands me over to the ladies of my chamber, telling them to see that I eat, and then rest. The sempstress and the tailors will come at once to measure us up for our mourning clothes, the shoemaker will come to make black slippers for me. The glovemaker will produce dozens of pairs of black gloves for me to distribute to my household. They will order black cloth to swathe the way to the cathedral, and black capes for the one hundred poor men who will be hired to follow the coffin. My lord will be buried in Rouen cathedral and there will be a procession of lords and a great service to bid him farewell, and everything must be done exactly as he would have wished it, with dignity, in the English style.

I spend the day writing to everyone to announce the death of my husband. I write to my mother to tell her that I am a widow like her: my lord has died. I write to the King of England, to the Duke of Burgundy, to the Holy Roman Emperor, to the other kings, to Yolande of Aragon. The rest of the time I pray; I attend every service of the day in our private chapel, and in the meantime the monks at the Rouen cathedral will watch and pray all the hours of the day and night over my husband’s body, which is guarded with four knights at every point of the compass: a vigil which will only end with his funeral.

I wait in case God has some guidance for me, I wait on my knees in case I can come to some understanding that my husband has been called to his reward, that at last he has come to lands that he does not have to defend. But I hear and see nothing. Not even Melusina whispers a lament for him. I wonder if I have lost my Sight and that the brief glimpses I had in the mirror were the last views of another world that I will not see again.

In the evening, about the hour of sunset, Richard Woodville comes to my rooms and asks me will I dine in the great hall of the castle among the men and women of our household, or will I be served alone, in my rooms?

I hesitate.

‘If you feel you can come to the hall it would cheer them to see you,’ he says. ‘There are many in deep grief for my lord, and they would like to see you among them, and of course your household will have to be broken up, and they would like to see you before they have to leave.’

‘The household broken up?’ I ask foolishly.

He nods. ‘Of course, my lady. A new regent for France will be appointed by the English court, and you will be sent to the court at England, for them to arrange a new marriage for you.’

I look at him quite aghast. ‘I cannot think of marrying again.’

I am not likely to find another husband who asks me for nothing more than that he can see me naked. Another husband is likely to be far more demanding, another husband will force himself on me, and another husband is almost certain to be wealthy and powerful and old. But the next old man will not let me study, he will not let me alone, he is certain to want a son and heir from me. He will buy me like a heifer to be put to the bull. I can squeal like a heifer in the meadow but he will mount me. ‘Truly, I cannot bear to be married again!’

His smile is bitter. ‘Both you and I will have to learn to serve a new master,’ he says. ‘Alas for us.’

I am silent, and then I say, ‘I will go to the hall for dinner if you think everyone would like it?’

‘They would,’ he says. ‘Can you walk in on your own?’

I nod. My ladies arrange themselves behind me and Richard walks before me to the double doors of the great hall. The noisy chatter behind the doors is quieter than usual: this is a house of mourning. The guards throw the doors open and I go in. At once, all the talk stops, and there is a sudden hush, then there is a rumble and a clatter as every man rises to his feet, pushing back benches and stools, and every man pulls off his hat and stands bareheaded as I go by, the hundreds and hundreds of them, showing respect to me as the duke’s young widow, showing their love to him who has gone, and their sorrow at their loss and mine. I walk through them and I hear them whispering ‘God bless you, my lady’ in a low mutter as I go by, all the way to the dais at the top of the hall, and I stand behind the high table, alone.

‘I thank you for your kind wishes,’ I say to them, my voice ringing like a flute in the big-raftered hall. ‘My lord duke is dead and we all feel the loss of him. You will all be paid your wages for another month and I will recommend you to the new regent of France as good and trustworthy servants. God bless my lord the duke, and God save the king.’

‘God bless my lord the duke, and God save the king!’

‘That was well done,’ Woodville says to me as we walk back to my private rooms. ‘Especially the wages. And you will be able to pay them. My lord was a good master, there is enough in the treasury to pay the wages and even some pensions for the older men. You yourself will be a very wealthy woman.’

I pause in a little window bay and look out over the darkened town. An oval three-quarter moon is rising, warm yellow in colour in the deep indigo sky. I should be planting herbs that need a waxing moon at Penshurst; but then I realise that I will never see Penshurst again. ‘And what will happen to you?’ I ask.

He shrugs. ‘I will go back to Calais and then, when the new captain is appointed, I will go home to England. I will find a master that I can respect, offer him my service. Perhaps I will come back to France in an expedition, or if the king does make peace with the Armagnacs, then perhaps I will serve the king at the English court. Perhaps I will go to the Holy Land and become a crusader.’

‘But I won’t see you,’ I say, as the thought suddenly strikes me. ‘You won’t be in my household. I don’t even know where I will live, and you could go anywhere. We won’t be together any more.’ I look at him as the thought comes home to me. ‘We won’t see each other any more.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘This will be where we part. Perhaps we will never see each other again.’

I gasp. The thought that I will never see him again is so momentous that I cannot grasp it. I give a shaky laugh. ‘It doesn’t seem possible. I see you every day, I am so accustomed . . . You are always here, I have walked with you, or ridden with you, or been with you, every day for – what – more than two years? – ever since my wedding day. I am used to you . . . ’ I break off for fear of sounding weak. ‘What I am really thinking is: who will look after Merry? Who will keep her safe?’

‘Your new husband?’ he suggests.

‘I don’t know, I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine you not being here. And Merry . . . ’

‘What about Merry?’

‘She doesn’t like strange men,’ I say foolishly. ‘She only likes you.’

‘My lady . . . ’

I fall silent at the intensity of his tone. ‘Yes?’

He takes my hand and tucks it under his elbow and walks me down the gallery. To any of my ladies, seated at the far end by the fire, it looks as if we are walking together, planning the next few days, as we have always walked together, as we have always talked together, constant companions: the duchess and her faithful knight. But this time he keeps his hand on mine and his fingers are burning as if he has a fever. This time his head is turned so close to me that if I looked up at him our lips would brush. I walk with my head averted. I must not look up at him so that our lips brush.

‘I cannot know what the future will bring us,’ he says in a rapid undertone. ‘I cannot know where you will be given in marriage, nor what life might hold for me. But I can’t let you go without telling you – without telling you at least once – that I love you.’

I snatch a breath at the words. ‘Woodville . . . ’

‘I can offer you nothing, I am next to nothing, and you are the greatest lady in France. But I wanted you to know, I love you and I want you, and I have done since the day I first saw you.’

‘I should . . . ’