It has to be confessed that there are many outlandish and eccentric services patrons require from their poets. This is even after setting aside salacious suggestions, for which I have a number of well rehearsed answers, plus the support of a couple of reliably louche poets of a younger generation whom I can fall back on. Still one of the more intriguing came from the Lady Doleria. She was a pleasant lady, widowed in early middle age, and she divided her time between her children and the company of friends. Had she wanted one, she could even have had a perfectly good feud as well, in that her neighbour, Madam Erdwill, was intent on having one with her.

Unlike many of these feuds, everybody was perfectly clear how, when and even why, it began. Lady Doleria married her merchant husband whilst she was very young. Over-confident he purchased a fine…