We lay one night at the bishop’s palace but Lady Margaret would not stay longer. She said it held too many memories of Lord Edmund and I understood her wish to get away, especially as, apart from the wrenched shoulder and a few bruises, she had been lucky – or else she had divine protection. When she rose the following morning her first action was to go to the palace chapel and thank St Margaret for preserving her from serious injury. The palace servants had dried our outer garments and the gale had blown itself out. Maredudd rode over from Pembroke on a pillion saddle and she travelled back behind him at a sedate pace. On the road we met Lord Jasper coming to check on her condition but once again she averted her gaze and answered him only in monosyllables.

The earl turned his horse to ride beside me, his distress at Lady Margaret’s snub very evident. ‘Do you think she will ever forgive me, Jane?’ he murmured. ‘I did not want wardship of Harri but the king and the queen both insisted.’

I sympathized but did not say so. From what I had heard of Queen Marguerite’s determined grasp on power, I suspected Harri’s custody had been her idea. If he was reared far away in Pembroke, his drop of royal blood would be forgotten and the court would regard her own small boy as the uncontested heir to the succession.

‘Surely her resentment will pass, given time,’ Jasper persisted, his gaze fixed on Lady Margaret’s back.

‘I would not bank on it,’ I said, sensing the fierce anger and distress somehow radiating from her rigid shoulder blades.

When, later in the month, I agreed to remain in charge of Harri’s nursery at Pembroke I begged Jasper not to tell Margaret until the last minute – but inevitably she guessed and demanded to be allowed to take Harri to spend Christmas at her sister Edith’s home near St David’s. She also asked Edith and Geoffrey Pole to escort her to her wedding. She now wished neither Lord Jasper nor me to attend it. Christmas at Pembroke was a melancholy feast and two days after our unhappy festivities we rode to collect Harri from his mother, before she set out for Maxstoke and her marriage.

Perhaps Edith had talked her sister round because at least Lady Margaret’s anger towards me had softened when we met at Haverford Castle, of which Geoffrey Pole was deputy constable. He took Lord Jasper on a tour of the defences while Lady Margaret, Edith and I played with Harri and watched him eat some curds and honey to fortify him for the onward journey.