By the time Jane returned, having settled her charge in his cot, no doubt with a nursemaid to rock him to sleep, Maredudd had ushered in a procession of kitchen varlets with all the elements of a substantial evening meal, relieved me of my breastplate and heavy brigandine and provided a clean doublet in which to take my ease. Meanwhile Lewys and I had quaffed another cup of wine and I had picked his brains for local political developments. In his wanderings from house to house, reciting his poems and filling his purse and belly, he seemed able to absorb an abundance of useful information and, encouraged by the knowledge that he had written a praise-song to Edmund, I began to consider luring him onto my confidential payroll. However, along with his talent as a bard, I knew Lewys had also acquired a reputation for womanizing and before I did so I needed to discover if there was more to his relationship with Jane Hywel than getting a little help with translation.

19

Jane

Pembroke Castle

LORD JASPER SAT WITH Harri on the floor of the nursery building a castle with shaped wooden bricks. The little boy was watching him patiently, blue eyes glued to the growing pile, waiting for his uncle to give him a sign. The earl smiled and slipped the last brick onto the battlements. ‘There you are, Harri, now you can attack!’

With a shout his nephew swept his arm across the castle and sent its walls tumbling to the ground. ‘Ha! Ha!’ he cried triumphantly, his four baby front teeth bared in a delighted grin.

‘Yes, Harri, good boy, you knocked it down!’ Jasper looked at me and winked. ‘If only it were so easy in real life,’ he remarked, beginning to gather up the scattered bricks to start again. ‘You seem very friendly with Lewys, Jane. Are you?’

I bent to collect a wayward brick from under my chair, nonplussed.

‘Well, are you going to tell me?’

‘Tell you what, my lord?’

‘How friendly you are with Lewys Glyn Cothi?’ He began to build a new wall.

I turned the wooden brick in my fingers, feeling its smooth surfaces. It was shaped for the battlements, in a line of crenellations. The set had been made from scrap oak by one of the carpenters who had worked on the panelling in the hall and painted red, green and blue with vegetable dyes that had no poisons in them. Margaret had been delighted when Jasper presented them to Harri, but that was before she knew Jasper had custody of her son. I resented Lord Jasper’s inquisition but at length I said, ‘He has been to Pembroke a few times on his travels.’

‘A few times? As far as I know he has only been twice.’