THE SUCCESS OF MY Easter festival meant I now had a substantial alliance of tenants and landholders on whom I could rely for advice, assistance and military support. What is more I had won important friends for the Lancastrian throne. However, with the Duke of York and his allies still controlling most of the crucial March lordships between England and Wales, there remained an awkward swathe of hostile territory separating us from the Lancastrian heartland and I did not doubt that sooner or later I would be called on to do something about it.

When most of the Welsh guests had ridden off home and the Great Hall had become an echoing void, I was able to relax over dinner in the mansion with my father, Lewys Glyn Cothi, and Thomas ap Gruffydd, the ‘old rascal’s’ son who remained as a guest in the castle. I wished to quiz him about the ever-present threat from his aggressive neighbour William Herbert of Raglan, the Duke of York’s main man in South Wales. Before sitting down at table the four of us gathered around the hearth in the oak-panelled hall, beneath the painted ceiling depicting the heraldic symbols of my extended family.

Thomas was gazing upwards, in imminent danger of tipping his cup of wine over the expensive Turkish hearthrug. ‘No mistaking whose side you are on, is there, Lord Jasper,’ he observed.

I reached out to straighten his cup for him. ‘I will not be on your side, my friend, if you tip wine over my expensive Ottoman import.’

‘We are not used to treading on wool this side of Offa’s Dyke, Jasper,’ my father remarked, his foot tapping the thick pile of the carpet. ‘Perhaps you should hang it on the wall.’

Thomas took a large gulp from the offending cup, lowering the risk of a spill, then immediately raised it again in making me an effusive bow. ‘Pray accept my humble apologies, my lord. The decor of this hall is such a feast for the eyes it is hard to know whether to look up or down. You have shown us all how to live like lords.’

Thomas was the youngest of Gruffydd’s sons, born to his third wife some twenty years after the eldest, Owain had been born to his first. Of about my age, Thomas was dark haired, broad-shouldered and stocky, a fine archer and swordsman and a competent jouster. Like many Welshmen he spilled words rather than spoke them, often without giving sufficient thought to their order and meaning, but I could easily forgive him this because of his willingness to stand up for his friends and fight as hard for their causes as for his own. I knew he would be among the first I would look to for support in time of need.

‘My pleasure in it so far has mostly been to provide a comfortable refuge for my bereaved sister-in-law until her re-marriage earlier this year,’ I said.