The smell of roasted meat and steaming puddings drew them to the board. Pages arrived with bowls of warm water and we washed our hands, the rush of blood subsiding from my cheeks as I wielded a crisp white napkin, meantime distracting my tormentors with descriptions of the various covers that were available to us for sport on the following day. But as the meal progressed I could not entirely erase their teasing comments from my mind. A blind mole. A lame goose. Was that me? Often I longed for the softness of a woman and the thrill of a warm embrace, but I still woke in the night from dreams of Margaret bent low over her galloping palfrey’s neck, skirts flying and a smile of exaltation on her Madonna face. Could Jane – could any woman – match that vision?

The question lingered with me after the dishes were emptied and the wine jugs ran dry and four tipsy comrades bade each other goodnight, swaying from the hall, lit to their quarters by yawning servants. My own duty squire helped me out of my doublet and hose, showed me the piss pot and left me to get myself into bed.

I seemed hardly to have laid my head on the pillow when I was woken by a thunderous rapping on the chamber door. ‘Lord Japer, Lord Jasper, come quickly! It is Harri. He has fallen from his cot and I cannot rouse him.’ Jane’s voice was shrill with panic. I fought to clear the fog of sleep and wine, rolled from my bed, snatched up my chamber robe and staggered to the door. When I pulled it open Jane stood wild-eyed, on the other side, clad only in her chemise. Despite her knocking and shouting, the young squire who had been sleeping in the anteroom had not stirred. Small use he was as a guard, I thought.

‘I am sorry to wake you, my lord, but I did not know what else to do.’ Jane’s tangled brown hair was tumbling around her chalk-white face. ‘Please come to Harri. I think he is dead!’

She held a lantern in a violently shaking hand and immediately turned to retrace her steps. I followed the swinging light, half running through the solar and up the spiral stair to the nursery. Harri was lying on the rush floor in a crumpled heap, next to the new cot-bed he had been so excited to move into only a few days before. One of the moveable side-rails was still in place but the higher rail, the one that should have stopped him falling out, was missing from its slots, partly visible on the floor beneath his out-flung body. I threw myself down beside him, putting my ear to his face. Relief flooded through me when I heard the faint sound of snuffling breaths.