Jasper had not yet had to make that choice, were he indeed to be offered anything other than the scaffold. By early April he had completed his reinforcement of the Welsh strongholds that still held for his brother and returned to Pembroke, depressed and exhausted. I was profoundly shocked at the change in him. He had ridden out of the castle at the head of his liveried retinue, magnificent in shining armour, his father beside him and their banners flying proudly overhead. A thousand men had left that day; many of those who outran the rout returned directly to their homes and buried their weapons, some now served in the loyal castle garrisons and only seven rode back under the gatehouse. I was startled to see Evan among them rather than Maredudd and amazed at the transformation in my younger brother, now a man when I had left him a boy.

Jasper had written to tell me about my father’s death in the battle but he had not wished to burden me with Hywel’s defection to York and Dai’s hostility at Tŷ Cerrig. These he confided at our first opportunity for private conversation, his tone subdued, the voice of a defeated man, which wrenched at my heart, even more than the anger and hurt I felt at my father’s betrayal.

Not for the first time I blessed the forethought that had included a bath chamber in the design for Jasper’s mansion. Servants had filled the stone tub almost to the brim with hot water and steam rose around us as I scrubbed the ingrained dirt from his skin, horrified by the sight of him, haggard and filthy and covered in insect bites after weeks living rough in barns and bothies. The clothes he had been wearing I had ordered consigned to the fire, hoping to prevent the bloodsuckers they sheltered migrating to the rest of us.

‘Is it likely you will be forced to flee Wales?’ I asked. ‘So far we have not received any attention from the Yorkists.’

‘Edward of York will soon turn his attention west now the king is fled. And believe me, Jane, I will be at the top of his reprisal list. For him my father’s head will not be enough revenge for the deaths of Wakefield.’