On the way back to the house I stopped at a baker’s shop and bought a mutton pie for our dinner, fresh bread and ale and some strawberries, picked fresh that morning and lying like polished rubies in a woven rush basket. I found a young courier in the hall, waiting for Jasper’s letters and recognized him as one of the brave messengers who still made rounds of the lordships and families of north and West Wales remaining loyal to King Henry.

‘Any news, Jenkin?’ I asked him. These couriers were our chief source of information from outside the earldom.

‘Carmarthen has opened its gates to Herbert’s men,’ he replied glumly. ‘I only just got out in time or I might be a prisoner now.’

I gave him a sympathetic glance before climbing the stairs. The present hostilities doubled the risks he faced and his narrow escape set my mind racing. If the Yorkists were in Carmarthen they were only thirty miles from Pembroke. The net was closing on Jasper.

Jenkin had delivered a letter from Lady Margaret, which Jasper showed me in our private chamber, and I could see from his expression that our idyll was coming to an end. It was little more than a note, ink-spattered and in her own handwriting, with no formal greeting.

Jasper,

Despite my pleading and my husband’s decision to take the royal pardon, the usurper Edward has dismissed my petition for custody of Henry and sold it to William Herbert for a thousand pounds, placing financial gain above a mother’s love. How can a common Welshman afford such a price? I am appalled that Henry thus falls into the hands of the man who ordered the death of his father. I imagine you know that William Herbert also has a royal commission to seize your lands and take Pembroke castle? I am torn between begging you to surrender without exposing my son to the dangers of a siege and urging you to blow the murderer’s head off with one of your cannons. If Henry is still in your hands, Jasper, and if you are in any position to steer his future, then I beg you to remember how precious he is to me, my only son, the only child I will ever have. I have no choice but to put my trust in you and although I cannot condone your relationship with her, if Jane Hywel is able to remain as his nurse and governess it would have my approval, and she should continue to write to me about my son’s activities and well being.

In great haste,

Margaret, Countess of Richmond

I folded the letter and handed it back to Jasper with a grimace but this was no time to be offended by her haughty tone.

‘She has given you a terrible choice to make, Jasper,’ I said. ‘What will you do?’