I was awed by her self-confidence. It was hard to find any trace of the desperate girl I had found on my arrival at Pembroke and nursed through a traumatic childbed.

The following day Harri was eager to show his mother his skill with arms and she was keen to meet his tutors so I found it easy to slip away to the letter drop in the wall of the moat. The note I found there was brief and enticing.

‘The swift has landed.’

Jasper’s personal emblem was a golden martlet, or swift. Clearly the wandering outlaw had made port and was on his way even now to the pre-arranged meeting place. I ached to know where it was and felt as if, had I known it, I would already be riding at a gallop to meet him.

Only after I had shown the note to Lady Margaret did I remember having to wait to retrieve it until after someone passing by on the other side of the moat had waved at me. It was the bard, Lewys Glyn Cothi.

32

Jasper

St Aedan’s Church, Bettws Newydd

I HAD KNELT WHERE my brother had knelt when he made his sacred oath to St Aedan ten years before. Edmund had never confided the gist of his vow but he had not long discovered that Margaret was expecting a child and so I had always assumed it was a prayer for a son, with some sort of promise attached. An heir would secure his Richmond title and estates and it was a bitter circumstance that he never knew the son that was born to him, nor lived to defend the Richmond estates against theft by a usurper king. Ours had been an erratic relationship in our adult years but I nevertheless felt Edmund’s absence acutely. I had welcomed the opportunity to confess deep regret for his passing and to pray for his soul.

The church was a Christian shrine, dedicated to St Aedan, a travelling preacher who had converted heathen Celts and performed miracles all over South Wales a thousand years ago.

‘What kind of miracles?’ Evan had wanted to know. At first he would not enter the little church but had halted further up the hillside on which it nestled in its yard, to look out above the mist, a thin mist that swirled and gave the impression of ghosts rising from the ancient graves.

I shot the squire an impatient glance. ‘You are more Welsh than I, Evan, you tell me.’

He shrugged and grinned back. ‘I am probably one of the heathen Celts he missed, my lord. Is this where we are meeting the ladies? What a spooky place!’