At the end of the morning’s joust-training Lord Herbert joined the spectators. There had been a call to arms to quell an uprising in Yorkshire and meanwhile another rebel force landed in Kent. Herbert along with the Earl of Devon had been ordered to intercept it. ‘I do not expect it to be a difficult task,’ he told the two boys. ‘So I have decided to take you both with me in my retinue to give you experience of a campaign. You will be assigned to a minder, who will tell you what is going on at every stage and I want you to pay strict attention to everything he says and does. The muster will take place here at Raglan and we will march east at the start of next week. Meanwhile you will each be fitted with body armour. The Master at Arms will call you to the armoury tomorrow. Is that understood?’

Predictably the boys responded enthusiastically in the affirmative but as they passed by on the way to the stables I heard Walter remark to Harri, ‘My lord father is only taking you in order to keep an eye on you. He thinks your uncle might try to abduct you if he leaves you here.’

I did not hear Harri’s reply but I could imagine that he was thinking exactly as I was. Did Walter know something we did not – that perhaps among the so-called rebels who had landed in Kent was Jasper Tudor?

Since our meeting at St Aedan’s shrine I made a point of going to the moat-wall letter drop whenever the bard Lewys made a visit to Raglan and I was rarely disappointed. That was how I learned that Jasper had managed to land a French army at Harlech the previous year and led an attempt to recapture Denbigh Castle, which had fallen back into Yorkist hands. When his raid failed he had made a ‘slash and burn’ expedition through North Wales and caused untold damage to the forest and farms of much Yorkist territory. A furious Lord Herbert had marched to confront him but Jasper and his followers had managed to escape by sea, whereupon Herbert had turned his army and artillery against Harlech Castle, which was finally forced to surrender. For ridding his kingdom of this last Lancastrian stronghold, King Edward had rewarded his faithful Welsh Lieutenant by granting him Jasper’s earldom, an act both Harri and I found hard to stomach.

‘It sticks in my throat to call Lord Herbert by Uncle Jasper’s title,’ Harri admitted during a rare moment when we were alone together in the small chamber he now shared with Davy Owen.

‘And mine,’ I confessed. ‘But it would not be sensible to offend him, Harri. We have to bide our time until King Henry is restored and Lord Jasper gets his earldom back.’