Over the next few days Raglan Castle changed from a nobleman’s palace into a military headquarters, gradually filling with the knights, troops, heralds, craftsmen, artillery, oxen, horses, carts and the mass of supplies needed to support a campaign army. Men marched in from all directions, pitched their tents or were allocated lodgings, and the waggons, guns, animals and fodder were marshalled in the outer baileys under the walls of the new towers. Pennants and banners bearing the arms of scores of Marcher families flew from tents and turrets and the great blue and red Herbert battle standard with its three rampant white lions was hauled down from its place of honour over the dais in the Great Hall and raised at the top of the Great Tower.

Any knights and foot soldiers approaching the castle for the first time must have marvelled at the size and splendour of the magnificent fortress that William Herbert had built over the last eight years on the skeleton of his father’s more modest stronghold. The enormous gatehouse was particularly impressive, with its soaring twin towers and alongside it, the mighty Treasury Tower. As well as providing a demonstration of his rapid rise to pre-eminence in South Wales, Raglan Castle had also become the seat of justice and the focus of authority in this hitherto unruly part of King Edward’s realm.

From the wall-walk at the top of the Grand Stair I watched with the younger children as the new earl’s retinue gathered in the court below. His phalanx of household knights was resplendent in armour, over which they wore uniform red and blue tunics bearing the Herbert white lion badge, their horses covered in matching heraldic trappings. Behind them their liveried squires lined up, bearing their knights’ shields and helmets, and at the rear, on their smaller ponies, came Walter and Harri mounted either side of their minder, Richard Corbet, a sturdy-looking young man on a bay cob laden with bulky saddlebags. I thought he looked as if the task he had been allocated was not much to his liking but he did smile at Harri when the boy spoke to him, although I could not hear their exchange.

‘My lord father says that the Earl of Warwick is leading the rebels,’ said Maud. ‘But I thought he was a Yorkist. Why would he be fighting us, Mistress Jane?’

I knew the answer to that from Jasper’s letters but I was not going to reveal my knowledge. ‘The motives of lords are a mystery to me, Maud,’ I replied, ‘you should ask your tutor.’