The anger raging inside me sustained me through the difficult task of rounding up the girls and Davy and encouraging them to wrap their most precious and necessary possessions in a blanket and knot the corners so that they could each carry their own. I had no compunction in taking the blankets, considering it a challenge to the woman I had until so recently thought of as compassionate.

‘But where are we going and why can I not say goodbye to Harri?’ Davy asked fretfully. ‘He will come out of his Latin lesson and look for me. We always go to dinner together.’

‘We would all like to say goodbye to Harri, Davy, but the armed man outside the chamber door will not let us near him,’ I replied. ‘He and several others are ready this moment to escort us out of the castle.’

‘I do not understand,’ wailed Elin, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘What have we done?’

‘None of us has done anything. Everything has changed as a result of Lord Herbert’s death and we have to leave. That is all.’

‘But why is Harri not coming with us?’ Even Sian had found her voice to protest. ‘He is one of us – our family!’

‘You all know that Harri was Lord Herbert’s ward. The king is in charge of him now. Perhaps he will go to his mother. He would like that.’ I wanted at all costs to avoid telling them the bitter truth, that with King Edward a captive and the Earl of Warwick playing his own despotic game, Harri’s future was possibly even more uncertain than ours.

I thought of packing paper, pens and ink so that I could write to Lady Margaret but how would I get a letter to her now? She could never have dreamed that Harri’s guardian would take her precious son to a battle, only to lose it along with his head. I had never imagined that my small deception at the start of our life with the Herberts would result in being cast out into enemy territory, miles away from friends or family. As we hauled our bundles down the steps from Weobley Castle it felt as if we were walking into a nightmare.

36

Jane

The Welsh March

FROM RAGLAN IT HAD taken us two days to ride to Weobley but I had no idea how long it would take to walk to safety, if such a thing existed for a woman and three children alone in a hostile world. In the village outside the castle we were already unwelcome strangers. Fists were shaken at us, insults shouted and doors slammed on every side as the street emptied of people. It was as if we had F for felon stamped on our foreheads and it made me suspect that during the short time it had taken to pack our bundles Lady Herbert had had a cryer declare us outcasts.