Davvy had begged a fishing-net from one of the monks and learned how to make a cord snare-trap to catch hares. He also discovered how to make fire with two sticks and some dry grass and for several days I thought we were doing well as travellers. Then, while sitting by our fire after dusk, two men carrying sickles suddenly emerged from the shadows to challenge us as vagrants. Before long we were being marched to the nearby castle, which loomed over us, dark and menacing against the night sky; all the more so when we were told this was the lordship of Sir Roger Vaughan.

I had barely time to recall that this was the man who had led Owen Tudor to his execution before we were pushed through the gatehouse and then through an iron-hinged oak door straight into the castle’s hall, where a dozen men and women sat at their supper. We were lined up before a large grey-haired man who tore the last shred of meat from a mutton bone before hurling it to the two hounds waiting expectantly at his back. Had my own teeth not been chattering with fear I might have been impressed at the strength of his, considering his years. His voice was also apparently unaffected by age.

‘What have we here, Meurig?’ he bellowed. ‘Some entertainment for us?’

‘Vagrants, sir,’ began the chief of our captors. ‘Lit a fire in the hayfield. Danger to your second crop.’

‘It was not!’ cried Davy. ‘It was on the packed mud near the stream. I made sure it was safe.’

‘Silence!’ shouted the lord. ‘I will not be shouted at by a filthy vagrant in my own hall. Shut his gob, Sim.’

I swung round to see the second guard clamp his spare hand over Davy’s mouth. The boy’s eyes rolled in anger, which turned to alarm as the sickle blade flashed before them.

‘I do not wish to deal with this now, Meurig.’ The grey-haired man waved his hand dismissively. ‘Take them away and lock them in the cellar. I will come down there when I have finished my supper.’

My arm was grabbed and I was being pulled away when a familiar voice spoke up from the far end of the trestle. ‘Sir Roger, I know these people. They are not vagrants.’ It was Lewys Glyn Cothi.

I did not know whether to rejoice at seeing a friend or tremble at the possibility that he might expose me as Jasper’s mistress. I could not bear to think what Sir Roger Vaughan would choose to do with me if he discovered that.

The knight raised his eyebrows at Lewys and grinned. ‘Great Heaven! Not another of your doxys, Lewys?’