Jane was keen to go to our residence in Stepney Green but her question was a fair one. The thoroughfares of London had been relatively free of soldiers, due to the Mayor’s restrictive order on the number of retainers incoming nobles were permitted to bring through the gates. But when we exited the city we found large noisy groups of men-at-arms gathered around the taverns at Whitechapel, and there were a number of encampments visible on the wasteland beyond. Jane and little Sian were clearly made nervous by this, being used to living within the relative safety of castle walls or a gated town like Tenby but I noticed that Elin appeared enamoured of the busy road with its procession of traders’ carts returning from the London markets to their farms and villages in the flatlands alongside the Thames estuary. She gaily returned the wave aimed at her by a grinning youth in a white hood who was driving one of them, only to be sharply reprimanded by her anxious mother and told to keep her eyes focussed between the ears of her horse, a feat she managed for less than the length of an Ave.

I tried to reassure Jane. ‘The house is solidly built and set in a large garden surrounded by high walls. And there are no taverns on the green to attract rogues or vagrants – only market stalls and one very fashionable inn, catering for wealthy travellers. Some of the surrounding houses belong to captains of the ships you can see moored in the docks over there.’ I pointed to a forest of masts visible on the river as we traversed the open ground beyond the Mile End crossroads. ‘Others are inhabited by rich merchants, who ship their goods in and out on those very ships. These are good, hard-working families who have made their money buying and selling in the Baltic and Flanders. Our closest neighbours are a mercer’s family called Gardiner. They trade in luxury fabrics and trimmings.’

Jane gave me a doubtful smile. ‘Well, I will be glad to get there anyway. It has been a long journey.’

The house was called Le Garlek, a fanciful notion of the master grocer who had been its first occupant. Geoffrey Pole had arranged the exchange of deeds from Thomas Vaughan, a lawyer with whom I had previously shared the property and who had served on my Pembroke council until I had been attainted; then he had chosen to serve William Herbert and swear allegiance to Edward of York. In the present circumstances he and his family had made a shrewd exit from the London area and taken refuge in one of his properties in the Welsh March, where he doubtless hoped to evade Lancastrian retribution.