Perhaps it was to escape the fierce pain that knifed up from my knees when I knelt again that repressed images leapt to the fore to tease my carnal senses: Jane Hywel’s shy smile and dancing brown eyes, along with one or two of the more voluptuous court damsels and, entirely inappropriately, Queen Marguerite. So much for my contemplation of the vows we were due to make during the knighting ceremony. But one of the vows was to respect and protect women, so I tried to reflect what that was about. Many knights of my acquaintance seemed to think it applied only to a woman of their own nationality, class and affinity and every other woman was fair game for seduction or ravishment. Personally I did not consider them untouchable, as Henry seemed to, but nor did I consider any woman fair game, as Edmund unquestionably did; not that it seemed to make him any less popular among the livelier members of the queen’s entourage. If his own boastful accounts were to be believed his charm had won him many a conquest.

As the long night drew on I found inappropriate matters intruding more and more. I wondered if my father felt any pangs of jealousy that his sons had found favour with the king more readily than he had himself and speculated that Henry’s bias against Owen Tudor might arise from his monk-like abhorrence of the fleshly love that had brought us into the world. I also made several important decisions concerning the nature of my household and the administration of my estates but the future of my spiritual life was regrettably still unconsidered by the time the dawn light began to filter through the stained glass. However, at least I had managed to stay awake, unlike Edmund who had twice jerked from a doze on the verge of toppling off his smuggled cushion. Fortunately for him, the sentinel priest also succumbed to slumber on his misericord, as his snoring revealed, and Edmund took the opportunity to return the cushion to its prie dieu on his way to relieve himself. I too visited the latrine shortly after and found on returning that the chapel had begun to fill with our sponsors and those members of the court who had been invited to share the ceremony of our knighting, which would begin with a solemn Mass.

While the choir sang a plangent introit we were at last invited to rise from our knees to take seats beside the altar, facing the congregation. From this viewpoint I spied our father tucked away at the back, his habitually cheerful expression replaced by one of mingled pride and awe.