I took a deep breath to steady my beating heart. ‘If I were Lady Margaret arriving here I think I would be terrified.’

‘Yes but you are a farm-girl and she is a countess; she has lived in castles and palaces all her life.’

I had thought that gaining admittance to the castle would be a slow process but as squire to the earl Maredudd’s face was familiar to the guards and our business easily stated. We trotted on past the high barbican wall, through the echoing tunnel under the gatehouse with its two open gates and raised portcullises, and into the vast Outer Ward. My brother had told me the castle was presently very quiet but the noise and bustle we found inside was greater than any I had ever experienced and the maze of buildings ranged against the enclosing walls of the ward beyond made me think how quickly I would become lost if I were left alone here. Later I discovered that each structure gave out clues to its identity, a wheeze of bellows and clang of hammer, the barking of dogs and the whinny of horses, the tantalizing smell of bread and the warm whiff of malted grain. On the far side of the ward I could see vegetable and herb gardens laid out in the shelter of a large, square tower. Turning left from the gatehouse we skirted a substantial, newly erected stone house, roofed in slate and partly encased in wooden scaffolding. Intricate decorative carving around its imposing entrance and some elaborate gargoyle gutter-spouts indicated a dwelling of some distinction.

‘What is it?’ I asked Maredudd.

‘Lord Jasper’s new mansion,’ he replied. ‘He says the Solar Tower has too many echoes and draughts. This house even has a special room with a stone tub for bathing. He wanted to be living in it by Christmas but that is not going to happen now.’

Beyond this new building lay a long range of stables where we finally dismounted and handed our tired horses to a groom. Then Maredudd led the way to a lofty battlemented dividing wall and through another huge gatehouse as if we were entering a castle within a castle.

‘This is the original stronghold,’ Maredudd explained, ‘constructed by the Normans to keep the troublesome Welsh out of their lives. They are still trying to do that but we are testament to the fact that they have not succeeded.’ He shot me a triumphant grin. ‘Because here we are!’

The same cold sea-breeze that had plagued the first part of our journey from Abermaw now struck again, swirling about a vast, round tower-keep and howling through a tunnel where a curved stone staircase led upwards.

‘This is the old keep,’ my brotherly guide revealed. ‘It was built by the famous knight Sir William Marshall when he was Earl of Pembroke. The base is twenty feet thick.’