Thomas finds Dafydd in the barn playing dice with Owen and two of the Johns. He comes reluctantly, having been enjoying a winning streak, but is happy to be reminded of home.

‘Lovely place it is,’ he says, when he is given a drink and sits with them at the board. ‘Always warm, as if the seawater’s heated or something.’

Sir John looks at him sceptically.

‘Did you serve Lord Cornford in his household?’

Dafydd scratches his head.

‘Not likely,’ he says. Certainly, in his sleeveless jerkin and shaggy hair, he looks too wild to be invited inside.

‘D’you remember Lord Cornford’s daughter?’

‘Margaret? Never saw her. Heard all about her, though. Always ill, wasn’t she? Gwen worked in the castle, used to have to boil her water and so on.’

‘Gwen?’

‘My sister.’

‘Cornford had a castle in Wales?’ Richard asks.

‘No,’ Dafydd says as if Richard is a simpleton. ‘Cornford had a hall, up in the hills, didn’t he? Well, it is his wife’s, as a matter of fact. But whenever Cornford was away he moved his household into the castle, in Kidwelly, for safety’s sake, like. Gwen worked for the Dwnns.’

Sir John is at a loss.

‘What are the Dwnns?’ he asks.

‘The Dwnns? You don’t know the Dwnns? The Dwnns live in Penallt. Well, that’s their house. Old John Dwnn is constable of the castle. Proper castle, that one. Kidwelly. Towers and a drawbridge and everything.’

‘And that’s where Margaret Cornford would be?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that. She was when I left, at any rate.’

They all stare at him. Thomas almost laughs, so simple is the solution to their problem of Margaret Cornford’s whereabouts.

‘What?’ he asks.

Sir John offers him another drink.

‘So how far is this place, Kidwelly, from here?’ Richard asks after a moment.

Dafydd looks into his drink for a moment, then looks up.

‘I don’t know,’ he says.

‘Well, where is it?’

‘On the sea. Near Carmarthen.’

Everyone looks blank. None of them have heard of Carmarthen.

‘Where’s that?’

Dafydd opens his mouth to say something. He thinks, then closes it again. He looks stricken.

‘Dear God,’ he says to himself. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know where it is. I don’t even know how to get home.’

‘It’s all right, Dafydd,’ Richard says. ‘Someone’ll know. Someone in an inn. A friar perhaps.’

Dafydd nods dumbly and gets to his feet.

‘I’ll just go and find Owen,’ he says, and he stumbles out, leaving the hall door open. Thomas closes it and comes to sit down again.

‘We can’t just send those two to look for her, can we?’ Sir John asks. ‘Can we?’

Richard actually laughs.

‘Those two? They’d never find her, and if they did, they wouldn’t make it back here to tell us they had.’