Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Joanna Hickson 2016

Cover design: Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover illustration © Chris Cooper-Smith / Alamy

Joanna Hickson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008139704

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780008139711

Version: 2018-09-24

Dedication

For my gorgeous granddaughter Lyra Joanna Second of the Ashtons Conceived, gestated and delivered Along the same timeline as First of the Tudors

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Family Tree

Maps

Part One: Brothers to the King

Chapter 1: Jasper

Chapter 2: Jane

Chapter 3: Jasper

Chapter 4: Jasper

Chapter 5: Jasper

Part Two : The Tudor Earls

Chapter 6: Jane

Chapter 7: Jasper

Chapter 8: Jasper

Chapter 9: Jasper

Chapter 10: Jasper

Chapter 11: Jasper

Chapter 12: Jane

Chapter 13: Jane

Chapter 14: Jane

Chapter 15: Jasper

Chapter 16: Jane

Chapter 17: Jane

Chapter 18: Jasper

Chapter 19: Jane

Chapter 20: Jasper

Chapter 21: Jane

Chapter 22: Jane

Part Three: Hostilities

Chapter 23: Jasper

Chapter 24: Jasper

Chapter 25: Jasper

Chapter 26: Jane

Chapter 27: Jasper

Chapter 28: Jane

Chapter 29: Jasper

Part Four: Two Crowned Kings

Chapter 30: Jane

Chapter 31: Jane

Chapter 32: Jasper

Chapter 33: Jasper

Chapter 34: Jane

Chapter 35: Jane

Chapter 36: Jane

Chapter 37: Jasper

Chapter 38: Jasper

Chapter 39: Jasper

Part Five: The Return

Chapter 40: Jane

Chapter 41: Jasper

Chapter 42: Jasper

Chapter 43: Jasper

Chapter 44: Jane

Chapter 45: Jasper

Chapter 46: Jane

Chapter 47: Jasper

Glossary

Welsh Words and Names

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading Tudor Trilogy

About the Author

Also by Joanna Hickson

About the Publisher

Family Tree

Maps

PART ONE
Brothers to the King
1451–1453

1
Jasper

Westminster Palace & London

FLASHES OF IRIDESCENCE GLEAMED like fireflies in the gloom of the small tower chamber. I stared at the river of fabric as it settled in graceful waves across the bed. It was the intense blue of a noon sky, yet it glittered with the gold of midnight stars. ‘Do you think she will like it?’ Edmund asked.

I took a deep breath, hesitating to prick my brother’s bubble. ‘Yes – and no,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ Indignation raised the timbre of his voice. ‘Jesu Jas, a gown fashioned of such fabric would make any female feel like a queen!’

My hackles rose. I hated Edmund calling me Jas and had told him so on numerous occasions, yet still he persisted. It was a boyhood nickname and we were no longer boys but squires in the service of the king, soon to become knights. My name was Jasper. I had stopped calling him Ed on the day we came to court.

‘But she is not a queen and there are sumptuary laws. Our sister could be royally fined for wearing a gown made from such fabric. You know its use is restricted to royalty, archbishops and the effigies of saints.’

I touched the cloth, admiring its shimmer as the slight movement stirred it into life; it was soft and sinuous under my fingers. I imagined the deft fingers that had wound the fine gold wire around the warp fibres with infinite skill and patience. Edmund was right; wearing it would make anyone feel illustrious. Cloth of gold! Just how had Edmund come up with the huge price it commanded?

Edmund drew himself up to his six-foot height. ‘The daughter of a queen may wear what she likes. They would not dare to fine her.’

Exasperated, I flicked the fabric so that it rippled, like a sudden flurry on a calm lake. ‘Your head is in the clouds, brother. Come back to earth. Our sister lives in Tun Lane, London. Nobody knows what we know. In her world she is not Margaret, just Meg, and she is about to marry the man of her choice who is not a prince but a lawyer. She will be a wife and, God willing, a mother. She is happy, with a warm home and enough money for her needs. Whatever you dream for your own future, do not wish it on her.’

Irritably Edmund twitched the length of fabric into his arms, gathering it in like a shield against reality. ‘I know what she is – what she has chosen to remain – but she is still the daughter of a queen, the granddaughter of a king, and I will give her the honour of royal raiment, even if she never wears it.’

I shrugged. ‘So be it but you have wasted your money. And do not dare to reveal her true birth by so much as a whisper at the wedding or you will win Mette’s enduring wrath – and mine too for that matter.’

My brother paused in his careful folding of the cloth-of-gold. ‘Mette – is she still alive then?’

Unlike me, Edmund no longer went to The House of the Vine in Tun Lane where our sister had lived since the death of our royal mother fourteen years ago. In recent years he had acquired what I considered an exaggerated sense of rank and the refuse-strewn back streets of London offended him.

‘Of course she is alive. You know she is. She always asks after you, as does our sister.’ Mette was Meg’s foster mother, the faithful servant into whose care our own mother had entrusted her little daughter on her deathbed, hoping she might enjoy the happy childhood she herself had not known. Our mother was one of many children of the sixth King Charles of France and the ravages of the king’s madness had had consequences for them all in the fierce struggle for power that resulted. Now Meg was to marry her foster brother William, who had recently qualified as a lawyer at the Middle Temple. A spring wedding at St Mildred’s church.

‘And what do you tell them?’ Edmund asked as he laid the cloth on top of his chest, which stood next to mine against the wall in our chamber in one of the many towers of Westminster Palace.

‘I tell them you are well. That is all.’

Edmund’s chest was filled with apparel of every kind. I had wondered before how he managed to afford such finery since he received the same royal pension as I did. I presumed he must be winning at dice or frequenting the moneylenders of Lombard Street, like many of our fellow squires. I hated debt and could do without fashionable clothes, preferring to buy harness and armour if I had any spare funds but I did quite envy the dashing figure Edmund cut about the court.

‘You are coming to the wedding, are you not?’ I added. My query contained a note of anxiety for Edmund could be unreliable.

‘Of course I am coming. I would not miss a feast.’ A smile revealing perfect teeth lit his dark features – another advantage he enjoyed, my own smile being marred by a chipped front tooth, the result of an unhappy collision in a joust. ‘What are you giving her?’

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. A tendency to blush was one of the drawbacks of having red hair and a fresh complexion. There was no reason to feel ashamed of my gift, yet I knew Edmund would think it niggardly. ‘A hogshead of ale.’

‘Ale?’ He was incredulous. ‘You are giving them ale?’

‘Yes, the traditional Bride Ale, strongly brewed and flavoured with herbs and honey, for all the guests to drink their health.’

Edmund grimaced and flicked back his glossy hair. ‘Oh well, I daresay there will be wine as well. After all, their name is Vintner. There are plenty of wine merchants in the family.’

* * *

Meg and William Vintner were married at St Mildred’s church in the London ward known as the Vintry, the same church that had witnessed the nuptials of his parents more than twenty years before. As the bride and groom stood in the porch making their vows, I studied the face of the woman who had brought them both up. Mistress Guillaumette Vintner, known to close friends and family as Mette, was now a matron of sixty-three years, stout and wrinkled in her wimple and veil to which, on formal occasions such as this, she added a widow’s barbe to mark her lone status since the death of her husband Geoffrey several years before. They had enjoyed seventeen happy years of marriage before he had succumbed to congestion of the lungs and once or twice I saw her gaze wander wistfully off towards the churchyard where he lay buried. The bridegroom, their only son William, had been what she called their ‘autumn leaf’, the last fruit of their fertility before the sap began its winter retreat, and no one could have been more delighted than Mette when the relationship between William and Meg changed from the affection of siblings to the attraction of adults. Probably Geoffrey had foreseen their future together too before he died. Somehow it seemed inevitable. Meg had been Queen Catherine’s secret bequest to the woman who had been her wet nurse as a babe and whom she had come to regard as a true mother.

Owen Tudor stood beside Mette. Father to Edmund, Meg and me and still handsome, with his silver hair and ruddy complexion, he had travelled from the Welsh March for the occasion. I knew he still practised regularly with sword and bow, which kept his physique that of a man ten years younger than the fifty he had lived and I admired him for it. Nor did he appear to have lost any of his ability to charm the ladies; more than once he caused Mette to blush and smile at his whispered comments as the short ceremony progressed. He also aimed a sly wink at Edmund and me, which I returned but which made Edmund hiss through his teeth. I think my brother would rather it had been our mother, Queen Catherine, who survived to attend the wedding, instead of the Welsh squire she had married in secret and to whom she had borne four children. Edmund was the eldest. Our younger brother Owen, the child born shortly before our mother passed away, was now a monk at Westminster Abbey and had taken another name.

Edmund’s wedding gift was wrapped in plain linen and draped over his shoulder. He was clad in a bright green damask doublet lined with scarlet, the sleeves dagged and his hose parti-coloured, one leg white and one yellow. The sight had attracted startled glances as we walked from the inn to the church.

‘Why do they stare like that?’ he had grumbled. ‘Have they never seen dagged sleeves?’

‘It might be your legs rather than your arms,’ I responded. ‘A short doublet and hosen like that are rarely seen in London streets.’

‘And no wonder,’ he declared, stepping gingerly over small piles of animal droppings and rotting vegetables. ‘I thank Saint Crispin that I thought to wear bottins rather than shoes.’

After the wedding Mass we walked in procession to Tun Lane, behind a group of beribboned minstrels who rivalled Edmund for colourful apparel and played merry tunes to set the mood. A spectacular array of wafers and pastries was laid out in the panelled hall at the House of the Vine and we were promised a feast of roasted meats when the banquet began. As I kissed the bride and groom and wished them well I noticed that my hogshead of Bride Ale stood in pride of place below the salt, ready for folk to fill their jugs at will. Meg thanked me warmly for it and while other guests gathered around the barrel Mette took me off to sit with her by the hearth. People were taking their places at the cloth-draped boards decked with spring garlands and their flowery scent vied with the smell of yeast and herbs as the ale flowed. Casting a scathing glance at the hogshead, Edmund wandered off to find some wine to drink.

‘That was a very thoughtful gift, Jasper,’ Mette said, ‘just what every wedding needs to get the conversation flowing. It is so good to see you – and Edmund too of course, although I barely recognized him. I must say his taste in clothes has taken an exotic turn!’

I laughed at that. ‘Still not mincing your words then, Mette? Of course at court Edmund’s style is hardly remarkable. It is mine which stands out as being rather bland.’

The old lady perused my best blue doublet with its grey coney trimming. ‘You both look as you choose,’ she commented tactfully. ‘And I hear the king favours sober dress. Are you still happy at court? Not swamped by the ceremony or daunted by the protocol?’

‘No, we have our duties and the company is fair. Plenty of other squires to spar with and the food is good.’ I grinned at her. ‘Better than at the abbey!’

After our mother’s death, our parents’ marriage became known and our father had been imprisoned for contravening the Marriage Act. Edmund and I had found refuge with the nuns at Barking Abbey on the Thames outside London, living among a group of young royal wards being educated there. Only when our half-brother, King Henry, reached his majority was our father released and we were brought into Henry’s own household, where tutors and instructors were engaged to prepare us for knighthood, a process which was now approaching its conclusion. It had been a change of lifestyle much appreciated by both of us.

Mette’s rheumy eyes crinkled. ‘Ha! I can imagine. And damsels? Does the queen keep a charm of goldfinches in her solar to delight the young men at court?’

‘She does, but none outshines her. It must be owned that Queen Marguerite is dramatically beautiful. They say that her dark eyes and skin are inherited from her Spanish grandmother.’

Mette sniffed and leaned forward to speak in a confidential whisper. ‘And that does not endear her to the English, especially as she has not yet produced an heir to the throne. As your mother knew only too well, in a queen beauty is no substitute for fertility. Besides Queen Marguerite is actually French, whom the English dislike even more than the Spanish, or the Welsh for that matter.’

‘Which is the very reason I am careful to avoid revealing my doubly unpopular origins.’ I shot her a wry look. ‘You are French, Mette. Have you found the English much prejudiced against you?’

Her smile was reassuring and rather nostalgic. ‘No, but I live very quietly now. Your lady mother did though – very much so; but then if she had not she would never have married Owen Tudor and retired into obscurity – and you would not have been born.’

‘Did I hear my name? Are you gossiping about me, Madame Mette?’ My father had approached the hearth and with his usual gallantry removed his rakishly feathered hat, bowed over Mette’s hand and kissed it.

She responded with a broad smile and a raised eyebrow. ‘From what I hear you do not need me to spread gossip about you, Master Tudor.’

My father looked affronted. ‘Now what are they saying in the city? None of it will be true of course.’

I pricked up my ears. Unless invited to attend the king, our father wisely avoided the royal palace these days, but when he was in London I often met him in one of the taverns clustered around Westminster Hall, where the courts of justice sat. Any rumour Mette had picked up would have come through her lawyer son William.

She gave Owen a stern look. ‘They say you are making the most of your new appointment as King’s Forester in North Wales; working your way through the poor widows of Denbighshire.’

Owen gave a loud hoot of laughter and his deep brown eyes, so like my brother Edmund’s, danced with delight. ‘I told you there would be little truth in what you heard. Is it likely that I would take up with any poor widow, Mette? I may have dallied with one or two rich ones – nothing more I assure you.’ With a polite display of reluctance he released her hand. ‘But you have no refreshment I see. At the risk of heaping more fuel on the flames of rumour, let me play your cupbearer and bring you a draught of the Bride Ale.’

Mette accepted his offer with alacrity and watched him cross the floor on his quest. Turning back to me she murmured confidentially, ‘After all, why should he not seek consolation where he can find it, Jasper? He is still a handsome man – but there is no woman alive that could ever fill the space in his heart left by your beautiful mother, so sadly taken from us, we all know that.’ As she spoke I spied a nostalgic tear escape her eye. She went on, ‘I see her face every time I look at Meg. I cannot think why the world does not recognize the truth of her birth. And yet I thank God it does not.’

I cast a glance at the bride and groom standing in the centre of the room, pledging their love in a shared cup. At twenty-one William Vintner was an affable and good-looking young man. Only a few weeks younger than Edmund, he was quick of wit and slow of ire, neither tall nor short with a sturdy build, curly brown hair and rosy, clean-shaven cheeks. He bore a strong resemblance to his genial father, a man I had greatly admired, but his beard did not yet sprout thick enough to warrant letting it grow as Geoffrey Vintner had. I was less than a year younger than William and in our infancy at Hadham Manor he, Edmund and I had been close playmates, but my brother seemed to have forgotten that. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Edmund leaning elegantly against the hangings, alone, sipping from a horn cup, his gaze sweeping the other guests with an unfathomable expression. He had yet to congratulate the young couple, or give them his gift.

Our sister was slim and fair with delicate features, deep blue eyes and a countenance of doll-like sweetness, which I knew concealed a strong will and a generous nature. If it were true that she closely resembled our mother then I cursed the weakness of my memory, which retained no clear image of Queen Catherine to compare her with. I had been six when she rode away from Hadham Manor, never to return. Only six years old when our lives turned upside down, and while I could remember every detail of the island in the River Ash where we three little boys had played at knights and outlaws, to my deep regret I had no recollection of the lovely face of our mother – the fifth King Henry’s widowed queen and Owen Tudor’s late and much lamented wife. I knew that somewhere in Windsor Castle there was a portrait of Catherine de Valois, painted when she was a princess of sixteen and sent to the conquering King Henry as a marriage-bait, but as yet I had not found it.

Mette was enjoying her ale, raising her cup to the bridal pair, when Edmund moved out from behind a knot of guests, ushering a servant who carried a joint-stool and spread it open to place it before the bride and groom in the centre of the hall. On it, with a ceremonial bow, my brother laid his wedding gift, still wrapped in its protective linen shroud. The room hushed expectantly as he stepped forward to kiss his sister, then, taking a proud stance beside the stool, he cleared his throat to speak. Although my stomach lurched with dread of what he might say, I thought what an impressive figure Edmund made despite the garish nature of his clothing, darkly handsome, with all the grace and sinew of a noble horseman.

‘Like all here, I have come to wish the bride and groom health, wealth and happiness in their life together. This gift is for the beautiful bride, so that she may array herself like a queen and show the world her true worth.’

With a deft movement he pulled off the linen wrapping and flung the exposed cloth-of-gold across his raised arm in a dramatic flourish. Beams of light falling through the open hall shutters reflected off its folds and illuminated the faces of the surrounding guests, who stood open-mouthed at the spectacle. Edmund’s expression was one of triumph as he anticipated Meg’s response.

She cast a troubled glance at her new husband, whose brow creased in concern at the threat of revelation contained both in the shimmering fabric and in Edmund’s words. Apart from the Vintner family, Owen, Edmund and I, no other guests in the room had any notion of Meg’s true birth and it was the family’s intention that it should remain that way. Edmund’s gift and his style of presentation had rendered the secret more fragile than ever.

After a pause Meg stepped forward and gathered the material off her brother’s arm, laying it carefully over the stool, from which it hung in liquid folds, pooling on the floor like molten metal. Her gauze veil, secured by a coronet of spring flowers over her fair, profusely curling mane of hair, frothed around her smiling face as she dropped Edmund a graceful curtsy.

‘Thank you, Edmund,’ she said, and stretched up to kiss his cheek. ‘It is a fabric of spectacular beauty – a vision of heaven in fact – and, with your permission, I shall donate it to the Queen of Heaven herself, to fashion a gown for the statue of the Virgin in St Mildred’s church, in gratitude for her blessing on our marriage today.’

Beside me I heard Mette release a long sigh, as if she had been holding her breath. Then her familiar chuckle cut through the tension, which had begun to pervade the room. ‘Saint Nicholas be praised! We have a bride with brains and beauty and will have a shrine to the Virgin to rival any royal benefice. For such a gift the Holy Mother will surely grant this marriage happiness and fertility.’ Applause rippled from the crowd as she turned away, rolling her eyes at me and adding under her breath, ‘That piece of cloth would have bought a new bed and all the hangings – but luckily I have given them that.’

Edmund strolled over to us, bending to place cool lips on Mette’s cheek. ‘Meg does you proud, Madame Mette. Your William is a very lucky man.’

‘They are a happy pair, Edmund,’ she responded emphatically. ‘Long may they remain so!’

2
Jane

Tŷ Cerrig, Gwynedd, North Wales

THE SOUND OF THE watch-bell always caused a bustle in the house. It meant either trouble or visitors, sometimes both. The cheese-making would have to wait. I took off my apron and sent Mair the dairymaid to discover what all the clanging was about, while I sped out to the brewery to draw a jug of ale. Whoever was arriving, refreshment was bound to be required. By the time I had taken the ale to the hall and set out some cups Mair returned to tell me that three strangers on horseback were trotting up the road from the shore. Strangers were a rarity at Tŷ Cerrig.

‘What is it, Sian? What is happening?’ Face crumpled from sleep, my stepmother appeared through the heavy woollen curtain that divided the solar from the hall, although the word ‘mother’ seemed hardly appropriate for a girl who had seen only three more summers than me; that is to say, seventeen.

‘Strangers arriving,’ I said. ‘I was just going out to see.’

Her face fell. ‘Oh. Must I go and greet them?’

She was pregnant; very pregnant, her belly taut and round, only days from delivery and suffering from swollen ankles and shortness of breath. It would not be good for her to stand in the yard while men and horses milled about and dust flew.

‘No Bethan, you stay in here. Sit down and wait. Whoever it is will come inside eventually. Father will be there by now and I will go out. You can pour the ale.’

Visibly relieved, she waddled to the large wooden armchair that stood by the hearth. ‘Yes. I will do that. I will wait.’

Bethan was sweet but she was a simple soul. Her marriage to my father had taken us all by surprise the previous year, being only eight months after the sudden death of my mother, to whom he had been wed for nearly twenty years and who he had unquestionably loved and respected. But Bethan was an heiress, the only child of a neighbouring landholder. The match had been made and a contract drawn up with a view to securing both her future and ours. It was a sensible arrangement for she had known my father from childhood and trusted him and we all knew her well and understood her disability, brought about by a slow and difficult birth, which both she and her mother had only just survived.

I glanced around the hall to check that it was ready to receive guests. A peat fire smoked lazily in the hearth, beside it an iron cauldron seethed steadily, containing the evening pottage. With regret I calculated that I would have to wring the necks of a couple of chickens if guests were staying, unless they came bearing gifts.

Outside, I had to shade my eyes against the sun which still stood high in the May sky. The warning bell had brought my father Hywel and two of my brothers, Maredudd and Dai, from the sheep pens where they had been checking the month-old lambs before their spring release with the ewes onto the high moorland grazing behind the house. Sheep dogs were yapping at their heels but on curt orders from their masters they dropped to the ground, crouched and silent, as four horses clip-clopped under the farmyard gate-arch. Three of them were mounted, the fourth was a laden sumpter led by the foremost rider.

My father gave a shout of welcome and stepped forward to grab his boot. ‘Ah, glory be to Saint Dewi, it is you Owen Tudor! You are very well come to Tŷ Cerrig.’

The long-legged man who swung down from his horse immediately drew my father into a bear hug and slapped his back heartily. ‘It has been too long, Hywel, but at last I have brought my sons to meet their Welsh kin.’ He turned to the two young men who still sat their horses and switched to English. ‘Edmund, Jasper – get down and greet your cousin Hywel Fychan. You probably do not remember him but I expect he remembers you, eh Hywel?’

He was a good-looking man, this Owen, whose Welsh was fluent but tinged with a foreign lilt. However, the sons who obeyed his command to dismount were of a great deal more interest to me. At first sight they seemed of similar age but judging by the way the darker one took the lead as if by right, the redheaded son was the younger. Both tugged off their felt hats and made respectful bows and while the elder was receiving another of my father’s generous hugs, the gaze of the younger wandered in my direction. I felt an unexpected rush of pleasure as his face creased in a chip-toothed smile. I shyly returned the smile.

‘I remember two small boys who were often up to mischief,’ said my father when the greetings were done. ‘But now I see two young men who may create more.’

Owen laughed heartily. ‘You can say what you like, Hywel, because they will not understand you. I am ashamed to say they have no Welsh. I thought if I brought them here they might learn a few words and something about farming. Only one generation from the land and yet they know nothing!’

‘My boys will see to that,’ declared Hywel, beckoning them forward and switching to English so that Owen’s sons might understand. ‘This dark Welsh ram is Dai and the one with the light hair is Maredudd, my eldest son. He looks like his mother, do you not agree? Sadly she went to the angels at the start of last year.’

‘Agnes is dead?’ echoed Owen, making the sign of the cross. Clearly he had known my mother well for his expression became shadowed with regret. ‘May she rest in peace. I am very sorry to hear that.’

My father frowned fiercely. ‘Yes, it was a great loss. She gave me two daughters and three sons and then died from a fever; who knows why? I have a new wife who is about to give birth so we are praying all will be well with her. Come inside now and meet her. Her name is Bethan. Mind your head.’ He caught sight of me as he ushered his cousin towards the low door of the house. ‘Oh, this is my younger daughter Sian. The elder one is married and lives away now.’

I bobbed a curtsy as they passed me and Owen paused to smile and bow, repeating my name in his mellow voice before ducking under the lintel. The two younger men stopped and greeted me politely. The first followed immediately in his father’s footsteps but the one with the bright hair and the chip-toothed smile lingered before me. ‘Sorry, I did not catch your name. Mine is Jasper.’

Why did I have to blush? Having three brothers I was used to boys and these cousins were surely no different to them? ‘It is Sian,’ I said.

‘Shawn?’ he repeated, inaccurately. ‘Is that a Welsh name?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is. My mother was French and called me Jeanne but everyone here calls me Sian.’

He still looked a little puzzled. ‘Oh I see. So that might be Jane in English? Will you forgive me if I call you Jane?’

I found myself telling him I would; yet even as I said it I knew it was not true. My name sounded harsh and plain in English – but then he endeared himself to me once more by saying, ‘My mother was French too.’

‘Yes, mine was your mother’s companion at one time. I am sure my father will explain it all.’

He nodded and paused to gaze around him. ‘It is very beautiful here. Believe it or not it is my first close-up sight of the sea and I find it quite breathtaking, so wild and empty!’ His grin was apologetic but he turned his face to the land and went on, ‘And I like the way the stone walls make patterns on the hillsides. We rode through the mountains yesterday and they were truly awe-inspiring. I have seen nothing like them in England.’

His enthusiasm for my homeland made me garrulous in return. ‘I am so glad you think that. I do not know how long you will stay but very soon we will be moving the sheep up into the hills. We walk them to the high pastures and sleep out under the stars. Perhaps you might join us?’

Jasper shrugged. ‘My father seems to take it for granted that we will stay for a while but tell me honestly, do you have room for us?’ His gaze swept the facade of the house and he looked doubtful.

Whatever kind of accommodation this Jasper was accustomed to, his question indicated that it was much grander than the sturdy stone farmhouse before us. My grandfather Tudur Fychan had built Tŷ Cerrig in the reign of the fourth King Henry, after English soldiers had run him off his lands during Glyn Dŵr’s rebellion, when half of Wales had risen against the English occupation. On that dreadful occasion they had put his family’s timber-framed house in Ynys Môn to the torch and in due course, when my grandfather Tudur at last managed to establish a new home on land in the foothills of Yr Wyddfa, he proudly called it Tŷ Cerrig – House of Stone – to show that he had built a place that would defy the flames. But it was just two floors: the lower one was a byre and a dairy and the upper floor was where we all lived. All the outbuildings, barns, stables, brewery, kennel and latrine, were made of timber. My father Hywel came back from England with his French wife to take over the family farm when Tudur Fychan died before I was born.

I quickly dismissed Jasper’s doubts. ‘Oh yes, there is plenty of room at this time of year. Now that the cows are out in the fields and the byre is scrubbed clean, the boys sleep downstairs. Fresh straw makes a good pallet.’

He laughed. ‘It is probably considerably cleaner and more comfortable than some places we have lodged in during our journey.’

I gestured through the door, towards the steep ladder-stair that led to the family quarters. ‘Shall we go up? There is refreshment ready.’

He glanced back at the horses. Maredudd and Dai were walking them towards the stable.

I understood his concern for his mount. ‘You do not have to worry. The boys will see to them and bring in your saddlebags.’

He nodded. ‘I am sure they will. I was just remembering that there is a brace of hares in one of the bags. My father did some hunting while we were crossing the high moors yesterday. He is a crack shot with his bow. In this warm weather they will be ready for eating.’

I smiled happily, for this meant the chickens were reprieved and our egg supply preserved. ‘We will roast them this evening,’ I said. ‘I will see to it. You go on in and meet your hostess.’

‘I feel as if I have already met her,’ he said, gazing at me earnestly and making me blush again, ‘and I look forward to the rest of my stay, however long or short it may be.’

I went off to search for the hares with a spring in my step.

* * *

We ate outside in the soft evening light, eleven of us around the long board used for harvest feasting. Even Bethan managed to clamber down the stair and sit with us, smiling happily and saying little but looking bonny in her best blue gown, laced at its loosest. My youngest brother Evan, a cheeky dark imp of eight, had been sent to the neighbouring farm across the valley to bring Bethan’s parents, Emrys and Gwyladus, to meet the three Tudors and we all squeezed onto benches and stools, with the big wooden armchair brought down from the hall and packed with cushions for Bethan. Beyond the farmyard wall the ground sloped towards the west, giving us a fine view over the vast sweep of Tremadog Bay and, in the far distance, the dark humps of the Lleyn Peninsula, Gwynedd’s westernmost arm. As the sun dipped below the hills the sky turned from pink to ochre, gold and red, reflecting off the sea and turning the bay to a fiery crucible. Such long, stunning sunsets were infrequent here and we made the most of it, the men draining a cask of father’s treasured malmsey and talking on well after the last of the pottage had been scraped from the cauldron and the bones of the hares tossed to the dogs.

‘It is a pity that Gwyneth is no longer here with us,’ Hywel said to Owen as I brought baskets of dried fruit and bowls of cream to dip it in – a rare treat, because most of our cream was made into cheese for winter. ‘Perhaps you remember her as an infant, Owen? She was our firstborn and lived with us at Hadham when Queen Catherine was still alive. She married two years ago to a man from Ynys Môn – or do you call it Anglesey now that you are an English gentleman?’

Owen smiled, his teeth showing impressively few gaps. ‘It depends who I am with, Hywel. Did she marry a relative, another descendant of the great Ednyfed Fychan, Steward to the Prince of all Wales?’

My father’s teeth did not make such a fair showing. ‘It would be hard not to in that part of Wales, would it not? She is living in the Tudur family heartland now, taking us back where we would be still, had our fathers not supported Glyn Dŵr.’

‘Oh you are not going to start telling tales about the good old days before the great rebellion are you, my father?’ cried Maredudd, well lubricated by the wine. We were all speaking English, although some were more fluent than others in the language of our conquerors. ‘And give our guests a chance to crow about the Lancastrian victory at Shrewsbury!’

I cringed inwardly. Maredudd was the salt of the earth and as solid as a doorpost but tact was not his strong point. Fifty years ago there had been a battle at Shrewsbury in the Welsh March when the present king’s father had slain the famous knight Hotspur and put an end to a rebellion led by my father’s ancestor Owain Glyn Dŵr, who had subsequently fled to the wilderness of Yr Wyddfa.

Owen’s brow creased alarmingly. ‘Why would my sons crow about a disaster that befell their father’s godfather?’ he cried, flushed and perhaps also a little excited by the rich malmsey. ‘Glyn Dŵr was a great man and a learned one. Not a man to be denigrated in my hearing.’

Edmund selected a dried plum, unperturbed. ‘I fear I know nothing of all that,’ he told Maredudd, dipping the fruit in cream as he spoke. ‘Our tutors taught us only ancient history.’

‘And poetry,’ added Jasper in an apologetic tone. ‘Now if you were to ask us to recite some Virgil one of us might oblige.’ He looked pointedly at Edmund but his brother ignored him, chewing contentedly on his plum, perceiving no need for a tactful change of subject. Jasper clearly did and turned to me to provide it. ‘What were you telling me, cousin Jane, about walking the sheep to the high pasture?’

Before I could answer Maredudd spoke up from the fire, on which he was heaping more windfall branches gathered from the nearby woods. ‘We were hoping to start out tomorrow but perhaps you have changed your mind now, Father?’

Hywel glanced across at him and frowned. ‘No, I have not. We need to start tomorrow to be back in time for Bethan’s baby. We cannot leave any later.’

‘Surely Bethan is not going with you!’ exclaimed Edmund, clearly alarmed at the thought.

I hid a smile behind my hand and my father roared with laughter, while Edmund reddened with chagrin. ‘No, no!’ Hywel exclaimed. ‘Of course not! Do you think we are Irish gypsies to birth our cubs in the bracken? Gwyladus and Emrys will stay here with Bethan and we will not be away more than two or three days. The babe is not due for a sennight yet.’

I glanced at Bethan then, realized she was drooping in her chair and decided I should take her in before she fell asleep. When I stood up I was surprised to see Jasper follow suit.

‘I will light your way, Jane,’ he said, reaching for a lantern.

In the end we had to half carry Bethan between us, so sleepy had she become, and I decided it would be best to move one of the pallets from the byre and lay her down on the floor of the dairy, thinking that if she needed to relieve herself in the night, as she often did in her present condition, she could simply wander outside to the latrine. When I had finished making her comfortable and she had fallen into a deep sleep I found Jasper waiting for me on one of the stone benches built against the front wall of the house, the lantern at his feet casting his honest, open face into mysterious shade. The moon had risen, spreading its pale light across the open expanse of the yard and turning the shadows inky black.

He patted the bench beside him. ‘Please sit with me a while, Jane. Our fathers talk too much of times gone by. I would like to learn about your life here and now. I think Bethan cannot be much help in the house. She seems a little – simple, or am I being unkind?’

I bit my lip. We did not like to discuss Bethan’s condition with strangers but although he had no Welsh and clearly knew nothing of our ways, I discerned a warm heart in Jasper, which gave me confidence in his discretion. After all, however many times removed, we were cousins – family.

I sat down, careful to leave a respectable distance between us. In the moonlight he looked younger, more like one of my brothers than an esquire of the king’s household, which I now knew him to be. ‘No, you are not unkind, sir; you are perceptive. Bethan is simple but she loves my father and shares his bed willingly. It is not her fault that she has no great domestic skills. She cannot cook or make bread or cheese, although she can churn butter if you stop her at the right moment. She cannot recognize one herb from another or remember their properties and she cannot tell a mark from a groat. But when she is not great with child she can weed the vegetable garden, milk the cows and goats, feed the poultry and collect the eggs; she loves to tend the orphaned lambs and calves and if I set it up for her she can turn a spindle for hours.’ I gave him a cheerful smile. ‘So you see she is far from helpless, and there is also Mair who is our dairymaid, who lives in the village by the shore and fetches and carries and makes the pottage.’

The sound of the stream that ran fast-flowing through the wooded vale beside the house filled the silence between us agreeably. The vale and the stone-walled fields surrounding the policies were all bathed in milky moonlight. ‘Our grandfather chose well when he built here,’ I told him. ‘The stream gives us milling-power and clean water, we have wool for weaving, grain to make bread and ale, and fat for lamps and soap. The sheep give us fleeces to sell to the monks, we have fish in the sea, meat on the hoof and crops in the fields. Between us we make most things we need and I keep the accounts and the recipes. Our household works quite well. You will see if you stay a while.’

‘I suspect that it works because you toil from dawn to dusk, Jane. And where and when did you get an education, which you clearly have?’

‘That was due to my mother. She spent her girlhood in a convent and taught us all to read and write and reckon. I am trying to ensure that Evan learns now but it is not easy, especially at this time of year when he is needed on the land. In winter it is easier to keep him at his letters. Our mother intended him for the priesthood but I cannot imagine that happening now. He is bright but not at all bookish.’ I knew I was talking too much but the words just seemed to spill out of me.

Jasper screwed up his face and shook his head in exasperation. ‘I feel I should remember your mother. Her name was Agnes was it not? But tragically I cannot even picture my own. Edmund says he can but if so he does not describe her very well. He makes her sound like a royal doll, which I am sure she was not.’

I felt a stab of pity for him. My memories of my mother were so vivid that sometimes when I was quietly sewing I felt she was sitting at my shoulder. ‘My mother always spoke of yours as an angel. There is no doubt that she was beautiful, whereas mine was like me – I think homely is the word.’

Jasper gave a derisive snort. ‘In my vocabulary homely is a polite word for ugly – and that you are not, Jane! I would say that comely is the proper word – or pretty – certainly attractive! With sweeping eyelashes like yours how could you be anything else?’

I dropped my head, hoping the white glare of moonlight would disguise the sudden colour that rushed to my cheeks. Compliments did not flow freely in our family and my reaction to Jasper’s was involuntary and regrettably rather gauche. ‘Not beautiful anyway,’ I muttered, clenching my hands together in my lap.

He made another dismissive noise. ‘Huh! I do not think beauty always begets beauty, Jane. Look at Edmund and me for instance. He has our father’s bronze good looks, whereas I am blessed with ginger hair and ruddy cheeks. My mother called me Jasper after the dark-red bloodstone in her ring and I imagine she thought the name, like the gemstone, would bring me luck. A younger son always needs luck, does he not?’

With his fresh, freckled complexion and brilliant blue eyes, which even the moon’s glare could not bleach, I wanted to say that he appeared more than comely to me but shyness prevented it. Instead I said, ‘You remember that much about her anyway.’

‘No, I do not remember that; Mette told me.’

‘Who is Mette?’

‘A very bright and forthright lady who knew both our mothers well. She is an old lady now but in some ways you remind me of her.’

Regrettably I have a mercurial temperament and abruptly my mood changed from shyness to indignation. ‘I remind you of a blunt old lady? Well, thank you indeed, sir!’ I stood up and made him a sudden curtsy. ‘Please excuse me, it is time I chased Evan to bed.’

I knew I was being rude to a guest but I could not help myself and left him frowning. Moments later I heard footsteps behind me; his voice in my ear sounded contrite. ‘I said bright, not blunt, Jane! And Mette is probably the woman I admire most in the world.’

It was not until later, curled up sleepless on my pallet by the hearth, that I appreciated the compliment hidden in Jasper’s words.

3
Jasper

The Royal Progress; Westminster & Greenwich

SWEET JANE’S BONNY FEATURES were to become a recurring image in my mind throughout the year that followed, particularly those long, sweeping eyelashes shading her deep brown-velvet eyes. Certain memories made particularly vivid returns. In blessedly balmy weather we had shared the rustic delights of shepherding Hywel’s flock of sheep up to the high pastures and the picture of Jane, in a straw hat and long boots, with her skirts tucked up and a shepherd’s crook in her hand, made frequent visitations in my quieter moments. Later, on our return to Tŷ Cerrig, I had witnessed her handling the birth of Bethan’s baby, when she chased all the men out of the house and set about supervising the midwife, cheering the mother and reassuring the grandmother, all with seemingly unruffled efficiency. And meanwhile I managed to pick up a few words of Welsh, at least enough to identify a mab from a merch, which is to say a boy from a girl. I had little experience of females of any age but the sight of this smiling fourteen-year-old merch emerging from the front door of the farmhouse to present her father with his newborn daughter remained with me for months, inspiring comparison with church images of the Madonna and Child.

Walking our horses to the field one day Edmund had been scornful of my friendship with Jane, pointing out to me that a relationship with a Welsh farm-girl, especially one whose grandfather had been outlawed for rebelling against the crown, would not be one to mention at court. ‘Enjoy her company while we are here, Jas, bed her if you will, not that beds seem to abound in this part of the world, but for pity’s sake keep silent on the subject of Jane when we return to Westminster.’

I worried about Edmund’s attitude towards females. He did not seem to have absorbed any of the rules of chivalry drummed into us during the lessons on Arthurian legend, which the king had insisted should be part of our preparation for knighthood and which laid particular stress on respect for women. Edmund was always careful to impress our tutors with his grasp of Latin verse and philosophical texts but his moral code was that of the alehouse.

I angrily rejected his implication that I had lecherous designs on Jane. ‘The only bedding I have done here is strawing down the horses, brother – and for pity’s sake will you please stop calling me Jas!’

‘Temper, temper!’ he cried. ‘What does plain Jane call you then? Rust-head?’

‘No, but I will tell you what she calls you. Pretty boy! You frightened the sheep in your bright red doublet and yellow hose – you should have left them in London.’

‘And you should leave those mud-coloured rags of yours in Wales,’ he retaliated. ‘Along with your Welsh words and your bumpkin shepherdess – Jas!’ He had to dodge under his horse’s neck to avoid my bunched fist.

When we did return to court, however, it was not our clothes or my language which sparked a bout of teasing from our fellow squires but the tanned faces we had acquired after three months in field and saddle, weeks which we had both greatly enjoyed, no matter how much Edmund protested that he had stagnated in the ‘rural backwaters’ as he called West Wales.

But there was no prospect of a return to Wales. Memories of Jane were all I was ever likely to have, for now that Edmund and I had both reached our majority our brother the king often summoned us into his company, significantly more than the other household squires. I suspected that this was due to prompting by Queen Marguerite, who seemed to relish the notion that we were first cousins; her father’s sister, Marie of Anjou, was also our aunt by marriage, being queen to our late mother’s brother, King Charles VII of France.

‘But we cannot make anything of this in the court,’ she warned privately, in what I considered her rather charmingly broken English, ‘because King Henry is still le Roi de France, however successful are the armies of our Uncle Charles in Normandy and Maine.’

It was a moot point. According to the peace treaty that had married our mother to Henry’s father, he was officially king of France as well as England. But his commanders were gradually and ingloriously losing the vast swathes of French territory conquered by the fifth Henry and the peace of the realm was seriously threatened by hordes of displaced soldiers who, having settled in Normandy and Maine with their families, were now forced to flee the invading armies of King Charles and return to England, where many of them roamed the shires, homeless, penniless and desperate, stirring up trouble. This series of military setbacks had also drained the royal coffers and caused a dangerous split in the ranks of the English nobility. Earlier in the year the king’s distant cousin, Richard, Duke of York, who publicly lamented these failures, had been banished from court for bringing an army to London, demanding to be given command of the French wars and named as Henry’s heir.

It was Queen Marguerite who told us that she and the king were going on a Royal Progress and Henry desired that Edmund and I accompany them, not as his household squires but as his brothers. ‘Henry will dispense justice to all the poor people who have been robbed and attacked by these renegades from France,’ she explained.

This was undoubtedly an honour, intended to give us an intimate knowledge of our brother’s duties and beliefs. We were to lodge near the royal apartments and share the private solar.

I learned a great deal during that Progress about the way the king’s justice was dispensed, and discovered the enormous discrepancy between those nobles who were actively involved and compassionate overlords and those who dealt with their tenants at third and fourth hand, often using unscrupulous methods of extracting their rents and revenues.

I also found out a great deal about the king and queen themselves. They treated each other with unfailing courtesy but little apparent affection; the private time we spent with them significantly lacked laughter or casual exchange of the kind I expected between two people who had been joined in matrimony for more than six years. In fact, I felt there was a constant, underlying tension, which puzzled me. Of course love was no prerequisite in a dynastic marriage such as theirs but Henry scarcely seemed to notice that Queen Marguerite was undeniably lovely, with an exotic beauty and a graceful figure that elicited furtive but appreciative glances from most of the young men about court. He refrained from any comment on her dress or appearance unless he thought it too elaborate or excessively extravagant. He himself dressed more like a cleric than monarch despite Marguerite urging him to adopt the bright fabrics and brilliant jewels she considered appropriate to the royal state.

She sought our support in this endeavour. ‘The people expect splendour of their king, do you not think? Edmund – you must agree for you are always á la mode. Perhaps you might advise his grace on what the nobility are wearing? I notice that the hems of the young courtiers’ gowns are getting shorter, their hose is more colourful and their jewellery more lavish but I cannot persuade Henry to adopt this style. He dresses as if every day were Vendredi Saint.’

Nevertheless Henry continued to avoid splendour, even when attending the opulent feasts provided by our hosts during the Progress, all of them anxious to please their sovereign, hopeful of obtaining some reward. These occasions provided opportunities for dancing and masking, when many young male courtiers chose to display their physiques, stretching their hose tightly over their thighs and exposing more leg than would be wise in cold weather. King Henry certainly enjoyed a mask, especially if it was based on a biblical theme but his habit was to retire to his private chamber before the evening entertainment became too boisterous.

Usually and much to Edmund’s vexation, he asked the two of us to retire with him. Henry then chose to drink small ale and talk over the events of the day, such as the judicial cases he had heard at the local assizes or a visit he had made to a religious shrine. As strains of dance music drifted through open windows, Edmund’s feet would start tapping out the rhythm, while he strove to preserve an expression of rapt interest in the king’s discourse. I confess that I was often guilty of this myself and reminded of the countless times our greybeard tutors had droned on about the Rule of St Benedict or the writings of St Gregory while beams of sunshine beckoned us outdoors to the joust or the hunting field.

Henry’s cousin and chief counsellor Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, joined the Progress for its final days during a stay at Reading Abbey. We shared our brother’s evening ale as usual and on this occasion so did the duke, a man well known to us. We had good cause to pay him full attention. As a young man, with less status and influence than he commanded now, Edmund Beaufort had proposed marriage to our mother, the dowager Queen Catherine, but the royal council had vetoed the match. Subsequently he had discovered her clandestine marriage to Owen Tudor but agreed to keep it secret and stand godfather to their first son who was named Edmund in his honour. Ever since then he had proved a staunch friend to us and so his presence that evening was highly significant.

The abbot had surrendered his Great Chamber to royal occupation; a huge vaulted and panelled room in which even King Henry’s substantial travelling bedstead looked like a campaign cot. All the doors and windows were closed and the heat of the summer day lingered stiflingly beyond the dusk so that I longed to loosen my collar and open the front of my doublet, under which my shirt clung to me, damp with sweat. The duke and the king sat in carved oak armchairs in front of the empty hearth, two cushioned stools placed before them.

After we had been invited to sit in the king’s presence it was the duke who spoke first. ‘His grace is grateful for the company you have both afforded him during this Royal Progress. He is much comforted by the unflinching loyalty of his two brothers, to him and to his queen, and he has decided that the time has come to show you his favour.’

At this point King Henry lifted his hand to indicate that he wished to speak and Somerset fell silent. Edmund and I exchanged glances and I spied a gleam in my brother’s eye, which resonated with the increased beat of my heart.

‘My lord of Somerset is right,’ the king began. ‘Lately we have felt the grave responsibilities of monarchy weighing heavily on our shoulders and although we can share some of this with our queen and our loyal officials and councillors, it has occurred to us that you, our beloved brothers, who share our royal blood and show us so clearly the love and loyalty which naturally bind us, should be brought within our close circle and raised to a rank which reflects your true status. Therefore it is our desire and intent to create you, Edmund, Earl of Richmond and you, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke. It is our hope that the necessary arrangements can be made for these honours to be conferred by Christmas so you may be ceremonially installed on the Feast of the Epiphany, when gifts are presented in celebration of those brought by the Magi to the newborn Christ. This will be my gift to you.’

At the end of his speech Henry held out his hands, psalter-width apart and smiled expectantly at us, whereupon both Edmund and I sank to our knees before him. Exerting his seniority as usual, Edmund placed his hands between those of the king and spoke the time-honoured oath of fealty, which every nobleman learned by heart.

‘Sire, I am your liegeman in life and limb and truth and earthly honours, cleaving to you above all men, so help me God and the Holy Dame.’

King Henry leaned forward to accept Edmund’s kiss on his cheek and then turned to me, his hands once more outstretched. I felt them encompass mine, his palms surprisingly dry on my sweat-slicked fingers. The same oath left my lips in a voice that shook with emotion. As I moved to give my brother the kiss of fealty I caught the unmistakable odour of incense clinging to his clothes, pungent evidence of the hours he spent daily, praying in church or shrine.

He rose, obliging us to follow suit and his broad smile was unfamiliar but warm. ‘I feel God’s benison descending to salute our brotherly union,’ he said. ‘I will let his grace of Somerset explain the details of your advancement but I hope you will not neglect to give thanks to our Lord and His Holy Mother for their bountiful blessing; and now I will retire to the abbot’s chapel to seek God’s guidance on tomorrow’s assizes. I am told there may be hanging matters involved. I wish you both good night.’

In the absence of a chamberlain, I strode to the door to open it for him, making the guards on the other side jump in surprise and bring their halberds hastily to vertical in salute. As Henry walked out he already looked lost in his own thoughts, his head bowed over clasped hands, like a monk making his way to the midnight Office. As I closed the door Edmund came up behind me and flung his arm around my shoulders.

‘How is it with you, my lord of Pembroke?’ he cried with undisguised glee. ‘Now we are truly brothers to the king!’

I returned his embrace with equal enthusiasm but a stern Somerset stepped forward, urging caution. ‘Not yet, not yet, young sirs!’ He waved an admonitory finger, his grey beard jutting forcefully. ‘His grace bid me warn you to keep this news to yourselves until the formal announcement is made at court. There are legal documents to prepare and land grants to be drawn up. These will take time but meanwhile you can give thought to your crests and coats of arms. The heralds will be made aware of your impending ennoblement and you can also begin to order your robes and livery from the royal tailor. All are used to keeping such secrets. The king plans to make the announcement at Christmas and belt on your swords at the Tower of London on the Feast of Epiphany, as he told you. Meanwhile I offer you both my hearty good wishes and look forward to welcoming you to the ranks of England’s mighty earls.’

* * *

On our return to Westminster Palace we found we had been allocated quarters close to the king’s private apartments, a move that fuelled a spate of court gossip, whether Henry and Somerset liked it or not. Our new chambers were light and airy, boasting elaborate furnishings and casement windows overlooking the Thames, diamond-glazed instead of merely shuttered. Each had a separate guardrobe with a latrine draining into a moat washed clean by each high tide, a welcome privilege, indicative of very high status. Between these chambers lay an anteroom where attendants and visitors might await admittance. The apartments were on the same floor as those of the king, but the sweeping stone staircase was reserved for his use and we accessed our rooms by a narrower and steeper spiral stair. Queen Marguerite and her ladies were housed in a separate wing of the palace, linked to the king’s apartments by a private gallery, where handpicked and trusted members of the royal guard kept discreet watch, despite little sign that it was a path well trodden.

Behind the closed doors of our new chambers Edmund and I were fitted for our coronets and mantles of state. We had been granted funds to extend our wardrobes and for once I was grateful for Edmund’s familiarity with fabrics and fashions, being woefully ignorant on such matters myself. However, King Henry planned a joust in our honour following our installation, and then the boot – or more accurately in this case the sabaton – would be on the other foot, for it was I and not Edmund who knew the best agents from whom to commission new armour, having made a study of the latest developments in military design. Until this time, as yeoman squires of the king’s household, we had been provided with standard ready-made body-defences and so for me it was a proud day when I stood in a hot, noisy workshop off Cheapside to be measured for my first custom-fitted attire.

Edmund was less enthusiastic. ‘What can it matter whether I have the latest hinges on my helmet’s visor,’ he demanded, ‘as long as I can readily open and close it? My chief concern is the shape of the sabatons. The style of a noble knight is judged by how much of his foot extends through the stirrups when he leans back to aim the lance. I definitely want sabatons with the longest possible points.’

The kneeling armourer paused in the act of measuring Edmund’s calves for greaves. ‘As an earl you are permitted to wear them twice the length of your foot but I must warn you, my lord, that if the points are too long, the foot will not readily be released in the event of a fall from the saddle,’ he cautioned. ‘It is a dangerous fashion.’

‘So fashion can prove deadly if you are dragged by a galloping charger, Edmund,’ I remarked scathingly, adding more seriously, ‘You should heed the man’s advice.’

My brother eyed me scornfully. ‘A knight who expects to fall can expect to lose. Nothing demonstrates cowardice more than stunted sabatons.’

In my opinion, foolish risk-taking in jousting and fighting demonstrated nothing but idiocy, but I recalled it was I, not Edmund, who had been lucky to receive only a chipped tooth as a result of a jousting accident and so in the interests of maintaining good brotherly relations I shrugged and, leaving the armourer to pursue the argument, wandered off to examine my surroundings.

Like most noble English knights we would have the individual pieces of our armour made to our measurements in Germany where they had perfected the steel-rolling process. They would then be fitted and altered as necessary in London workshops like this one. I watched perspiring apprentices scurrying between three forges where the master armourers worked. There was barely a moment of silence as they hammered expertly at the many separate items that formed a knight’s ‘attire’: breastplates and backplates, greaves and gauntlets, cuirasses and vambraces and all manner of joints and swivels, buckles and bracers. The mingling of heat, sweat and noise formed a miasma, which I found exhilarating, stirring images of jousts and tournaments and the heady prospect of action on the battlefield. There were shutters at either end of the premises, which even in this late autumn season stood wide open, allowing what breeze was to be found in the narrow streets of the city to carry away the poisonous fumes from the red-hot forges. I leaned against one of the supporting pillars and admired the skill of the finishers working at benches along the walls as they engraved and stamped distinguishing designs into the metal before polishing it. As a squire I was thoroughly familiar with the order and attachment of one gleaming element to another when I fitted them to a knight’s body and felt a thrill at the thought that soon I would be able to appoint my own squires to perform this onerous task for me.

Christmas that year was held at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, whither the court moved en masse two days beforehand, travelling downriver on a convenient morning turn of the high tide. Still officially serving as the king’s Squires of the Body, Edmund and I accompanied King Henry and Queen Marguerite on the royal barge from Westminster, enjoying the thrill of the slide under one of the narrow arches of London Bridge as the water churned through to escape into the wider reaches of the Thames beyond.

King Henry had inherited the palace and park at Greenwich from his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester five years previously and it was a particular favourite of his, due to the celebrated library his cultured uncle had amassed there. It was Queen Marguerite who had renamed it Placentia for its green and rural setting – though it lay only a few miles downstream. The contrast with Westminster’s tightly packed streets and buildings was magical; an oasis, and like the outgoing tidal waters of the Thames, the queen yearned to escape from the confines of urban life upriver. Besides, hunting was one of the few pastimes Henry and Marguerite had in common and there were great chases to be had in the vast enclosure of Greenwich Park. As the oarsmen made swift work of the long meander around the north bank mudflats, I sniffed the salty tang in the air and prayed that the crisp, calm weather would persist and give us some magnificent Christmas sport.

It was King Henry’s decree that on the Eve of Christ’s birth his court should be unsullied by too much eating, drinking and merrymaking, such as had been common during previous reigns and still persisted in many noble houses. So after a long celebration Mass during the morning, there was a decent meal of three courses accompanied by a limited quantity of wine and small ale, consumed while choristers sang beautiful but plangent psalms, and prayers and Gospel readings were heard. Afterwards a troupe of mummers performed a Nativity play dressed in gorgeous traditional costumes kept in the royal Wardrobe for use on this one night of the year. It took place in candlelight as darkness fell outside and was an unexpectedly moving experience. When the shepherds fell to their knees in awe at the choir of angels, enthralled by their soaring voices and twinkling jewelled wings I felt a surge of nostalgia, recalling nights spent under the stars with Jane Hywel and her brothers while embers from the camp fire rose into the dark sky and my father played his harp and sang stories of ancient Welsh legend.

It was at the conclusion of this play, as the applause died down and a hum of conversation started, that King Henry chose to have his big announcement made to the court. He did not do it himself but, appropriately enough, through the services of his Richmond Herald, who began by sounding his trumpet for silence.

‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen of the king’s court and household, hear your gracious sovereign’s will. In so far as his grace’s uterine brothers, Edmund and Jasper, have gained their majority, it is his royal highness’s desire to recognize their legitimate descent from his beloved and much lamented mother, the right royal Queen Catherine, consort to his glorious and right royal father King Henry the Fifth of England. Therefore the honour of knighthood shall be bestowed on them and in addition the king’s beloved brother Edmund shall be created Earl of Richmond, a royal honour and title held in abeyance since the death of his grace’s uncle John, Duke of Bedford, and the king’s beloved brother Jasper shall be created Earl of Pembroke, a royal honour and title held in abeyance since the death of his grace’s uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. As blood brothers of the king, they shall be granted precedence over all other nobles of the court save the royal dukes. This is the king’s solemn intent and shall be accomplished with full ceremonial at the Tower of London on the Feast of the Epiphany. Hear ye the will of your sovereign lord Henry the Sixth, King of England, France and Ireland!’

The trumpet sounded again and there followed a pause while people digested the content of the herald’s announcement, and then suddenly our fellow squires surrounded us, clapping us on the back and uttering cries of surprise and congratulation. This tumult was brought to a halt by two royal pages calling for precedence and pushing our friends aside to clear the way for Queen Marguerite, who appeared before us, beautiful in her glittering Christmas array, and favoured us with a smile that almost outshone her jewels.

‘May I add my felicitations to those of your companions? Our court will be much enhanced by the ennoblement of two such worthy gentlemen and his grace the king will greatly appreciate your good counsel and company. But, mes presque-seigneurs, I wish to be first to retain your services as my partners for the first two dances at tomorrow night’s Christmas Ball. I trust there are no ladies of the court to whom you have already pledged yourselves.’

Brilliant though her smile was, it offered no indication that she would give way to any prior pledge we might have made. Queen Marguerite did not bestow the honour of a dance lightly and certainly did not expect it to be refused. Edmund made a swift bow and left her in no doubt. ‘I would be honoured and enchanted to be my queen’s partner,’ he said gallantly. ‘In fact I would walk barefoot over broken glass to take your hand, Madame.’

The queen’s brows rose in surprise. ‘But then you would be in no fit state to dance, sir,’ she said. ‘And the first tune is always a lively one.’

I made my own bow of acquiescence. ‘Then I hope the second may be long and slow, your grace,’ I murmured.

She gave me a quizzical glance. ‘Do you indeed, Master Jasper? Then you had better have a word with the musicians. I look forward to tomorrow, Messires. Again, my congratulations.’

Her damasked cloth-of-gold train swept the floor as she turned away.

4
Jasper

The Palace of Placentia, Greenwich

IGNORING THE SUMPTUARY LAWS – again – Edmund chose to wear a purple doublet for the Christmas Ball although he called it violet.

‘We are royalty,’ he retorted when I questioned this. ‘The king confirmed it last night. We are “in the purple”.’

‘We have not yet been knighted or belted,’ I persisted. ‘You will be considered presumptuous.’

‘Bah! I do not care what people think. The colour suits me and I will wear it. I guarantee the queen will compliment me on my choice.’

To ensure that his appearance attracted even more attention he wore the same yellow hosen that had frightened the sheep in Wales. The belt slung around his hips was set with amethysts and the doublet was trimmed with something that looked suspiciously like sable, which was in the same sartorial category as purple, but Edmund claimed it was marten.

My own appearance was probably unremarkable beside my brother’s but I was pleased with the belt I had found, studded with stones of polished green agate to match my emerald green doublet with cream-panelled sleeves and with my parti-coloured hose of dark red and blue. The barber had trimmed my hair and shaved my cheeks smooth and I had bathed in lavender-scented water for the occasion.

Mellow with food and wine from the feast, I stood aside to observe Edmund lead the queen onto the floor and tried to steady my nerves at the prospect of doing the same in my turn. Judging by her dimpled smiles, Queen Marguerite was delighted with the nimble-footed Edmund, and I feared my ability on the dance floor would not match his, despite much effort on the part of a French dancing master.

However, I forgot these qualms as my attention was drawn to the charming sight of a tiny girl with long dark chestnut hair, which swung as she danced and was held off her perfect little face by a slim gold circlet. I recognized the man she danced with as one of the king’s household knights who rejoiced in the name of Sir John St John but it was the girl who caught my interest. Her pink gown was trimmed with pearls and figured with gold daisies, and the bodice was cut straight across her chest in the fashion ladies adopted to show off the swell of their breasts. But this girl was too young for breasts. She could have been no more than ten years old and I wondered what she was doing at court at such a tender age; then I forgot my curiosity, absorbed in the gracefulness of her dancing. Erect and straight-backed, her small feet seeming barely to touch the floor, she danced the estampie, a lively French dance involving intricate stamping steps as the name implied, that built to a crescendo of energetic jumps and whirls. The girl’s slender body began to sway and leap with supple strength, keeping perfect time as the pace increased, completely at one with the music, smiling all the while, a sweet, secret smile as if delighted with the place it took her to. The girl’s demure presence seemed dominant in the dance; she was always in the right position, yet she seemed unaware of who took her hand or with whom she turned but danced as if she alone were on the floor. Even the queen’s glittering and glamorous figure was outshone. I could not take my eyes off her.

‘Congratulations on your impending ennoblement, Master Jasper; I see you are enjoying my daughter’s dancing.’

I turned in surprise. At first glance the woman who stood beside me appeared to be an adult version of the same girl, except her hair was hidden under a black turban headdress studded with jewels and her gown was a darker pink with old-fashioned trailing sleeves. She stood as slight and straight as her daughter but her face was wrinkled and faintly mottled.

I made her a bow. ‘You have the advantage of me, my lady, in that you know my name.’

‘I am Lady Welles but my daughter’s name is Beaufort, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Her father was the first Duke of Somerset, the present duke’s late brother.’

The music raced to a climax, accompanying my moment of enlightenment. ‘Ah – the Somerset heiress,’ I found myself saying and then wished I had not.

Lady Welles frowned. ‘Indeed. Most men measure her worth by her estates but I thought you had discerned something more. You did not appear to be counting her fortune as you watched her.’

‘She is very young,’ I said, feeling the accursed blush creep up my neck. ‘But even so, yes, there is certainly something remarkable about her.’ The music crashed onto its final chord. It was over, and the dancers made their acknowledgements. I bowed politely again to Lady Welles. ‘Forgive me, my lady, but I am obliged to the queen for the next dance. I hope we meet again.’

Walking away, I cast a last glance at Margaret Beaufort as her partner escorted her from the dance floor. She was not in the least out of breath. Suddenly I wished it was her rather than the queen that I was pledged to dance with, naively believing that so young a girl would not judge me or compare me with my brother. She appeared to be a creature of the air rather than the earth, reminding me of one of the hovering angels illuminating my psalter.

As I had anticipated, the next dance was a slow one. Edmund had performed all the leaps and kicks demanded by the estampie and now I was able to relax into a bass, performed to a largo given by a piper and a solo singer. It began with alternate men and women holding hands and circling in a series of short and long steps first one way then the other, interspersed with graceful individual spins and regular changes of position through the centre, couples forming the spokes of a wheel and turning back and forth. The moves were intricate but the pace was slow, the intention being for the dancers to show off their balance and posture rather than their stamina. Happily there was little opportunity for conversation as we weaved across, around and between each other, passing with smiles and nods, until the dance ended and we found ourselves once more with our partner for a final bow.

‘Thank you, brother,’ Queen Marguerite said, raising her hand in mine ready to be escorted from the floor. ‘That was a pleasant, easy dance. You and your brother are not in the least alike are you? Neither on or off the floor.’

I wondered where this was leading and if I was about to receive an unfavourable comparison with Edmund. ‘Well, we are close in age, your grace, but not twins, as you know,’ I replied.

‘No, you are not.’ She gave me a sideways glance. ‘Edmund is a charming companion – witty and amusing – but I know which brother I would prefer as a father to my children.’

Alarmed by this extraordinary remark, I swallowed hard, wondering if I had heard her right; then I managed to gather my faculties enough to smile and make my response. ‘You mean our brother the king obviously, your grace.’

Her lips pursed and her voice dropped almost to a whisper, so that I had to bend my head to hear her. ‘The king will be the father of my children of course, when God permits it, but we have waited a long time as you cannot have failed to notice. Too long.’

Conversation all around us effectively prevented her words reaching any ears but mine; even so the blood rushed to my cheeks and I suddenly felt hot all over. The subject seemed far too intimate for such a public situation; too intimate for discussion between us at all. Instinctively I glanced across at King Henry on his throne, removed from the dancing and conversing with the Duke of Somerset, who perched beside him on a stool. As we drew nearer Queen Marguerite tightened her grip on my hand and drew me to a halt. We stood isolated in the respectful space preserved between the energetic activity of the dance floor and the raised dais with its royal presence, alone in the midst of many.

The queen took a deep breath and locked eyes with me. ‘We have been married nearly seven years and I have been a true wife to him only as many times. How can Henry imagine we will ever give England an heir? Yet it is not him the people blame, it is me. You can help me in this matter, Jasper, I know you can.’

I felt the room spin around me. Could I trust what I was hearing? Was the queen actually suggesting that I might get her with child? I could not believe this was what she meant but I perceived deep desperation in her dark eyes. Outwardly she was the glamorous, twenty-one-year-old Queen of England but inwardly perhaps she was still the girl of just fifteen who had married a king, with no one to turn to for help in achieving the one thing she must to fulfil her life’s purpose. Except now she had chosen me. What could I say? What should I say?

My throat constricted and I swallowed again. ‘I am flattered that you think so, your grace. It will always be my intention to serve you but in this matter I cannot immediately see how.’

She squeezed my hand again and turned to glance at King Henry who, alarmingly, was gazing straight at us with a puzzled look on his face. ‘No, I can see that you do not,’ she said, suddenly flashing me a dazzling smile, ‘but perhaps you will give it some thought. It is a matter of some importance that the kingdom has an heir. I asked my lord of Somerset’s advice but he is still thinking about it.’ She aimed her social smile at the king and he turned hastily away. ‘For now, perhaps you might get Henry to enjoy himself a little? It is Christmas and people like to see him laugh at such a time. Now you may take me back to the king.’

Queen Marguerite’s ladies materialized as if from nowhere and helped settle her voluminous skirts between the arms of her throne. The king half rose to greet her return and the Duke of Somerset took the opportunity to slip away in the direction of a servant who was circulating with a flagon of hippocras.

‘I enjoyed the dance you did with Jasper, my lady,’ King Henry said. ‘It was very graceful, but the first dance was a little – err – vigorous was it not? Rather undignified for a queen.’

Queen Marguerite smiled blandly and ignored the implied criticism. ‘Your brother is going to procure some hippocras, my liege. I think a digestif might be good for all of us.’

She looked at me and moved her eyes meaningfully in the direction the duke had taken and I needed no second bidding, quickly commandeering the servant’s flagon before sending him off to fetch sweetmeats as well. As I poured the wine into the cups set out on a table between the two thrones the musicians struck up again. It needed surprisingly little persuasion on the part of the queen for Henry to accept a measure of the sweet, spiced hippocras and I obeyed his invitation to take the duke’s vacated stool. In due course the servant provided a heaped platter of almond wafers and the three of us nibbled and drank as we watched the dancing.

Fortified with the heady wine, Somerset had taken to the floor with his niece Margaret Beaufort, and Queen Marguerite was quick to remark that they made an odd couple.

‘I am reminded of the story of the ogre and the little maid my nurse told me when I was a child,’ she said. ‘Do you know it?’

She held out her cup, which I hastily rose to fill, and it was the king who answered.

‘I cannot allow you to call Somerset an ogre, my lady!’ he protested, looking shocked but amused at the same time. ‘He is a man of culture and refinement.’

‘Perhaps, but his appearance has become quite craggy. His niece is a pearl, however. There must be forty years between them. I would wager that she considers him an ogre.’ Marguerite took another good gulp of wine. ‘Do you not agree, Jasper?’

I nodded and smiled and offered sweetmeats. The hippocras was working quickly. ‘I am surprised to see a girl of such tender years at court,’ I remarked. ‘Young ladies do not usually attend until they are marriageable.’

Out of the king’s line of sight Queen Marguerite was nodding in his direction and making urgent pouring movements. King Henry put down his empty cup and I leaned behind his throne to refill it. She nudged it towards him and smiled encouragingly. To my surprise he picked it up and drank again. The whole occasion had taken on a bizarre, carousing quality and I began to wonder if I had imagined what had passed between the queen and myself only minutes before.

‘The king invited her mother to bring Lady Margaret to court,’ Marguerite revealed.

‘I wanted to take a look at her,’ Henry said, his eyes following the girl as she glided through the intricate steps of another dance. ‘She was contracted in infancy to the Suffolk heir but Somerset suggested that I have the match annulled.’ I thought I detected a slight slur in his voice.

‘Did he?’ The queen sounded astonished. ‘He surely can’t want her for his own heir – they are too closely related.’

‘No but she is fatherless and his niece and he thinks she could do better. Young Suffolk shows little promise, neither in arms nor intellect.’ Henry gulped more wine and nursed his cup, his eyes on his new protégée. ‘She certainly dances well.’

This observation surprised me further. It was always understood that Henry disapproved of dancing and yet it seemed that he might have been watching Margaret Beaufort just as intently as I had.

‘Will you now make her a royal ward, then?’ the queen asked.

Henry cast a glance at me over the rim of his cup and swallowed another gulp. ‘No. I thought to give her as ward to Edmund and Jasper,’ he said and I nearly choked on my wine. ‘She can go on living with her mother of course but in the meantime the revenues from her estates will supplement their incomes nicely. Edmund’s Richmond holdings are not vast and some of your Pembroke estates are tied up in legal wrangling, Jasper, so the Somerset lands will provide you both with enough immediate funds to establish your new households.’

‘Your grace is more than generous,’ I spluttered. ‘You have already shown us immense favour.’

A wry smile lifted one side of the king’s mouth. ‘It might seem logical for the Duke of Somerset to hold the lands that pertain to his title but that would not work in the present political climate. I was content for him to assume the dukedom after his unfortunate brother died but if I grant him the lands as well, the Duke of York will find more cause to accuse me of favouritism. No, I wish my brothers to have them and they shall.’

It occurred to me that he would never have confided these thoughts had he not freely partaken of the Christmas spirit but I was certainly not going to argue with him. Being recognized as the king’s nearest relatives was likely to prove a costly business and any grant of extra funds was welcome.

A bold household knight appeared beside the queen’s throne and, with a deep bow, begged the favour of a dance, which she graciously conceded. Henry took the opportunity of her absence to suggest that he and I retire to his private chamber. ‘I have more to discuss with you about the Somerset wardship, Jasper. Send a message to Edmund to join us – and order more hippocras,’ he added, standing and signalling the alert heralds to lower their instantly raised trumpets. ‘We do not need a fanfare. Let the merrymaking continue without interruption.’

I collared a page to carry out the king’s orders and we made our exit from the great hall via the privy door at the back of the dais. A cloister and a stairway led to the royal apartments and King Henry walked there in silence, giving me an opportunity to ponder my extraordinary conversation with the queen. Had she actually hinted that in a desperate attempt to conceive an heir to the throne I might take her husband’s place in her bed, or had she made a cry for help of another kind? The first possibility appalled me. I had found little opportunity to sow wild oats, my life being governed in recent years by tutors and masters at arms, and had no reason to think that I would be any more successful at procreation than Henry. And, far more importantly, beautiful though Marguerite was, the very notion of cuckolding my brother went against every Christian principle those greybeard governors had been so careful to instil. I decided to cling to the idea that the queen’s true intention had been that I should use brotherly privilege and every ounce of tact I possessed to encourage Henry to try a little harder and certainly more often in the queen’s bed, if not for his own satisfaction, then for the benefit of the kingdom. As a waiting chamberlain threw open the door to the royal chamber I took a deep breath and made a vow to seize the moment, hoping Edmund would not arrive too soon and interrupt my efforts.

The sharp winter cold of the open cloister seemed to have dispelled Henry’s slight slur and so when the fresh supply of hippocras arrived I quickly poured another measure, which he showed no hesitation in accepting.

‘I find warm spiced wine an excellent soother of the stomach after the over-indulgence of Christmas fare,’ he confessed a little sheepishly, taking a chair beside the glowing fire. ‘Please tell me if I begin to appear inebriated, Jasper. I so dislike drunkenness in others.’

‘There is never any question of you appearing anything but sober, my liege,’ I assured him.

Henry leaned closer, his brow creasing in concern. ‘It is not necessary for you to address me so formally when we are alone, Jasper. I like to think that in circumstances such as this we can converse freely together as brothers. And please sit.’ He waved at the chair on the opposite side of the hearth.

I sat. It was now or never. I wet my lips with the hippocras and gave a nervous preliminary cough. ‘Thank you, Henry; if I may call you Henry, sire?’ How foolish that sounded but he gave me an encouraging wave and so I ploughed on. ‘Forgive me for asking but I wonder whether your promotion of Edmund and me and your interest in Margaret Beaufort may have come as a result of concern at your own isolation? The throne must be a lonely place when you do not have close family, whose loyalty you can rely on.’

At this point Henry’s attitude became avuncular rather than brotherly. ‘For a young man you are very perceptive, Jasper. Yes, I have certainly felt the lack of relatives of the kind that many of my nobles seem to rely on in large numbers. That is why I have come to value you and Edmund so highly.’

I took the plunge. ‘Of course there would be no such lack if you and the queen were to have a family of your own …’

My words hung between us like feathers caught in an up draught, hovering weightless, before their slow, hesitant descent into meaning. Henry resorted to another large gulp from his cup. Then, after due consideration and yet more alcoholic encouragement, his response came like a bolt from the blue. ‘Was this what you were talking about with Marguerite after your dance together?’

In future it would be hard for critics of his reign to persuade me that Henry was always an arrow short of a full quiver. ‘No. Well yes, indirectly,’ I stuttered. ‘She told me how happy she was that you were favouring your brothers and mentioned how much she regretted you having no children of your own as yet. She seems to think that the people blame her for this.’

Henry’s brow creased deeply and at first I thought it was in anger. I steeled myself for his reprimand but instead he drained his cup and then replaced it with careful deliberation on the table. ‘She obviously already trusts you with her confidences, Jasper, and I am going to do the same,’ he said. ‘And what I am going to tell you must never be repeated to anyone, not even your brother and certainly not Marguerite. Do I have your word on that?’

The solemnity of the moment was striking. I pulled from beneath my doublet the reliquary I wore: it held a trace of the blood of Saint Thomas Becket and had been given to me for protection by the Abbess of Barking when we left her charge to begin our training as knights. The saint’s sister Mary Becket had been a nun at Barking and had received the martyred Archbishop’s bloodstained garments following his murder at Canterbury Cathedral. They had become an object of pilgrimage to the abbey and the tiny scrap of bloodstained cloth that the abbess had snipped from them was my most sacred and treasured possession. ‘You have my oath on holy Becket’s blood, my liege.’

What he saw in my eyes seemed to satisfy him. ‘Good. Then I will reveal to you that I have never liked the process of procreation. It does not come naturally to me as it does to other men and my late lamented confessor, Bishop William Ayscough, encouraged me to steer my energies instead towards the worship of God and his saints. Like Saint Thomas, the bishop was also murdered by evil men you know, outside one of his own churches after he had celebrated Sunday Mass. He was like a father to me.’ He faltered, as though there were a lump in his throat.

I risked a supplementary point. ‘And he was the priest who married you to the queen. Did he not speak as well of the obligations of the marriage contract? Even I, though not yet wed, am aware that between man and wife there is a debt each owes to the other in the marital bed. Is it fair, or even legal, to fail your wife in this debt and expose her to the unjust censure of your subjects when no heir is conceived?’

I was not sure if Henry heard me because he only asked if there was more wine in the flagon. He put the cup to his lips the instant it was full, and it occurred to me then that perhaps an inebriated husband was exactly what Queen Marguerite had in mind when she suggested that I get Henry to enjoy himself a little. Certainly I was not entirely sober myself.

‘Women are strange creatures are they not?’ my royal brother mused, nursing his cup fondly in both hands, as if anxious not to let it out of his sight. ‘Their conversation is all of material matters; who should marry whom, how great will be the dower, of which fabric shall a gown be made. They have little concern for their souls and much for their bodies. Marguerite is no different. I find I cannot bear to use her body in the necessary way to bring about a child when she responds the way she does, with such enthusiasm. Why can I not just take her quietly and discreetly and then return to my prayers?’ He stared deeply into the dark wine, pondering his next words. ‘When I was your age I knew nothing of such things. In truth I know little now and wish to know less. I told your tutors not to let you become corrupted by loose women and feckless companions. They are the ruin of many a young man. I hope you are keeping yourself pure and unsullied, Jasper.’

I stared at him, hearing a maudlin tone in his voice and wondering if he ever really enjoyed himself. I felt a twinge of irritation, combined with a surge of affection for this intelligent yet strangely innocent man who seemed to have become old before his time and who, as a result, had never truly experienced human love. How could he be our mother’s son, the child of a woman who had refused to submit to the restraints imposed on her and had secretly loved and married the man of her choice, a lowly Welsh squire? Our mother had craved happiness and fulfilment, and she had also greatly loved the children who were the result of this reckless passion. I had disappointingly little memory of her face but I vividly recalled her fragrance and the warmth of her embrace. It was a tragedy that this cold and pious Henry could not remember the joy of his mother’s love. It would be so much the better for Queen Marguerite if he did.

‘But achieving the honour of fatherhood, Henry, implies no impurity. Perhaps if you were to try to please your wife a little more often you would find that her enthusiasm is a measure of her sense of duty,’ I suggested, suddenly careless of whether I angered him or not. ‘I know I look forward to finding such a wife myself in due course. Surely every man does.’

The maudlin tone persisted in Henry. ‘But how would I do that, Jasper? Please my wife I mean?’ His pale, greenish-blue eyes pleaded across the hearth, like those of a trembling hound.

It was probably the wine talking but I said the first thing that came into my head, brother to brother. ‘Put God to the back of your mind for an hour or so, Henry, and concentrate on her. You are a man after all. And she is beautiful, you know.’

There was a scratching on the door and it suddenly opened to allow the entrance of the queen, escorted by Edmund. Henry and I both jumped as if caught in some act of petty larceny and Marguerite’s gaze went immediately from the cup in her husband’s hands to my expression of startled guilt. Her delighted smile caused Henry’s jaw to drop in amazement.

‘Blessed Marie, we have discovered a den of iniquity, Edmund!’ she cried with glee. ‘Shall we join it?’

5
Jasper

The Tower of London

EDMUND AND I KNELT on the stone floor before the high altar. Our long white tunics and red cloaks represented the body and blood of Christ. Dark shadows obscured the vaulted ceiling and arched aisles of the Chapel Royal of St John the Evangelist at the top of the ancient keep in the Tower of London. The overnight vigil was observed by every candidate for knighthood, other than those dubbed on the battlefield or during a campaign. I had begun by dutifully reciting all the prayers and psalms I knew by heart, repeating them under my breath so as not to intrude on Edmund’s orisons, but as time went on and the shadows began to play tricks, my mind strayed sinfully.

I found myself thinking about why Henry’s attitude towards the stirring of the flesh was so different to mine. How was it that he abhorred the very idea of sex and even shied away from the beautiful woman he had married? Did he not feel the same lustful urges that I experienced and constantly struggled to control? From banter with my peers I knew that if the temptations of the flesh were the devil’s work then Lucifer was a busy fiend, for all the young squires in the royal household were in his grip; this thought caused me a wry smile. So why was Henry different? At thirty-one he was hardly an old man. In ten years’ time would I too have retreated into monkish chastity and arid dreams? It was not a prospect I relished.

I glanced across at Edmund, whose knees were doubtless suffering as mine were, but his eyes remained closed. I wondered if he prayed. But I did not think it could be God or the Virgin or any particular saint that was sustaining him. Perhaps like me he was considering his sins, itemizing them so that he could make a full confession in the morning. As he rarely managed to resist a weekly trip across the river to the Southwark stews I calculated that his time spent with the priest might be longer than mine; unless of course, as he often boasted, he genuinely did not consider it a sin to cross a whore’s palm with silver. Queen Marguerite had been right; although close as brothers, Edmund and I were very different.

One of the candles on the altar guttered and I was glad of the excuse to stand up in order to light a fresh candle from the failing one. I rubbed my kneecaps briskly as I stood. In the flaring of the new flame the pristine steel of our swords cut across my eyes and the gleaming crests of our shields leapt out between them, strangely close. The leopards and lilies of England and France emblazoned there, the very emblems of the royal arms, felt dream-like, but in the sudden brightness Edmund had opened his eyes and reality resumed. Mindful of the presence of the priest who sat sentinel in the choir stalls behind us we did not speak but Edmund aimed a wink at me and slightly lifted the hem of his white tunic. Hidden beneath its folds was an embroidered prayer cushion, one of those laid out for ladies who used the chapel. He had managed to sneak it past the priest and it was clear that his knees were nothing like as cold, cramped and bruised as mine. There were times when I had to admire my brother’s ability to bend the rules but on this occasion I could not help thinking that keeping vigil before an altar on the eve of knighthood, when honour and integrity should actually count for something, was not the right time to cheat the system.

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.

King Henry and Queen Marguerite occupied a prominent position at the front of the church. Beside them was the Lord Chancellor, the venerable Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal John Kemp who, in due course, was to give a sermon on the responsibilities and duties of knighthood, a singular honour and one that could only have been commissioned on our behalf by King Henry himself. A significant absentee was the Duke of Somerset, for reasons that became clear as the day wore on. After the Mass we made confession and then followed the king and queen in solemn procession to the great hall. There our knighting and investiture would take place on the royal dais, with a crowd of invited courtiers gathered on the floor below.

We made our solemn vows of loyalty, honour and religious observance kneeling before the king who then officially dubbed each of us with a blow to the shoulder, requesting us to rise as Knights of the Realm and of his Household. His words were the signal for an ear-splitting fanfare of trumpets, to which we rose. As gleaming spurs, symbols of our knightly status, were attached to our shoes I felt a surging sense of duty, as if in one bound I had leapt from youth to manhood, a feeling that was immediately and doubly reinforced moments later when we were invested as earls. Richmond Herald announced our new titles, whereupon the earls of Warwick and Wiltshire stepped forward to buckle ceremonial sword-belts around our hips, and the king slid our gleaming swords of office into their scabbards. The two powerful earls, both stony-faced, then completed the ceremony by displaying the new shields painted with our crests, which were based on the royal arms and proof of our precedence over all other nobles, including them, with only the dukes our equals. The leopards and lilies of England and France brought the enormous significance of our elevation into sharp focus and receiving the shield from the hands of the king I felt tears spring to my eyes. I planted a fervent kiss of loyalty and gratitude on his coronation ring.

Heraldry is a precise science and I had chosen the golden martlet as my differencing device because it was one that had been used by previous earls of Pembroke. The martlet also signified a younger son; one who stood to inherit no estates but had achieved honour through merit and service; for that reason Edmund had also chosen it, alternated with fleurs de lys to indicate his seniority in our French mother’s second family. Heraldic limners depicted the bird as a swift without feet to signify its habit of apparently constant flight, seeming never to land, an appropriate metaphor for our quasi-royal status as brothers of the king but not contenders for the throne. Years later I was to see that this constantly airborne emblem was a personal augury, indicating a restless future of which I was, as yet, blissfully unaware.

To my consternation, as I left the king’s dais, I found my father kneeling before me and kissing my hand. ‘My lord of Pembroke, you have my undying loyalty. My sword and my bow are yours to command. How proud your mother would have been to see you ennobled at the king’s side, where you belong.’

I urged him to his feet, hastily blinking back a fresh welling of tears. ‘Do not make me weep, Father, I beg you, or King Henry will regret his action. It is strong allies he requires, not milksop weaklings!’

Owen Tudor made a derisory noise. ‘Bah! A man who weeps at triumph will also laugh off failure. What is your next move, Jasper, now that you have land and income? Marriage perhaps? Children to found a dynasty?’

The saturnine Earl of Warwick had followed me from the dais and overheard my father’s queries, adding his own sardonic observation as he passed by. ‘That must surely be the king’s expectation, considering his own lamentable lack of an heir.’

Warwick’s lengthy stride had carried him out of earshot before I could protest at his offensive remark, but Edmund had also overheard Owen’s questions and had his own response. ‘A dynasty is certainly my intention,’ he said, ‘and I know precisely who will suit my purpose in that regard. Already Henry has all but given her to me.’

‘Aha, and who is that?’ Owen enquired. ‘A rich widow perhaps?’

‘A widow?’ Edmund’s eyebrows knitted in distaste. ‘I think that is your territory, Father. No, I have the wardship of the Somerset heiress. Marriage to her and the income from her considerable estates will perfectly serve my purpose. Besides she is a Beaufort with direct royal descent. I shall make it clear to Henry that she pleases me.’

Already rattled by Warwick’s uncalled-for remark, I could barely disguise the further outrage I felt at my brother’s bald assumption that he would marry Margaret. ‘She is only nine years old, Edmund!’ I pointed out. ‘And I would remind you that her custody and estates are to be shared between us. You do not have sole rights in the matter.’

Edmund cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘After her yourself are you, younger brother?’

‘I have no intention of marrying a child,’ I snapped, ‘and nor should you.’

Anxious to forestall an argument, Owen tried to intercede. ‘Steady my sons! It is hardly worth coming to blows over something that will be decided by the king anyway.’

Edmund ignored him. ‘She will not be a child much longer. Besides she has older married half-sisters and in those circumstances a girl learns the facts of life very quickly.’

‘And you would know all about that I suppose!’ The biting sarcasm I had injected into this remark made Edmund flush with anger but a blast of trumpets brought an abrupt halt to our rapidly escalating quarrel. The commanding voice of the royal usher proclaimed the start of the feast. ‘By Your Leave my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen – to your places!’ We turned on our heels, parting to take our seats at the high table.

It was at this point that the reason for the absence of the Duke of Somerset, who was after all Edmund’s godfather and might have been expected to attend, became clear. With no dukes present, as premier earls we might be seated on either side of the king and queen, while the Archbishop, as head of the Church hierarchy, was placed between the royal couple. It was a relief to find that Edmund was shown to a position on Queen Marguerite’s left, four places away from where I was seated to the right of King Henry.

During the first course, a series of fish and vegetable dishes served with sauces coloured blue and white to honour the livery colours of the House of Lancaster, I noticed that Lady Welles and her daughter had been seated only a few feet away at a reward table on the dais, among other high-ranking guests. I had observed her from afar, but as yet I had not actually met our new ward and between courses I took the opportunity to wander over to speak with her and her mother.

When her mother had introduced us I addressed her. ‘I hope you are not disappointed to have my brother and myself as your new guardians, Lady Margaret?’

Her eyes had been demurely studying the floor but now they flashed up to my face, revealing whites the colour of skimmed milk and spectacular slate-grey irises that were speckled like a peregrine’s breast. Her reply was unexpected. ‘When the king told me about the wardship he said I could choose whether I wished to stay with Suffolk or go to you. I do not think he really meant it though, because he made you both sound so admirable that it was clear he wanted me to choose you.’

‘However, Margaret kept his grace waiting,’ said Lady Welles with more than a hint of pride. ‘She asked if she could sleep on the decision, which gave her time to consult with me and the rest of her family.’

I made the girl a grave bow. ‘I am proud that your consultations led you to choose us, my lady.’

Her responding smile displayed a trace of mischief. ‘Oh it was not the consultations, my lord. I was still undecided at bedtime and so I prayed to St Nicholas, the patron saint of young girls. He sent me a dream in which I encountered a fierce dragon – and lo and behold not one but two knights rode to my rescue. After that it was easy.’

I returned her smile. ‘Do you often have such vivid dreams?’

‘No. That is why I knew it was the right thing to do. The dragon is the symbol of St Margaret.’

‘It was very obliging of both saints to come to your aid,’ I said. ‘I will remember to thank them in my prayers.’

A fresh blast of trumpets announced the arrival of the next course and I hastened to ask for the honour of being her partner when the dancing commenced.

Her curtsy was graceful and dignified. ‘If my mother permits it.’

Lady Welles did so and we all returned to our places at table as roasted boar and swan were carried shoulder-high into the hall. King Henry refused wine and sipped at his usual cup of small ale looking weary as he ate achingly slowly and in silence. I waited for his page to bring him water to wash his hands before broaching the subject uppermost in my mind.

‘May I ask your grace if it is your eventual intention to make a marriage between Edmund or me and Lady Margaret Beaufort?’

It took several moments for his distant gaze to focus and I wondered where his thoughts had been. ‘Actually I have sent a letter to Rome asking for the Holy Father’s opinion on the matter,’ he said. ‘Like me, Lady Margaret is a great-grandchild of King Edward the Third and carries a line of succession to the throne. She could pass her claim to any son she may have, so much care must be taken in the matter of her marriage.’

‘The Beaufort claim is very tenuous though, is it not, my liege? Your royal grandfather confirmed the legitimacy of his Beaufort half siblings but an Act of Parliament barred them from the succession did it not? Surely the York claim is stronger? But of course none of this will be of any consequence when you and the queen have a son.’

Henry’s brows knitted at the mention of the York claim and his frown deepened further when I referred to the possibility of a royal heir. ‘I am glad your tutors taught you the law and history of England so well, Jasper, but Margaret Beaufort is young yet. Let us leave consideration of her marriage until the pope makes his ruling.’

This was not exactly what I wanted to hear but at least there would be no immediate betrothal. I would be able to enjoy dancing with Margaret, knowing that if Edmund were to press the king on an imminent marriage he would get nowhere.

As I followed the steps of a stately gavotte, I found it hard to take my eyes off my partner’s slender form. Even in the rather severe grey gown they had dressed her in that day she still managed to remind me of a graceful falcon gliding between tall trees as she wound her way between the other dancers in the set. The more I saw of Margaret Beaufort the more she resembled the Honoured Lady of Arthurian chivalry and the more I saw her as a potential wife, one day. There seemed to emanate from her a noble grace, which entirely outshone the lush temptations offered by other ladies on the floor.

* * *

A few days later we had each received a written summons to attend the Royal Council. ‘I cannot contemplate sitting around a table with a bunch of greybeards discussing the king’s finances,’ Edmund grumbled. ‘I must look to my own affairs and that means inspecting the meagre estates as yet granted to me. I will leave tomorrow for Leicestershire, as planned.’

‘It is our first summons from the king, Edmund – an honour. He will expect us to attend.’ Despite my warning I understood his wish to visit his new estates. I, too, wanted to go to Wales but a series of disputes over lordships connected to the Pembroke earldom were hampering my possession of many of its manors. I had to wait for the Council to settle these.

‘You have business there anyway, Jas, so you can keep me up to date with what happens and make my excuses. There is no need for us both to go.’ Edmund flashed one of his disarming smiles, slapped me on the back and departed, leaving me irritated but resigned.

As it turned out the retrieval of the Pembroke lands was achieved without difficulty and no comment was made about Edmund’s absence. He returned in time to take his seat with the Lords and hear the petition read in which the king publicly proclaimed us as his brothers, although since we were related through our mother and bore only French royal blood, we were barred from any succession to the English throne. Once passed, the same Act of Parliament also established that our earldoms were not just for life but could be inherited by our legitimate male heirs. I should have been a proud and happy man, had it not been for Edmund’s muttered remark after hearing the Act read.

‘Well, if a son of mine can inherit my earldom of Richmond, it surely follows that he can also inherit his mother’s titles and honours, including any line of succession she may have to the English throne.’

PART TWO
The Tudor Earls
1453–1459

6
Jane

Tŷ Cerrig, Gwynedd, North Wales

SINCE OUR PATHS HAD last crossed, Jasper Tudor’s life had been transformed – and so had he. When I hurried nervously from the house to confront the troop of armed and mounted men approaching the farmstead up the track from the shore I failed to recognize him, at first. I should have been prepared since I knew from the songs the bards sang around the local farms and lordships that the cousins who had slept on the straw in our byre two summers ago had now been declared the king’s closest kin and created the foremost earls in the land. Nevertheless, when Jasper rode under the gate-arch, bareheaded but wearing gleaming armour, on a warhorse trapped in blue and silver and leading an entourage in what looked like royal livery, my jaw dropped.

He did not wait for a man to run and hold his horse but flung his steel-clad leg over the pommel and jumped from the saddle with eager assurance. ‘Jane! It is Jane is it not? You have grown taller and even lovelier than when we last met.’ He bent over my hand before raising his head and pressing his lips briefly to mine. It was a common enough greeting between family members but I must have looked shaken because he stepped back at once with an apologetic expression. ‘Oh, have I offended you? I crave your pardon. I thought we parted friends. And we are cousins are we not?’

I saw with an inner smile of relief that, earl or not, his cheeks had flushed. An inability to hide his blushes was one of the things I had liked about him, and the way he cocked his head enquiringly to one side instantly recalled the unpretentious young man I had known. I gave a little laugh and shrugged. ‘Distant cousins, yes – and no, you have not offended me. We heard you had become Earl of Pembroke but did not expect a visit this far from your earldom. Welcome back to Tŷ Cerrig, my lord.’ Remembering my manners I dropped a low curtsy.

He urged me to rise, his colour deepening. ‘I am still not used to ceremony,’ he confessed. ‘I came to see my cousin Hywel on a matter of business but it is an added bonus to find that you are still here, Jane. I thought you might be married and away by now.’

Not knowing how to respond to this remark I averted my eyes and cleared my throat. ‘My father and brothers are in the fields but I have sent word and they should be here directly.’ Seeing the dozen or so men still mounted behind him and awaiting orders I added, ‘Will your retinue take refreshment? We have bread and ale and water for the horses.’

‘Thank you yes, they will be glad of that, but fear not, they have no need of lodging. They will find it in the town.’ He signalled them to dismount. I noticed that most wore mail-armour under their livery and swords on their belts, while the remaining few were obviously servants, armed only with small blades. Their horses were damp with sweat and it looked like they had been moving fast, as if through potentially hostile territory.

‘They may be welcome trade at the Abermaw inns but there are always empty barns on the farm at this time of year,’ I said. ‘We would not turn them away.’

A lad came forward to hold his master’s horse. ‘There are water troughs over yonder,’ Jasper told him, pointing towards the stable block. ‘And tell the captain to send a couple of men up to the house to collect refreshments.’ The youth touched his forehead in acknowledgement and led the horse away but Jasper called after him. ‘And bring my saddlebags to me.’

‘I will, my lord.’

By now Bethan had emerged cautiously with Nesta. The little girl was clutching her mother’s skirts, scared by the sight of so many horses and men, but Bethan was smiling and nodding, delighted in her simple way to see Jasper again. ‘Give you good day Jasper,’ she said with a little bob.

He strode forward and sent her into a flurry by kissing her hand. ‘Bethan, looking as beautiful as ever and blessed again I see.’ His sharp eyes had noticed her swollen belly. ‘God protect you, and the little one.’ He squatted down and ruffled Nesta’s curly mop of bronze hair. She stared solemnly back at him, her dark eyes enormous. ‘Oh you are a brave girl,’ he said, smiling. ‘Most children I speak to immediately start yelling.’ He glanced up at me. ‘So this is the newborn babe you brought into the world the last time I was here?’

‘Well, the midwife helped a little,’ I said, ‘and Bethan helped a lot, obviously!’

‘What is your name?’ Jasper was still squatting at the infant’s level.

‘Nesta,’ piped the little girl.

‘It is a Welsh form of Agnes. Bethan loved my mother.’ For some reason I felt it necessary to explain why the offspring of a second wife should be named for the one who had preceded her.

‘Agnes is in heaven,’ my stepmother said in her guileless treble. ‘She looks after my Nesta.’

Jasper straightened up. ‘It is a pretty name for a pretty girl,’ he told Bethan.

At this moment my father and my brother Maredudd strode around the corner of the house, wiping hands mired with sheep grease on their smocks. Hywel bent his knee to Jasper respectfully. ‘I was told the Earl of Pembroke was here,’ he said. ‘You are welcome to Tŷ Cerrig, my lord.’

Jasper urged him to his feet, clasping his shoulder in warm greeting. ‘I thank you, cousin Hywel. I hope you and your family will always think of me as Jasper,’ he said. ‘Indeed I hope I may rely on the continued friendship and support of all my Welsh kin.’

‘The Earls of Pembroke have not always found favour among the Welsh,’ Hywel observed, edging himself free. ‘Especially here in the north.’ I could sense an uneasy tension about him and groped for a valid reason.

‘The Earl of Pembroke has never been a Welshman before,’ responded Jasper swiftly, turning to Maredudd, who had followed our father’s lead and set his knee to the ground. ‘Cousin Maredudd, I give you God’s good day as well. We parted friends two years ago. I hope nothing has changed.’

My brother’s attitude was less wary. ‘Not as far as I am concerned, Lord Jasper, but my father pays the king’s taxes and does not like the way they are spent.’ This revelation earned him a fierce frown from Hywel.

‘Ha!’ Jasper pulled Maredudd to his feet. ‘Nor does the Duke of York. Does that make you all Yorkists now? I confess I dislike the way the country is splitting between Lancaster and York. I myself favour a united front and peace with France and intend to work towards that end.’ He turned to Hywel. ‘As for the taxation, I have something to discuss which may ease your troubles on that score. Jane offered refreshment. May we talk over a mug of ale?’

The atmosphere shifted as my father remembered his duty of hospitality. ‘Of course, my lord, let us go in.’

Before climbing the steep stair to the upper hall of the farmhouse, Hywel and Maredudd stopped to strip off their malodorous smocks in the empty byre, replacing them with clean homespun tunics and washing their hands in water drawn from the cistern barrel outside the dairy door. Meanwhile I poured ale and Bethan fetched loaves from the morning’s batch of bread and a cheese from the store-cupboard, before retiring behind the solar curtain with Nesta.

Jasper accepted a full mug from me and took a long swallow while I opened the shutters, letting light into the dim hall. ‘I must say that a draught of your fine ale is very welcome, Jane. We have been in the saddle since daybreak.’ He sat down in the big hearth chair I indicated. ‘I am going to ask your brother Maredudd to join my household at Pembroke. Do you think he will accept a position as my squire?’

With a sudden surge of jealousy I realized how much I would relish the opportunity of escaping the confines of Tŷ Cerrig. The world outside was unknown to me, an unexplored land, and likely to remain so. ‘I cannot speak for my brother but if it were me I would jump at the chance,’ I said. I placed two trestles in the middle of the room, then Mair helped me fit the board across them.

Jasper watched us lay out the cheese and bread and begin to cut wedges. ‘Would you really like to leave Tŷ Cerrig, Jane?’ he asked with thoughtful surprise. ‘But how would your father manage without you? He has other sons to work the farm but no one else who can run the household as you do.’

I made no response because at that moment my father and brother entered the hall. Maredudd was hauling a pair of large and obviously heavy saddlebags, which he set down beside Jasper. ‘Your lad brought these up to the house,’ he said. ‘They feel as if they are full of gold.’

Jasper laughed and stood up, putting his mug down on the board. ‘They carry the parts of my armour that I am not wearing. Could I ask your help in removing the rest? I am sure I will not be needing it here.’

He watched keenly as Maredudd set about undoing the buckles that secured the various elements of armour he had considered necessary for protection on the road. I had no idea what any of them were called but I was surprised to hear Maredudd name each piece as he removed it, obviously impressed. ‘This is beautifully made, my lord. Fits you perfectly,’ he remarked, placing the last item on the pile of gleaming steel. ‘It must have cost a great deal. Shall I give it a rub before I put it in the bag?’

Stripped to tunic and hose, Jasper looked considerably more comfortable. ‘Not now, thank you.’ He shook his head and went to pull his chair up to the table but Maredudd was ahead of him, placing it at the centre of the board and pushing it in as Jasper sat himself down. ‘Perhaps later, after we have all spoken a little together. And let us eat while we talk. I confess I am hungry.’

I went to replenish his supply of ale and fill cups for my father and brother, who drew up a bench opposite Jasper. I found it strange to see my father take a subordinate position at his own board and it brought home to me the new gulf in rank between our Tudor cousin and us. I could see that Hywel was chafing silently under the inferior position.

‘Please sit with us, Jane,’ Jasper said unexpectedly. ‘If you can spare the time.’

I glanced at my father, received his curt nod of approval and slid onto the bench beside Maredudd. As I did so I remembered the rest of the men waiting for refreshment outside and reached out to cut another, much larger wedge off the big cheese wheel. I handed it to Mair and told her to draw some jugs of ale and take them with the cheese and several loaves down to the stables. ‘Do not linger down there gossiping,’ I charged her. ‘Get straight back to the dairy.’

‘There should be men waiting below to collect the victuals,’ Jasper said.

Far from looking grateful, garrulous Mair frowned and left the hall muttering under her breath, the heavy hunk of cheese held in her apron. I guessed that a flirtatious exchange with the men at arms would have provided her with a week’s supply of gossip.

For a short time the three men drank and ate without speaking and I nibbled at a crust of bread and picked at the morsels that had crumbled off the cheese. Jasper was the first to break the silence.

‘As you all appear to know already, my brother the king has granted me the earldom of Pembroke. When I was last here at Tŷ Cerrig I had not expected any such honour and I confess that running such widespread estates is a daunting prospect. There is already an administration in place but I am now in the process of appointing a household and retinue, people I can trust and who will serve me honestly and loyally. That is my main reason for coming here, apart of course from renewing old friendships and family ties. So Hywel, the position of Steward of Pembroke castle is available, which I offer to you if you feel you could combine it with your farming activities.’

He paused and we all looked expectantly at Hywel. As far as I knew few Welsh citizens held an office as high as steward, especially of a castle as important as Pembroke. I had never been there but I was aware that it was a major stronghold, one of a ring of fortresses built around the perimeter of Wales to preserve the English monarchy’s grip on the principality and defend it from outside attack. For the last two hundred years a succession of royal relatives and favourites had been installed as overlords of Pembroke and in return for its revenues had been expected to defend the south west shores of Wales from incursion, as well as dispense justice and keep the peace among the native population. I guessed that Jasper would be the first to try and achieve this with a foot in both camps – as the son of a Welshman and the brother of the king. It would not be easy and my father’s carefully worded reaction offered evidence of why.

‘I am grateful that you should consider me worthy of the honour, Lord Jasper,’ he said gruffly, ‘but with regret I must decline. Since your last visit, sadly my wife’s father, Emrys, has died and I have assumed control of her lands as well as my own. I would be unable to devote the necessary time to administering a castle of the size and importance of Pembroke, to say nothing of overseeing its estates in your lordship’s inevitable absences. I hope you will forgive my refusal and accept my apologies.’

In deference to Jasper’s presence we were speaking English and I was impressed by my father’s diplomacy in wording his rejection so tactfully in a language that was not his native tongue. I knew that Welsh had been his only language until he followed his cousin Owen Tudor to England to serve Queen Catherine, but since then, with my mother’s help, as well as English he had acquired a smattering of French. This and his comprehensive grasp of land-use would have made him a very suitable candidate for the job of Pembroke’s seneschal.

Jasper seemed undaunted by his response. ‘I cannot say I am surprised by your answer, Hywel,’ he said. ‘You are right to put the needs of your family and farms first. My condolences on the death of your father-in-law but congratulations on what I am sure you hope will be another son. However, even though I cannot count on your services, I trust you will retain an attachment to my affinity and that I may call on our family ties should the need ever arrive.’

By that I took him to mean military support in time of trouble and it might have been a cue for Hywel to offer his oath of allegiance but my father made no move to make it. Instead he nodded slowly and acquiesced rather half-heartedly. ‘I would not ignore your call, cousin,’ he said. ‘And I wish you well in your endeavours.’

His tone implied that he did not believe success was very likely but again Jasper chose not to notice. ‘Thank you, Hywel. I know you will be anxious to return to your sheep but there is one other matter that I must place before you. I would also like to offer Maredudd a position as a squire in my retinue. I realize this would take him away from the farm and from his roots but I am hoping that the opportunities it would offer him to expand his horizons and learn new skills will sway your decision and that you will allow him to go.’

Hywel turned to look at his son, who had become pink with excitement. Like me, Maredudd was obviously keen to explore the wider world. ‘Remember that you were permitted to follow Owen Tudor to England, Father,’ he said breathlessly and in Welsh, before Hywel could speak. ‘I too need a chance to spread my wings and Dai is growing more capable by the day.’

Hywel replied in the same language, while Jasper glanced from one to the other trying to fathom what was said. ‘I do not forget my service to Queen Catherine and the advantages it brought me, son, but I cannot afford to lose your labour on the farm unless the rich new lord pays for your absence so that I can hire a man to replace you. Ask him.’

Maredudd shook his head, scowling. ‘No, you ask him. He says I can only go if you say so.’

Jasper looked at me, one eyebrow raised in query. Torn between loyalty to my father and a sudden urge to support Jasper, I found myself opting for the latter, mainly due to what I considered to be my father’s discourtesy in using a language that he knew his guest did not understand. Learned at my mother’s knee, my French was fluent and I knew Jasper had learned his the same way, so I decided to present Hywel with a taste of his own treatment, knowing he could only follow simple French, spoken slowly.

‘They are arguing about money.’ I said quickly to Jasper. ‘My father says he cannot afford to lose Maredudd’s labour unless you finance someone to replace him. In other words he wants you to pay him for the privilege of taking his son away. You could call it extortion.’

To my surprise Jasper grinned and responded in equally swift French, causing both my father and brother to glower in frustration. ‘I would not call it that. I was going to offer compensation anyway but they started gabbling away to each other and I did not like to interrupt.’ He switched to English and turned his smile on Hywel. ‘Now that I know what you were talking about let me put your mind at rest, cousin. I confess that it would be of great comfort to me to have a family member among my close companions but of course I would not take Maredudd away from the farm without offering you some form of financial compensation. Once I know that he is willing to swear allegiance to me we can talk money – preferably in a language we can all understand.’

He fixed my brother with a searching, sapphire gaze, speaking with a new solemnity. ‘If you are to become one of my squires of the body, Maredudd, an oath of allegiance is essential. I have seen your interest in armour and your skill with the bow, and I know your honesty and enthusiasm, but are you prepared to put your hands between mine and swear to serve me, Jasper Earl of Pembroke, faithfully and to the exclusion of all others? Without that solemn oath we cannot continue.’

Judging by his expression Maredudd was experiencing inner turmoil. He was acutely aware of our father’s ambivalence towards this Tudor cousin, half-brother to an English king, whose Lancastrian forefathers had within living memory brought ruin and deprivation to Wales. To swear allegiance to Jasper now might in the future mean having to abandon his natural allegiance to his father. In an agony of indecision Maredudd frowned fiercely at me, seeking my opinion and I responded with an almost indecipherable nod. I hoped God would forgive me for disloyalty to my father, but I could not believe that the attributes I discerned in Jasper – honour, integrity and a sense of justice – could set a bad example to my brother or lead him into actions that were incompatible with his family obligations.

After another moment’s hesitation Maredudd slipped around the table, went down on one knee and placed his hands between those of the new Earl of Pembroke.

* * *

Looking back I can see that this was the start of a subtle change in my own sense of duty and at the earliest opportunity I sought out Maredudd, anxious to gauge his true attitude towards Jasper. Shortly after pledging his new allegiance, he and Hywel had gone back to the sheepfold so it was not until near dusk that I spied him from the hall window, alone and bare-chested, standing over a pail by the dairy cistern. Knowing that he would once more be covered in sheep-grease, I took soap, rough linen rags and a jug of hot water from the hearth kettle and carried them down to him.

He was appreciative but puzzled. ‘This is an unexpected kindness, sis,’ he said, immediately making use of all three items, scrubbing at his hands and arms. ‘Any particular reason?’

I dragged a milking-stool from the dairy and sat down. Maredudd was nearing his eighteenth birthday and I noticed how muscular his torso had become since I had last seen him shirtless during the previous year’s sheep-walk. ‘I wondered how you felt now that you are Lord Jasper’s man,’ I replied. ‘What did our father say to you?’

His teeth gleamed in the twilight. ‘Probably the same as you are about to say now.’

‘You do not know what I am going to say,’ I protested.

‘I can guess though. You are going to accuse me of disloyalty, of abandoning my blood ties.’

I shrugged. ‘If that is what our father said I am not surprised, but it is not what I would say.’ Maredudd paused in his ablutions, one eyebrow raised in query. I continued, ‘I asked how you felt with your hands between Jasper’s while you made your oath of allegiance. Did you feel as if you were betraying your family?’

‘No, I did not because I regard him as family. His father and mine are of the same blood and becoming a squire in Jasper’s retinue is a means of improving my status. I do not want to remain a yeoman farmer all my life, as our father obviously does.’

At this I detected a hint of scorn in his voice and I could not let it go unchallenged. ‘I think he regards himself as a gentleman farmer and sees a wider picture. As a boy he heard the stories of Glyn Dŵr’s rebellion and his own father’s struggle to rebuild his life and he blames the Lancastrian kings. Jasper is brother to a Lancastrian king.’

‘Half brother,’ Maredudd corrected me. ‘And the other half is Welsh and our blood relative. He straddles the two nations and so can I. Perhaps Lord Jasper is Y Mab Daragon as some bards sing. Perhaps he truly is the Son of Prophecy come to restore the pride of the Welsh nation. People are beginning to think so.’

I had always seen something special in Jasper Tudor but it was not that. My reasons for favouring him were more personal, more heartfelt than lodged in legend, but I was not going to reveal my heart to my brother, who would only mock me for it. ‘Who are these people?’ I asked. ‘Ruffians and hotheads from the Abermaw taverns?’

Maredudd shook his hands and drops of water flew in all directions, some of it sprinkling my face and cap. ‘There is a poet,’ he said defensively, grabbing a dry towel he had draped over the dairy door. ‘His name is Lewys Glyn Cothi and he is a farmer’s son like me but he has the bard’s gift of song. He is making a name for himself among the local gentry and I have let it be known that he would be welcome here.’

‘Really?’ Bards travelled the country singing and reciting legend, verse and polemic of varying literary, musical and political merit. We had never received a visit from one, Hywel being uninterested in such ‘riff-raff’ as he called them. ‘When will he come, do you know?’

‘As soon as he gets wind of Lord Jasper’s presence I should imagine,’ said Maredudd. ‘Bards like to sing for people with money and influence and at present they do not come any richer or more influential in Wales than the Earl of Pembroke.’ He aimed an entreating smile at me. ‘Be a good girl, Sian, and fetch my best blue doublet. I do not like to parade through the dairy half-dressed in front of Mair – it gets her far too excited. By the way, I hope the fact that you are loitering down here does not mean that supper will be late.’

Incensed by this lordly attitude I picked up the pail of warm water, now containing only tepid dregs, and threw them at him, soaking his braies. He objected loudly and made fruitless efforts to dry himself off but I ignored him, declaring, ‘There will be no supper until our father and Lord Jasper have finished talking about money in the hall. But I will fetch your doublet, my lord Maredudd –’ I bobbed him a sarcastic curtsy ‘– if you fetch the cask of wine Jasper says his men unloaded earlier. It should be down at the stables somewhere. It seems Father wants to toast your departure!’

In fact, Mair was no longer in the dairy but I could hear footsteps descending the steep stair from the hall so I dumped the pail in the stone sink and hurried to see who it was, hoping to encounter Jasper. Sure enough he was striding out of the farmhouse entrance as I scurried up behind him.

‘Lord Jasper, I was hoping to catch you.’

He spun around, smiling. ‘Jane – never far away!’

‘You will stay here with us I hope – not ride off to Abermaw with your entourage.’

‘Your father has just invited me. He offered to vacate the solar in my favour but I said that a pallet on the byre floor would be perfectly adequate, as it was before.’

‘Oh good,’ I said with relief. ‘That means I can sleep in the hall as usual. I will start supper directly. We have some little birds that Evan netted this morning.’

‘You are never at a loss, Jane, are you?’ he remarked, fixing me with his laughing blue eyes. ‘I think you could victual an army in a desert. If you were a man I believe I would make you Steward of Pembroke Castle.’

I felt my knees become suddenly unreliable and clutched at the doorpost for support, inwardly ordering my wayward female instincts to behave. This charming, snake-hipped, copper-topped cousin might once have been within my reach but now that he was a belted earl he had soared way above it. I might look and I might yearn but I told myself sternly that I had to keep my feelings under control, like the household I ran so proudly.

I managed a balanced curtsy and a modest bow of the head. ‘And I would gladly serve you, my lord,’ I said.

7
Jasper

Clarendon Palace, Wiltshire; Dinefŵr Castle, South Wales

WE HAD BEEN TAKING a break at Clarendon Hunting Lodge during another royal progress when the sickness came on. The king had enjoyed a good day’s sport: he was weary but cheerful after a strenuous day in the saddle. Queen Marguerite was close to giving birth, an event Henry awaited with joyous trepidation. The child must have been conceived, I secretly congratulated myself, within weeks of our hippocras-fuelled Christmas tête à tête. But Henry’s contentment on that evening in Wiltshire was to be short-lived. An urgent letter was brought for his immediate attention just before supper was due. I noticed that as he perused the letter his body seemed to shrink within his doublet, his face drained of colour and his eyes grew wide, the lids blinking frantically as if his mind could not comprehend the contents of the page. I rushed forward to catch him as his knees buckled, the letter falling to the floor …

My first thought was that the queen had suffered a stillbirth but as I frantically loosened the neck of Henry’s chemise I was vaguely aware that someone had snatched up the letter and was muttering details from it. ‘Disastrous defeat in Gascony … army routed … Shrewsbury killed. Jesu save us – France is lost!’

Terrible news indeed – the room erupted around me – but my chief concern was Henry’s extreme reaction to it and for several heart-stopping moments I feared he was dead. I searched desperately for signs of life. ‘Send for the Physician!’ I yelled over the confusion, patting my brother’s chalk-white cheeks and putting my fingers under his nose to check for breathing. Bending closer, I detected a sigh of air escaping from his nostrils and began to breathe more steadily myself. Whatever fit or apoplexy the king had suffered he was not dead, it was his sovereignty over France that had suffered a fatal blow.

England’s defeat by French forces outside a town called Castillion added the loss of Aquitaine to that of Normandy, Maine and Anjou, and with it the city of Bordeaux and the all-important wine trade. The dreadful realization of the almost total loss of his father’s glorious French legacy seemed to have robbed Henry of his wits; somehow his mind had become frozen and refused to function. His doctors over the coming days were utterly perplexed, unable to offer any remedy except for the usual cuppings and bleedings, which achieved little other than to render him more feeble and listless. He ate and drank if nourishment was put before him but was otherwise unresponsive and had to be guided from room to room, apparently unaware of where he was or who was with him. After extensive discussion within the Royal Household, we took him in a closed carriage to the security of Windsor Castle, where I left him in the care of two long-standing and faithful servants and hurried to Westminster to call an emergency meeting of the Privy Council in the king’s name.

I could have done with Edmund’s support at this time but he had taken himself off and left no word as to where he had gone and so I was alone in attempting to arbitrate between the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of York, who exploited the absence of the king and all the force of their superior age and rank to pursue their private war. Somerset insisted on keeping to the king’s policy of peace at all costs whereas Richard of York, a soldier as much as a diplomat, had always favoured pursuing an aggressive military policy, admittedly with an impressive past record of success, which fed his lip-curling disdain for Somerset, whom he held entirely responsible for England’s ignominious loss of France. York’s habit in Council was to bully his way through an argument, whereas Edmund of Somerset had been accustomed to gentlemanly debate, relying on his close relationship with the king to drive his point of view. With the king indisposed and the queen in confinement awaiting the birth of her child he floundered under the lashing of York’s scathing tongue. I found it impossible to mediate in a poisonous debate that triggered bitter exchanges and further widened a rift between the two dukes that seemed likely never to be closed.

As the meeting disintegrated and York departed in red-faced fury, his parting words to me were delivered with unwarranted spite. ‘Well, you tried, young Pembroke, but you would do better watching your own back. While you played nursemaid to your witless half-brother, your full flesh and blood was plotting to cut you out. Next time you see Richmond, ask him where he has been. I guarantee you will not like the answer.’

Later that day I was still seething over the sneering laugh that had punctuated York’s parting jibe, when my brother Edmund burst into the Westminster Palace armoury where Maredudd was helping me into the old hauberk I wore for my daily arms practice. ‘Ah, here you are, Jas! God’s greetings, brother. You may offer your congratulations to a married man – well, as good as married anyway.’

My already low spirits plummeted further and I stared at him, speechless. He cackled – there is no other word for it. ‘Ha ha! Do not tell me you still harboured hopes for Margaret yourself? She was always meant for the eldest you know. We make the perfect combination – I am handsome and royal and she is rich and willing. Well, why wouldn’t she be? Willing, I mean.’ He spread his arms wide to display his undeniable charms.

‘Perhaps because she has good taste.’ My voice grated from my constricted throat. Edmund was right. I had harboured high hopes for Margaret, had even broached the subject again with Henry before his malady took hold but he had given no hint that he had already granted the marriage to Edmund.

My brother shrugged. ‘I will allow your sour grapes because I understand that you are a bad loser but there will be another rich bride for you, Jas.’

I raged inwardly. As if riches were the only reason for coveting Margaret! At this juncture my thoughts were of a murderous intent.

‘How about Elizabeth of York?’ he added. ‘You can be sure that her father will endow her well. Or the Earl of Warwick’s little sister, Katherine? There are plenty more like Margaret Beaufort.’

I had turned away, hiding my dejection in the rattle of chainmail as Maredudd hauled the hauberk over my head. Edmund was wrong; the delicate and graceful Margaret Beaufort could not be outshone in my estimation and definitely not by a daughter of York. In hindsight, I had put Margaret on a pedestal and allowed myself to see her as my perfect honoured lady and me as her gentle knight. I had been captivated by her elfin charm and her engaging manner but I think I can truthfully state that my thoughts had been entirely chaste. She was too young to be the subject of lustful urges but pure fascination has an equally strong pull and in Margaret’s case I doubted if I would ever be entirely free of it.

After my mauling at the Royal Council and Edmund’s devastating betrothal my instinct was to get away. It was a long ride to Pembroke, across half of England and the widest part of Wales but I took with me only a small troop of mounted retainers. I wanted nothing like the long column of guards and courtiers, cooks, clerks and house-carls, such as accompanied the king on his interminable progresses. Long-suffering Henry bore the tedium of these cavalcades with saintly forbearance but I insisted that my tight-knit retinue covered at least thirty-five miles a day and preferably forty, depending on the terrain and the weather conditions. However, having crossed the Severn by ferry below Chepstow, we rested two nights at my nearby castle of Caldicot so that I could meet the constable and inspect its demesne and defences.

Caldicot manor had been part of our mother’s dower lands so King Henry had thought it fitting to add it to my lordships, but until this visit I had not realized what superb hunting was offered by its extensive parkland and made a mental note to come back at a convenient time and take advantage of it. On the other hand the castle itself was a disappointment. It had been built to monitor the river traffic on the lower Severn and to enforce Norman rule in the area and as such it was a very basic fortification consisting of a moated curtain wall around a large bailey, a ramshackle old keep, a gatehouse and a random trio of defensive towers, all of which were in a state of neglect. I deduced that it could probably just about withstand a siege and provide a refuge for local farmers and their stock but its domestic arrangements offered little comfort for any noble companions I might wish to invite for the excellent hunting and wildfowling. I resolved to have plans drawn up for improvements.

From Caldicot we took the high route through the Black Mountains, avoiding Glamorgan in the southernmost part of Wales, where I knew trouble was brewing. The pugnacious Earl of Warwick was in violent conflict with one of his Lancastrian cousins over the lordship of Abergavenny and was also disputing possession of Cardiff Castle with the Duke of Somerset. I had already learned at court that where Warwick disputed mastery it was best not to venture, unless you had a troop of lawyers at your side and an army at your back. Moreover there was a convenient string of lordships and manors belonging to Welsh gentry located in the green rolling hills further north, where comfortable accommodation might be obtained and useful connections made. I was eager to introduce myself as the new Earl of Pembroke and to seek their counsel and advice.

As it transpired, although the servants in each house we visited hosted us generously, only one of the landholders was in residence, but my meeting with Gruffydd ap Nicholas at Dinefŵr Castle was a fruitful and fortuitous one. When I was at Tŷ Cerrig, Hywel had described this powerful clan leader as a warmongering old rascal with questionable morals and no respect for authority and I found this to be true in many respects; he was ageing and boisterous, with a bald pate, a grizzled beard and a loud voice. However, even on this first brief encounter we somehow established a rapport that made nothing of the forty-year difference in our ages and the fact that his English was badly mauled by the loss of his front teeth in a skirmish. My foolish attempt at Welsh almost prompted an apoplexy on his part but after a few false starts I managed to get the hang of his lisping English.

‘I have sons of about your age, Lord Jasper,’ he told me jovially. ‘Thomas and Owain, and there is never a cross word between us – as long as they do exactly as I tell them!’ His laugh was like the crackling of a log fire, cheerful and warming, but the steely glint in his grey eyes revealed his iron will. I was to learn that arguing was the sport he and his sons relished most and quickly came to the conclusion that I would prefer to stand beside him rather than confront him on a battlefield.

‘I have heard that you are a patron of the arts,’ I remarked early in our meeting, ‘and that you hold festivals here at Dinefŵr.’

I had found his favourite subject. ‘Yes indeed, in the spring we held an eisteddfod; at least that is what the bards called it. There was singing and music and poetry; performers came from all over Wales. It lasted two weeks and they ate and drank me out of all supplies, but it was worth it for the entertainment and the comradeship. They held a competition to see who could deliver the best praise poem and there was even one to you, Jasper Tudor!’ His laugh boomed out again. ‘It was soon after you had been made Earl of Pembroke and I suppose the bard thought it topical. It was not strictly a praise poem but then he knew next to nothing about you – ha, ha!’

I was astonished. ‘I would like the name of the man who did that!’ Maredudd had told me of the Welsh tradition of poets declaiming long and effusive eulogies to their chosen heroes and had mentioned one in particular. ‘Do you know of a poet called Lewys Glyn Cothi?’ I asked Gruffydd on impulse.

His face creased into smiles once again. ‘Do I know him? Of course I know him and a spirited declaimer he is. What is more he is here. He often calls in when he hears I am at Dinefŵr. He has gone off somewhere just now, probably gambling or wenching, but he will be back at dinnertime. He always is. How did you hear of him?’

‘My Welsh squire told me about him. Was he the one who delivered the rather lacklustre praise poem about me?’

Gruffydd cogitated, stroking his beard. ‘Now I come to think of it, I believe he was. What a coincidence! Shall we ask him to sing it for his supper tonight?’

The prospect of this clearly delighted him but I quailed at the idea of hearing an inaccurate list of my imagined attributes aimed at me in a language I did not understand. ‘I do not think so, thank you, but I would like to meet him and perhaps he might sing someone else’s praises?’

The venerable Welshman sucked his teeth. ‘You will have to get used to that sort of thing, my lord, now that you are Earl of Pembroke. Believe me it can be useful. The spread of a praise poem around Wales can bring men rushing to your banner.’ He spied a lean figure striding across the bailey towards us. ‘Aha, here is the man now.’

I had imagined a bard to be an old man with a wild grey beard, rather like my elderly host, but Lewys Glyn Cothi was no more than a decade my senior and his hair was russet brown, his beard neatly clipped. He wore a long hooded tunic of undyed wool, rather like a monk’s habit, which he tucked up into his belt when walking, of which he did a great deal as he wandered from manor to manor, seeking gentry rich enough to patronize his poetic skills. A plain baldric crossed his chest from which hung a leather scrip containing his worldly goods, which as far as I could tell on greater acquaintance consisted chiefly of pen, ink and paper. Had he been a harper like my father, I imagined his instrument would have been slung on his back, but instead a rolled-up cloak or blanket was in its place. His well-worn canvas boots had wrinkled into folds at the ankle and the exposed skin of his face was weathering into fine cracks.

On hearing my name he instantly flung himself at my feet, and began kissing the hem of my doublet. ‘Lord Jasper! Y Mab Daragon! You have come to Wales, just as I prophesied. My cup runneth over!’

Nonplussed by this gushing enthusiasm, I was temporarily struck dumb, but Gruffydd spoke for me. ‘God’s nails, Lewys, anyone could have prophesied that! The man has been made Earl of Pembroke. He was bound to come sooner or later. The question is, what prompted all that verbiage you spouted about Lord Jasper’s courage being that of an ox and his colouring that of the Red Dragon? How did you know he was a ginger-top? And why are you calling him the Son of Prophecy? He has barely set foot here and has no grasp of our language.’

‘That does not signify, Gruffydd,’ the bard assured him, stubbornly refusing to rise. ‘He is Y Mab Daragon because he can trace his bloodline back to Llewellyn the Great, Prince of all Wales.’

Gruffydd snorted. ‘Well so can I, for that matter. Most of us can if we try hard enough. Get up, man, for Dewi’s sake and let us go and broach the barrel. There’s a cask of Bordeaux wine waiting. The situation in France being what it is, we should drink it while we can still get it but I fear my bibulous sons will have lowered the level already. Come, Lord Jasper, I want you to meet them.’

The ‘old rascal’ proceeded to lead us up the steep steps to his great hall at a pace reminiscent of a mountain goat. Gruffydd’s hair might have been sparse and his beard grey but he did not lack energy or muscle. I imagined him still being capable of taking on a dozen men half his age on the battlefield. As he had predicted his two sons, Thomas and Owain, were already supping cups of the rich Bordeaux wine and laughing together while servants spread cloths over the boards for the coming meal.

‘I like to eat with my household in the old fashioned way,’ their father told me. ‘They need a hot meal at the end of a hard day’s toil.’

‘You are a good master, Lord Gruffydd,’ I said, raising the cup he had thrust into my hand. ‘Many gentlemen take their meals separately these days.’

‘We do not call my father Lord,’ Owain corrected me. ‘He is a proud Welshman and the English kings do not create Welsh lords.’

‘Lord Jasper is the exception to that though, Owain!’ cried Lewys, his tone rising and falling with excitement. ‘He is a lord and a Welshman.’

‘Oh, is that so Master Poet? If he is a Welshman, why are we all speaking English?’ Both Owain and his younger brother Thomas were the image of what Gruffydd might have been thirty years before, solid and broad-shouldered with dark hair and complexions and a blunt manner. He clapped the bard on the shoulder and grinned. ‘Ha, I got you there did I not, my friend?’

Lewys bridled. ‘He has not had the advantage of a Welsh education as you and I have, but if Lord Jasper’s father is a Welshman then he is as Welsh as you and I.’

This subject was quickly dropped because Gruffydd and his sons were more interested in probing for details of the king’s illness. I tried to keep information to a minimum but they were only too aware that control of the country had been slipping from King Henry’s hands long before his mind went blank.

‘The leading families of Wales are dividing into two camps,’ Gruffydd observed grimly. ‘I have always supported the Lancastrian kings but there are more chieftains than ever now who openly side with York, especially the Marcher gentry like Herbert of Raglan and the Vaughans of Tretower. You must be careful who you trust, Lord Jasper.’

Knowing better, I took his pronouncement of undying loyalty with a large pinch of salt but nodded sagely. ‘I know that Warwick and York have joined forces over their territorial disputes with Somerset but I am trying to remain neutral. Actually I believe York is holding his fire until the queen’s child is born, waiting to see if it is a boy or a girl.’

‘Waiting to see if he can press his demand to be proclaimed heir to the throne you mean,’ chortled Thomas. ‘How he must be hoping that babe is a girl!’

‘Or even better born dead,’ added Gruffydd. ‘There are rumours it is not the king’s child anyway.’

In defence of my brother I could not let that pass. ‘Do not be misled by Warwick’s mudslingers,’ I protested. ‘Many a marriage does not produce an heir for years and then suddenly succeeds. The Yorks were also subject to such groundless slander around the birth of young Edward of March.’

Gruffydd wagged a finger at me. ‘Be careful, my lord Jasper – fences make uncomfortable seats. When you have to jump down on one side or the other remember that William ap Thomas – or William Herbert as he calls himself now that he has adopted English ways – is a slippery customer. Did you call in at Raglan on your way here?’

‘I did but he was not there. I met his wife though – Lady Anne. She is a strong and lovely woman.’

‘Aha, like me you appreciate a lush and fertile female,’ nodded Gruffydd. ‘William did well there. But she is a Devereux, a family well tied to Ludlow. York’s son Edward is their idea of an heir. He may only be eleven years old but he is Warwick’s cousin and already tall and strong. Marcher folk like the Devereux clan think the lad’s golden hair is spun from sunbeams.’

Lewys came out of his apparent trance. ‘That is a good metaphor Gruffydd ap Nicholas. I may use it one day.’

Gruffydd grunted. ‘Not while I am listening, you thieving bard. Not if you want your dinner.’ He glanced irritably around the hall and raised his voice so that the rafters shook. ‘And where is dinner! Someone kick the cook up the arse. I am hungry and so are my guests.’

8
Jasper

London and St Albans

WHILE I WAS ABSENT in Wales the feud between Lancaster and York reached boiling point in London, fuelled by the Duke of York’s unceasing campaign to be proclaimed King Henry’s heir, and by the constant drip of innuendo from Warwick’s scandalmongers, suggesting an adulterous relationship between the queen and the Duke of Somerset. York’s demands to be named Henry’s heir were halted temporarily when Queen Marguerite was delivered of a healthy boy at Westminster Palace, but the slanders proliferated once more when King Henry failed to recognize the child as his heir.

At Windsor the little prince had been placed in Henry’s arms but the king’s face had remained expressionless, his grip flaccid. If not for the swift reaction of the nurse in catching him, the infant would have tumbled to the ground. Several subsequent attempts were made to secure the king’s attention but with equal lack of success. In the absence of the monarch’s approval, the boy was hastily baptized Edward after the canonized English king known as the Confessor, whose shrine was in Westminster Abbey, while Parliament agreed to the appointment of the Duke of York as Protector of the Realm. Within weeks York had his rival Somerset confined in the Tower, charged with treasonous negligence for the loss of France under his command. As a royal duke he was housed in the palace rather than the prison but he must have heard the crowds of Londoners, stirred up by Warwick’s agents, yelling for his head.

By Christmas however the queen had emerged from her confinement and the king recovered his wits enough to acknowledge his son and heir and resume his rightful place on the throne. With power back in royal hands the Duke of Somerset was released from the Tower and the Duke of York relieved of his post as Protector. The Lancastrian star should have been on the rise again but sadly Henry’s malady soon returned and when Marguerite petitioned Parliament to allow her to rule as interim Regent for her infant son they rejected her outright and reappointed the Duke of York as Protector. A fresh flood of pamphlets now turned the people of London against the queen, stirring those who believed their poison to march on Westminster declaring the baby prince to be no son of the king’s but sired either by the Duke of Somerset or the Earl of Wiltshire. Marguerite took her son and fled downriver to Greenwich in fear for their safety.

Meanwhile my brother recovered again and dismissed the Duke of York, who disappeared in fury to Fotheringhay. Bravely in my opinion, Somerset returned to Henry’s side and decided that the court should move from a hostile London to the Lancastrian heartland of the Midlands. In May I brought my retinue from Pembroke to join the large escorting army deemed necessary to protect the royal family on their journey north.

Queen Marguerite rode beside the litter that carried her eighteen-month-old son, but once we had cleared London she let him sit smiling on the pommel of her saddle, waving at passers by. The Earl of Wiltshire and I were invited to ride beside her and it was during this time that I learned the details of Henry’s mysterious malady.

‘It strikes when it will, out of nowhere, Jasper,’ Marguerite explained. ‘There is no warning and apparently no remedy, and when it passes, after days or even weeks, it leaves him a little more depleted each time. My Édouard must grow quickly if there is to be a king on the throne who can hold England together, for I fear Henry will steadily become more unfit for the task. It is hard enough now to get him to concentrate on matters of state. James here knows how difficult it is to get him to understand the Treasury papers he has to sign.’

I glanced across at James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, who rode knee-to-knee with the queen at her other side. He was close in age to Marguerite and had always been about the court in one way or another, particularly in the queen’s company, but his prominence had been but lately achieved. During York’s Protectorate Wiltshire, like Somerset, had been sent to house arrest in the Tower, ostensibly for crimes committed during disputes over his estates in the west country, but he had been swiftly released when the Protectorate was ended and promoted to the office of Treasurer of England. I realized that since then Marguerite had come to rely on his counsel a great deal and for the first time I discerned the roots of the scandal spread by the London mudslingers. Wiltshire was the kind of handsome, dashing figure that King Henry would never be and the favour Marguerite showed him was enough to set tongues wagging both in and outside the court. Remembering Marguerite’s veiled proposal to me a few years before, I even found myself looking for signs of Wiltshire’s blond good looks in the little prince but saw only his mother’s dark eyes and colouring.

‘Prince Edward seems to be doing his best to grow at a rapid rate, your grace,’ I responded. ‘He is already threatening to take the reins of your horse I see.’

Marguerite gently removed her son’s chubby fist from her mount’s reins and bestowed a kiss on the dimpled knuckles. ‘Yes, it cannot be long before he will need his own pony. I must tell you though, Jasper, that I prefer the French pronunciation of his name – Édouard.’

‘Then it shall be as you wish, my lady.’ I bowed acquiescence but could not help thinking how badly this would be received in the ranks of England’s xenophobic soldiery.

‘Prince Édouard has the makings of a true French “chevalier”, do you not agree, Jasper?’ declared Wiltshire, endowing my own name with a French polish that put me uncannily in mind of my mother. ‘It will not be long before he is riding at the head of his army.’

‘Well there is no likelihood of his father taking command,’ said the queen, her tone distinctly flat. ‘I may have to acquire a suit of armour myself.’

‘Let us hope such a thing will never be needed, your grace.’ The brilliance of the smile Wiltshire flashed at her then would have lured a cargo ship into a smuggler’s cove and I began to find his celebrated charm somewhat overwhelming.

I showed my own chipped tooth. ‘No, where we are going, my brother will have the peace and security he needs to make a full recovery.’

With her free hand Marguerite made the sign of the cross. ‘To that very end, I intend to make offerings en route, at St Alban’s shrine,’ she said. ‘Henry has much need of the martyred saint’s protection.’

However, when we arrived in St Albans we received the unwelcome news that an army led by York and Warwick was blocking our way north. Shocked, the queen hastily took Prince Édouard to the shelter of the abbey while the Duke of Buckingham, who as Constable of England was in command of the king’s escort, immediately sent heralds to negotiate with the Yorkists. Meanwhile the rest of the escorting nobility rapidly deployed their retinues in defensive positions. There were no walls around the town of St Albans, which had grown around the famous abbey shrine. Wiltshire and I took our men to the north bar, where people and goods entering and leaving the town paid their tolls. But despite it being the access to Watling Street, which was the highway on which we planned to continue our journey, we could see no sign of hostile forces.

‘They are playing hide and seek it would seem,’ Wiltshire grumbled. He had intended to wave the king’s standard, which he had the honour of carrying, boldly in the face of the opposing forces, to make them aware that they would be committing an act of treason by attacking the king’s person. King Henry himself was stationed in the town’s central Market Place with Buckingham and his bodyguard. ‘If it has no purpose here I must take the standard back to the king,’ he said, beckoning his squire to bring his horse. ‘You take over command of my men, Jasper.’

‘I will but you should know that I have no experience of battle, only the theory …’

‘There you are then.’ He cut me off, re-mounted and shouldered the standard. ‘Just apply the theory and all will be well. I doubt if there will be conflict anyway. Buckingham’s orders are to avoid civil war and so it will likely be a repeat of York’s march on London three years ago – all bluff and bluster with his heralds conveying spurious declarations of loyalty and of bringing the people’s grievances before the king. York and Warwick will be forgiven and we will all continue on our merry way.’

I very much hoped Wiltshire was right but I watched him ride away with serious misgivings. Our captains were lingering by the bar awaiting instructions and I had little notion of what to tell them but did my best to hide my inexperience by issuing orders to establish a hidden defence, using the network of lanes and alleyways off the main highway to deploy the troops where they might spring a surprise on any incursion. Soon after the men had concealed themselves, banners displaying the Duke of York’s Falcon and Fetterlock and the Earl of Salisbury’s Verteagle began to emerge from the suburban gardens of the houses lining the roadway beyond the bar. It appeared that York and Salisbury had had the same idea of concealment but their troops were now mustering to make a rush for the centre of the town.

I bid my herald give the signal to emerge and confront them and at the same time loud shouts and trumpet calls sounded behind us and I heard the unmistakable whoosh and thud of arrows finding their mark. I realized with dismay that the Yorkists had split their army and that while his allies kept us occupied, Warwick was moving in on the Market Square from the east. We were caught between the two forces. In the absence of Lord Wiltshire it would be impossible to command on both fronts and so I had no choice but to turn my back on Warwick’s attack and order the men to engage the troops approaching rapidly from the north.

The clash of forces in the town confines was bloody and confused. Having decided there was no room for cavalry in the narrow streets my troops were all on foot, while York and Salisbury’s retinues were mostly still mounted, giving them an initial advantage. Although my vanguard tried bravely to bring down the enemy’s horses we were forced off the main highway and back into the narrow lanes. Wiltshire’s soldiers, without their commander, soon melted away into the shadows but I called together my own men and led them through backstreets and alleyways in order to bring support to Buckingham and the king in the Market Square, which seemed the only thing I could do. Although I knew there had been several casualties I prayed we were not leaving any dead behind us, only to find when we got there we were too late. Buckingham had been felled and was lying wounded on the cobbles with blood seeping from under his helmet and King Henry and his bodyguard were surrounded. Both the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of York were there already in force. Clearly we had no option but to lay down our arms. There was no sign of Wiltshire or the royal standard.

The battle, if it could be called that, was over. While York and Salisbury had barged their way through my unsuccessful defence of the north bar, Warwick’s attack from the east side of the town had taken the king and the royal guard by surprise and I was to learn that during the brief hostilities key Lancastrian leaders had been singled out and killed by Warwick’s men, including the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Clifford. But to my immediate consternation I noticed that the king himself had been wounded by a Yorkist arrow, the shaft of which was still protruding from the back of his neck.

I stepped forward and offered my sword to York, and then my support to my brother. As soon as he saw me the look of fear and bewilderment left Henry’s eyes and he leaned heavily on my shoulder. ‘Ah, Jasper, it is you. I think I need the services of a surgeon.’

The duke nodded agreement. ‘Yes, Pembroke, take his grace for treatment. The monks will know where to go but my men will escort you.’ He signalled to a sturdy knight who was hovering nearby and gave him whispered instructions. Monks were already beginning to emerge nervously from the abbey with offers to assist the wounded and it was one of them who led us, unarmed and surrounded by a considerable Yorkist escort, to a tanner’s workshop, assuring us that it would have the tools necessary to remove the arrowhead without causing more damage. And God be praised, the monk was right; King Henry’s injury proved to be only a flesh wound, which was successfully treated and bandaged. The arrow had missed any vital blood vessels but I was greatly impressed by the courage and stoicism Henry displayed as the brawny tanner wielded his hefty pincers so close to a vulnerable area.

Meanwhile the Duke of York had been making hasty arrangements for dealing with the other casualties. By the time we returned to the Market Square Buckingham had been taken away for treatment and my men had been relieved of their arms and corralled together in a dejected group in one corner. York bowed punctiliously to King Henry and informed him that he and Warwick would escort him back to London. No mention was made at that time of the death of Somerset.

‘But I wish to go to Kenilworth with the queen,’ Henry protested, gripping my arm tightly as if fearful he might be wrenched away from me. ‘Tell him, Jasper – we are going to the Midlands. I do not like residing at Westminster or the Tower.’

‘The queen and the prince may go north if they wish,’ said the duke firmly, ‘but the people expect their king to be in London. We will make sure that you are comfortably accommodated, sire, have no fear.’

Henry turned beseeching eyes on me but I shook my head. There was no future in arguing at the point of a sword. And so the royal family was separated, apparently with the worthiest of motives. The king rode into London beside York, while Warwick led the procession, bearing aloft the Sword of State in hands which only hours before had sent the Duke of Somerset into the hereafter. The people who cheered them through the streets were in no doubt as to who was now in control of the kingdom.

When Henry was finally told of Somerset’s death the shock sent him into such a state of grief that he would not have been capable of ruling anyway. I wondered how Marguerite had taken the news when she heard it, far away in the Lancastrian castle-in-the-lake that was Kenilworth. She must have been distraught that she had lost both her favourite counsellors; Somerset to Warwick’s sword and Wiltshire to self-inflicted exile in Flanders, where he had chosen to take refuge rather than face York’s vengeance. The royal standard had been found propped up against a hovel in a dark alley and most of Wiltshire’s armour was dragged out of the River Ver, which ran through the town. Some monk claimed that the fleeing earl had given him a mark for his habit to use as a disguise.

As for me, the duke chose not to take offence that I had fought against him at St Albans. ‘You are the king’s brother,’ he said. ‘I hold family loyalty in high esteem.’ He went so far as to call me back to the Royal Council, even though I warned him that my prolonged absence from Pembroke would leave crown property in West Wales vulnerable to Gruffydd and his sons. This was where York’s ulterior motive showed, for his response was to favour my brother Edmund, who had not been at St Albans, and appoint him as the king’s Lieutenant in South Wales, with orders to bring Gruffydd to heel. Shuddering at the prospect of Edmund destroying all the diplomatic advances I had made with the ‘old rascal’ and his sons, I went to Henry to protest but it was immediately clear to me that my royal brother was still reeling from Somerset’s death.

With his household scattered he had been accommodated at the Bishop of London’s palace and I found him pale and timid, barely clinging to sanity. ‘Edmund’s appointment was the Duke of York’s idea, Jasper,’ he whispered. There was still a fresh scar on his neck where the arrow had so nearly severed a vital blood vessel. ‘He is very angry about our royal dignity being disparaged in Wales. I thought it best not to argue with him.’

In making my response I swapped my usual cheerful tone for what I hoped was a gently persuasive one. ‘I understand completely, my liege, but on this occasion I believe second thoughts are needed. Highly as I know you regard Edmund, I submit that he is not the man for this task. He makes no secret of the fact that he does not like the Welsh, which must seriously affect the chances of successful negotiations with the local chieftains.’

Henry frowned. ‘But he is Welsh himself and the appointment has been made public. It cannot be changed.’

I tried not to sound exasperated. ‘You are the king, Henry. If you believe an error has been made then you can cancel the appointment.’

He shook his head vehemently, as if trying to eject a buzzing insect from his ear. ‘No. No, I will not do that, Jasper. I cannot.’

Reluctantly I let the matter drop. A time was to come when I would wish that I had not.

9
Jasper

Bletsoe Castle, Bedfordshire

FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE regrettable clash of arms at St Albans, Edmund and Margaret stood before the altar in the chapel at her mother’s castle of Bletsoe in Bedfordshire. It was a cold day and the bride’s blue and silver mantle embroidered with the Beaufort portcullis swamped her small frame; a jewelled circlet secured her long dark hair. She was twelve and a half years old and dwarfed by Edmund who stood tall and magnificent and twice her age, at his physical and fashionable fittest. During our two-day ride from Westminster to Bletsoe, I had asked him why Lady Welles had agreed to the wedding while her daughter was still so young but he informed me gleefully that Margaret had more or less demanded to be married.

‘She says her prayers have been answered. I think she is somewhat in love with me.’

The look of smug satisfaction on his face stung me to anger and my right fist developed a sudden desire to make contact with his chiselled chin, which I resisted only with difficulty. ‘But you must not bed her until she is older, Edmund.’

Edmund gave a noncommittal shrug, avoiding my gaze. ‘That rather depends on Margaret. Lady Welles confides that her daughter has flowered – a rather coy euphemism I think – but it does imply that both nature and the law deem her ready for deflowering.’ He turned to face me then, delighted with his own coarse wit.

I swallowed an explosion of wrath and fought to keep my voice steady. ‘She is not though, Edmund, is she? And you know it. You only have to look at her. She is still a child. Where are the breasts? Where are the womanly curves? And apart from anything else, whatever the Church’s rule on canonical age, conception would endanger Margaret’s life and that of the child.’

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