Her father threw aside the rod and stood arms akimbo, glaring at his weeping daughter.

‘If you had done your duty, Rushden would be eating out your hand. Pah, you do naught but cost me money, girl, and for what? Your reputation rent beyond repair, the kitchen burnt to ashes, us cooking in the open air like heathens, the man beyond our reach, and his devil of a horse kicking everyone who goes near it.’ He paced and turned. ‘And the whoreson thinks he’s won, I’ll wager. Well, I shall write to the king’s grace and my lord of Gloucester this very day.’ He beat his palm into his fist resolutely. ‘Aye, and you shall confront Rushden in the common gaze and make him acknowledge you.’

‘And he will deny it,’ Heloise whispered, knuckling away her tears. ‘I will not crawl to such a man like Rushden. He says I must never come near him again.’

‘So he can annul the marriage, you daft fool. Oh, stop your snivelling. Listen to me!’ He grabbed her chin. ‘We saw him examining the goods. He fancied you and so he might again,’ She tried to pull away detesting the flared nostrils, the angry broken veins that ran beneath his skin. ‘What choice do you have, girl? If the Rushdens will not have you, you are little worth to me.’ Letting go of her, he strutted to the window. ‘To be plain, Heloise, it is your choice whether you starve. Obey me and you leave for Wales with servants. Disobey and you leave alone and penniless.’

‘You would disinherit me?’ Her body hurt as she struggled to her feet, staring at him in horror. ‘For my sweet mother’s sake, you cannot—’ Be so cruel? Oh, he could, she did not doubt it. What argument would move him to be merciful? ‘God’s truth, sir, can you not see that Miles Rushden is hungry for far more than Bramley? It was not my looks last night that he rejected, but my blood. We are beneath him, sir, can you not understand that? The Rushdens want nothing to do with the likes of us.’

His fists hit the sill and he turned abruptly. ‘Never, never let me hear you talk that way, babbling like a loser! You grab what you can, girl. You drive your fist in the teeth of the world and you win. He has his price.’

‘Money does not buy respect or love,’ she exclaimed defiantly, and held her breath. He had never given her either and nor would Rushden.

‘Love,’ he sneered. ‘Love is silk, love is velvet, love is extra. You have too much of your mother in you. Dionysia would see this matter differently. She would hunt Rushden down.’ Reaching the door, his hand paused at the ring handle. ‘Martin shall see you to Brecknock. You may take a maidservant, your mare and a packass, and the young cur’s stallion can go on market day to meet my losses.’

Rushden’s horse? What had he called it? Traveller?

‘Give it to me.’

‘Not on your life, girl. That beast is worth a small fortune. Now, pack! For by my life, I wash my hands of you.’

Must she grovel before Rushden like a heathen concubine and beg him to bed her? Never! She had some courage left.

After her father had gone, Heloise sat miserably, her fingers clasping her forearms, cursing him for his heartlessness, then she bestirred herself and bathed her tear-swollen eyes. Her hands were clumsy with cold for she had been denied coals for her chamber as punishment.

This was hard – to struggle against the despair dragging at her like weights. No, she would not sink into a deep well of self-loathing. Beggars and lepers have worse lives, she told herself, and what of the damned souls facing the Devil’s pincers in Hell for the next millennium? There had to be a safer path for her to follow, one that led her from her father’s hatred. If only she could return to Middleham. Facing the chaplain would be easier than pleading with Rushden.

‘Which path must I take?’ she sighed to the faery folk and unfastened the window to let them through. Only the piping of a winter robin, busy in the hedgerow, answered her. Swallows might leave like summer traitors but old Rob endured the cruel rains of winter and kept Yuletide in England. Surely she had as much courage as such a tiny bird?

At least the key was not turned upon her now. Trying to keep her poor bruised back straight as a battle standard, Heloise walked stiffly down the stairs, drawn in loneliness to the stable, to seek the other creature that was the scapegoat for her father’s wrath.

‘Mistress.’ Martin looked up from examining a cut on her mare’s back fetlock, wiped his hands on the backside of his jacket and came round to greet her.

‘Christ ha’mercy, Martin, what is wrong with your face?’ But she realised as she spoke. Dear God, was there no end to the damage Rushden had done to her and hers?

‘I dabbed on honey liquid, like you allus said, and ice from the water butt. We chased young Rushden into the orchard, mistress. ’Ad him cornered nicely, but then ’e whacked off one of your beeskeps with a trellis pole and toppled the rest of ’em. Bees flew at us, they did, like bloodthirsty Furies, and ’e got clean away. Won’t be no honey this year.’

‘My poor bees.’

‘Aye, dead from cold or stinging.’ He unhooked a plaited wisp as he spoke. Cloud shook herself at the prospect of her winter coat being brushed and gave a frightened whinny as the horse in the stall at the far end kicked fiercely against the wall. The building shuddered so much that one of the hackneys knocked into his manger in distress. Even the placid sumpters shifted fretfully. Last night’s smoke must have made them all unsettled, thought Heloise, hushing her gentle horse.

‘I hear you did not fare so well either, mistress.’ The groom’s glance slid furtively to her back. ‘By the by, Sir Hubert let Rushden’s men go, mistress. Leastways I suspect so, only don’t go telling Sir Dudley. Old fellow unbarred the cellar. After more liquor, I suppose. They must have sneaked off during the hurly-burly with the fire. Dangerous man, Rushden, not for a gentle soul like you, Mistress Ballaster. I don’t like to brag abaht bein’ right, but I allus said you ought not to ’ave gone to Potters Field an’ now see what’s come of it.’

‘Rushden’s horse, Martin?’

‘That’s ’im now, mistress.’ Hooves slammed again. ‘Angry, aye, and hungry. Won’t let any of us come near ’im.’ Just like Rushden at the bridal feast. ‘The Master says ’e’s to be taken to market day after tomorrow. We shan’t be sorry, neither.’ He led Heloise down past the stalls. ‘Put ’im in the far one, we did, to prevent young Rushden taking ’im.’

She was not disappointed. Like its owner, the stolen stallion was in its prime and just as touchy. True, Traveller was a little untidy with winter shagginess, but his steel-grey coat gave promise of becoming as snowy as the Duke of Gloucester’s destrier, White Surrey. Being a palfrey, he did not have the height and breadth of the duke’s horse but to Heloise he was just as magnificent.

A bold yet not unkind eye bid the groom keep his distance, then the huge lip curled and the nostrils flared. Martin grabbed Heloise to safety as the animal reared and brought its hooves crashing against the shuddering barrier.

‘It’ll be a fool or a brave man who tries to lead that one out.’

‘Let me speak to him alone.’

‘No, mistress, see ’ow dangerous ’e is. I know you’ve a way wi’ creatures but this one’s a devil in horse skin.’ Seeing as how she was adamant, he finally ordered away the stablehands who had gathered round them.

‘Traveller?’ Heloise took a step closer. ‘Traveller, I have to talk to you.’

Suspicious but intelligent eyes watched her. She burrowed a hand into the manger and held out some oats on her palm. The stallion shifted his weight onto his back haunches, ready to spin out of her reach or rear, but curiosity urged him at the same time to take a step forward and stretch his neck out almost within touching distance. It took a little while to explain to him what her father intended. In an unhurried voice, continually holding the stallion’s gaze, she told him what he must expect in a few days’ time at the markets and what she feared might happen to her.

He was listening, watching her fully. One of his companions wickered in the next stall, but Traveller’s concentration never left Heloise. As the soft, even cadences comforted him, he bowed his head and took the oats. Heloise leaned forward and blew very gently into his nostrils and a huff of breath came back at her and a gentle touch, soft as fustian, brushed her nose. She slowly straightened and set her hand upon the splendid forehead, smoothing him beneath her fingertips, up to the base of his ears and gradually down to his nose. He was still tense, uncertain. She told him that she understood his panic, and that she had felt like this last night with his master.

In a soft whisper, she assured him he was beautiful. With her other hand, she felt for the bolt and drew it free, never withholding her stare as she stepped inside his stall, praying he would not sense the thin ache of fear beneath her hope. He turned, still eyeing her movements, facing her. Like men, stallions liked nothing better than flattery and he listened intently to her telling him how noble and clever he was as she rubbed his long nose and moved to one side of his head.

‘See how easy it is, vain one, you do not want to listen to a woman at first and then gradually you grow more sensible.’ With gentle fingers, she teased a long ear, running her fingers up its silken casing, and then she firmly slid her palm caressingly down, under his gorgeous mane, up his withers and across his back. The great head swung. Soft horsy breath huffed in her ear and a velvet nose nuzzled her neck with a whinny.

Stroking him, she sang the sad words that men said Charles of Orléans, imprisoned in the Tower of London, had penned in lonely exile. The plaintive farewell was for a beauteous lady or maybe his beloved homeland of France. Heloise improvised for Traveller and made up or hummed the phrases she could not recall.

Her cheeks were wet with tears and she knuckled them away. The horse regarded her thoughtfully, as if he sensed his happiness depended on her.

‘I am not going to let my father sell you,’ she whispered with sudden conviction, sensing the faeries had crept along the rafters to listen. The moment had become special and magic, and she must listen to her heart. ‘No, I shall take you with me. We shall go out into the world together.’

She had fallen in love with Rushden’s horse. At least it was a beginning.

‘Heloise!’ Dionysia hurried towards her. ‘We have a visitor! Lady Huddleston, her grace of Gloucester’s sister. She has been in Somerset visiting her manor at Sutton Gaveston. And, Heloise, she says I may journey north to Middleham with her straightway and Father has agreed. Oh, Heloise, be happy for me.’

‘I am, truly.’

‘Maybe she can help you – you know, intervene with Father.’

‘Does the sun rise in the west, Didie?’ But silently Heloise raised her face to the rafters where the faeries were hiding. Maybe her prayers were to be answered.

‘It will not wash,’ Margery said softly. ‘My dear Heloise, even if I could take you back to Middleham with us tomorrow, your problem will still be out that door waiting for you.’ Yes, male, hostile and likely to kill, not kiss. ‘I have never met any of the Rushdens. I believe the old lord was pardoned for fighting for the House of Lancaster and has kept his nose out of trouble since. They are certainly of very noble lineage.’

‘And do not want a crossbow merchant’s granddaughter ruining their purity.’ Heloise set the bedcover back. ‘Thank you for listening, my lady. I have been cudgelling my brain to think of a way out of this, some means to survive, but I had best let you get some sleep.’ It had already been impertinent of her to knock on their visitor’s door after the rest of the household had gone to bed. She had been sitting in her friend’s bed since nine of the clock explaining.

‘No haste,’ Margery replied, shifting her pillow and easing her honey braids free. The young hound sprawled across her feet upon the coverlet rose from its slumber and came to lick Heloise’s wrists. ‘Look, you are no coward, Heloise. I think you really should demand some help from Rushden.’ Like squeezing blood from a rock?

‘I expect he thinks I bewitched him.’ Heloise tickled the dog’s back above its tail.

‘Did you?’ No malice, merely curiosity and good humour laced Margaret’s question, but it warned Heloise that others might ask with less good will.

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘But it was strange, the morning after the fight at Potters Field, I was thinking how satisfying it would be to be revenged on him, and suddenly he was standing in the orchard as if I had summoned him.’

‘Hmm … are you sure you could not bring him to heel as a husband?’ Margery murmured with the sleek smile of a woman blessed by love. ‘You know, I ran from Richard Huddleston for a very long time, but he was always there like the Devil waiting for my soul.’ She heeled the heated brick across to her friend.

It was not extra warmth that drove betraying colour into Heloise’s face. ‘I had rather be damned than to beg for crumbs from that knave’s plate.’ Rushden would probably haul her out to a woodpile and light a fire under her. ‘Oh, my lady,’ her fingers twisted in her despised silver plait. ‘I was hoping to return with you and throw myself on their graces’ mercy, but I suppose the duke’s chaplain has convinced them I am a freak who consorts with demons?’

‘It sounds like you nearly did.’ That brought a bitter smile. ‘A moment.’ Margery rose and, to Heloise’s surprise, opened the bedchamber door briefly as if she feared an eavesdropper. ‘One must be careful,’ she declared, coming back to lean over the cradle where her tiny son was sleeping. ‘And what I have to say may shock you and I should not like it repeated. We need not worry about Alys here.’ She twitched the blanket higher over her maidservant who lay alongside the cradle, snoring on a trundle, before she pushed her dog out of the way and slid back into the bed. ‘I think it may please their graces better – and the king also – if you went to Brecknock and forced Rushden to acknowledge you.’

‘The king!’ Heloise stiffened and firmly urged aside a curious black canine nose.

‘Not only because Rushden is now your lawful husband, but because it would be, well, interesting, to have an intelligent gentlewoman in Buckingham’s household.’ She gave Heloise a measuring look.

The king and Gloucester would be pleased if she would … spy for them! Heloise stared at her older friend through a different glass. ‘You were an informer,’ she breathed. The gossip had been true.

‘I was not.’ That truth was delivered sharply. ‘I was sent to France by King Edward in secret to deliver some special letters, and it was not immoral, I was trying to prevent a war.’ It seemed wise not to prod for further confidences. Spy? Inform? This was a Pandora’s box.

‘But, madam, what use could I be in Brecknock? It is so far away.’

‘Can you not see it is common sense for any great lord to keep abreast of what is happening all over the kingdom? For my part, I know little of Harry, Duke of Buckingham. Indeed I have only rarely set eyes on him, but he bothers me – the way he keeps himself apart. Is it out of pique or lack of interest?’

‘I have heard he spends most of his time in Wales.’

‘Indeed, and there are Welshmen who dream of rising up against the English.’

‘And Englishmen who still hate the House of York,’ muttered Heloise. God forbid that Sir Miles Rushden was one of them!

‘Exactly, and if ever the king’s enemies rally again, which God forbid, Buckingham may be persuaded to claim the throne. He is a Plantagenet, of legitimate royal blood. His grandsires supported the House of Lancaster, which would make him most acceptable, and he is reputed to resent his marriage with a Woodville.’ She steepled her fingers, tapping them together, as her mind fired with possibilities. ‘Yes, it would be useful to know what is being said these days at Brecknock.’

Of course, decided Heloise, it was only to be expected that Margery, who had been at the heart of great matters during her father Warwick’s rebellion, would be tempted to smell rats in perfectly innocent pantries; she probably missed the excitement. But King Edward was a strong king so what could go wrong?

‘The realm seems quite safe, madam. Forgive me for arguing, but we have had peace for twelve years or more, and the king has two healthy princes to succeed him, not to mention my lord of Gloucester and his son too.’

Margery sighed. ‘The English chronicles are full of treason. Have you ever seen the heads on London bridge? I know all about rebellions, believe me. And it is only five years since Clarence was put to death but I will say no more on that.’

‘But – but would my lord of Buckingham have informers at Middleham, my lady?’

‘I have no doubt of it.’

The deerhound licked his paws in the sudden quiet.

They were talking about a different England, one that Heloise had only glimpsed. One that frightened her. It was as if Bramley and the manors she had grown up in were but a little world scarce higher than the grass, while high above her head, the giants of England, the dukes and earls, played other games. Why seek her help? Gloucester must already have an agent dining at his cousin Buckingham’s table. No, this was not her business.

‘My lady,’ Heloise stirred finally. ‘I am flattered that you think I am trustworthy to serve in such a manner, but it would be very easy for an enemy to fabricate evidence against me.’ Gathering her wrap close, she drew back the bed curtain on her side and slid her feet to the floor.

‘No, wait,’ protested Margery, gazing at Heloise’s braids. ‘I … I understand your vulnerability. Forget what I suggested. Listen, there has to be a solution. Surely if you have the peace offering of Rushden’s horse to return to him, the man will be a cur not to be grateful for that, so why not go to Wales for that reason alone? Or is your intuition warning you against Brecknock?’

‘No.’ The oaken bedpost was smooth beneath her fingers as Heloise stroked it. ‘It is being friendless that bothers me. A man can easily obtain respectable employment but it not easy being a gentlewoman and I cannot keep that state for long. My father will never have me back after Rushden has turned me away.’

‘Then you will go to Wales.’

‘It seems I have no choice.’

‘Then let me give you a gift that may bring you comfort.’ Margery padded across to a wooden jewel coffer that sat upon the small table beneath the casement. ‘A charm for the courageous cockatrice and valiant lady-knight.’ She tugged a gold chain with a key from beneath her nightclothes and unlocked the casket. ‘Here.’ A unicorn brooch, small enough to be a hat badge, gleamed upon her palm. ‘Take it, Heloise. Wear this in Wales if ever you are in desperation.’

Was this just a token to give her courage? Or did Gloucester have an agent – already at Brecknock – who might help her?

With a wry smile, Heloise lifted the brooch. ‘You mean someone will nudge a cartload of straw beneath my window in case I have to jump?’ she asked.

‘Exactly, but only if the roof is on fire and you cannot – have I said something wrong?’

‘No,’ spluttered Heloise, but her merriment stilled abruptly. Strength emanated from the snowy enamel, tingling her fingers. The fabled beast’s eye glinted at her, reminding her of Traveller. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

‘I had a St Catherine brooch once from the king himself.’ For an instant, her friend’s face was shadowed and then she shook herself back into the present. ‘I wish my husband were here to advise us. A groom and a maid are insufficient escort. You will need some well-trained men-at-arms. I could spare two of my escort to protect you from all those lawless Welshmen.’

‘Two! Oh, Margery, how shall I repay your generosity? I have a few jewels my mother left me. Would you take those for surety?’

‘Nonsense. Now it could take two weeks or more to reach Brecknock from here. Do not go by way of Gloucester but take a ferryboat across the Bristol Channel to Chepstow and seek advice there about the best road. Now, when is your father sending Rushden’s horse to be sold?’

‘Two days hence.’

‘Then you leave that day and you demand the horse.’

‘Demand?’

‘Yes, my Lady Rushden, after all, it is your husband’s property.’

‘My husband’s,’ repeated Heloise, as though the words were a new prayer still to be learned. ‘Yes.’ This was an empowering thought.

‘Now to bed with you, cockatrice.’ Kind arms embraced her. ‘You have friends, remember that.’

‘I have one more favour. Please, will you watch over my sister at Middleham? For all her mischief, I love her dearly.’

‘I rather think she can take care of herself. Now sleep well. Wales is waiting for you, Heloise!’

Hardly! Hiding behind a damp mizzle, Wales welcomed the travellers with the enthusiasm of a scowling, underpaid servant, as the oarsmen raised their blades dripping from the grey water of the Bristol Channel, and the ferrybarge was roped to the quay. Heloise had expected to make the crossing earlier but the ferry passengers had been forced to wait until the Severn bore had run its course, and now Chepstow looked scarcely worth the effort. A great castle high on its cliff above the river stared blankly down at the salt-sprayed, disembarking passengers. The fumes of sour ale wafted from the tavern at the end of the quay, adding to the stink of what must have been someone’s day-before-yesterday’s unsold catch, which was festering forgotten in a wicker putcheon with a ragged tom cat trying to claw it forth. If the rain had brought out the rats, the ferry’s arrival drew the inevitable touters, prating of ale, whores and dice. A one-legged beggar hobbled among them, rattling his bowl, cursing a pitifully young strumpet for distracting his customers, and beyond them a drunkard spewed his innards on a warehouse step. Heloise had been to ports before, but always well chaperoned with her father in command. True it was a miserable March day, but the English wharfergers loading the panniers of salmon and sea lamprey onto carts did not whistle as they laboured like the Bristol men, but swore and cursed. This then was Wales.

Efficient and sensible, her escorts sought out a reputable horse lender and learned that to reach Brecknock, they might ride west to Newport and hire a guide to Abergavenny, or else travel up the Wye to Monmouth. Heloise decided on the latter as the safer choice.

The track, hedged for the most part with budding beech and hazel, followed the valley northwards. In the upper town of Monmouth, they sought to hire a guide and found Hoel, a balding, prickly local – ‘Neither Welsh nor English, look you, but a Monmouth man and proud of it’ – who began every one of his utterances with ‘Yn affodus’, which Heloise learned to her cost translated as ‘unfortunately’ and meant she would have to delve deeper into her purse.

Monmouth, so proud that it had birthed the hero of Agincourt, had also spawned an oversupply of Saturday stalls that sold medallions and crudely hewn cameos of Henry V with his monkish haircut, as well as a variety of enamel hat badges (that would have pleased many a secret sympathiser with the defeated House of Lancaster), and small metal knights on horseback to take home to pampered sons. Heloise bought one of these to send back to Margery’s babe for when he was older.

On Easter Sunday, 30th March, Heloise’s party heard Mass and rested. At dawn next day, Hoel led them out across the drawbridge over the Monnow River to journey along the Frothy Valley. Fewer cutpurses perhaps, but dawdling cows aplenty. They endured lanes of dung, to call at prosperous farmhouses where they bought cheeses to exchange for the goods which Hoel had told them to buy in Monmouth for barter. The little English spoken was barely intelligible, but Heloise paid attention to the lilting cadences and by the end of the second day had even learnt a few words of Welsh.

With a fresh audience, Hoel was as full of stories as a pond with frogs after rain. It passed the time, except he put Martin so in fear of Welsh faeries, the tylwyth teg, that every time an evening shadow quivered, the poor man jumped. By Abergavenny, Heloise was growing fearful. In two days she would be confronting Rushden. Maybe he was not so mighty in Buckingham’s household as he claimed and the duke might give her testament a fair credence. The small unicorn pinned to the collar of her gown gave her courage, but the brooch also reminded her that the Huddleston men would quit her company very soon. She would be an outsider and her foe considered her a witch.

‘Edrych mas!’

Hoel tensed like an arching cat as armed horsemen and a half dozen ruffians on foot burst out of woods ahead of them on the road north of Crickhowell. What were they? Horse thieves? Prayers to St Catherine and St Christopher were speedily on Heloise’s lips as the men rasped out their swords and formed a protective circle about her.

‘Can we outride them?’ she muttered, swiftly kneeing Traveller round. The River Usk sealed any escape to the west. Trees grew thickly up the hillside to the right. That left the way they had come.

‘I doubt it,’ mouthed the older Huddleston man. ‘Godsakes, Welshman,’ he growled at their guide, ‘open your mouth and say something useful for a change.’

Hoel let rip a speech of voluble Welsh and punctuated it finally with a spit upon the grass. His new audience, for the most part bearded, and lacking any insignia to show their allegiance, glared back with blatant hostility.

‘That was useful,’ Heloise commented dryly. ‘What now? We all go back to Crickhowell for oatcakes and a good rub down?’

‘Wel!’ One of the brigands understood her and laughed, kneeing his pony forwards and raised a leather gauntlet to thrust back his riding hood.

Astonishingly, Heloise beheld a woman! One of indeterminate age, for the creature’s complexion was as brown and speckled as a milkmaid’s and the unruly dark hair, snared back like a horse’s tail, showed a few glints of silver. A furskin cote protected her upper body from the wind, half hiding a brown leather tunic that covered her to her thighs. A riding skirt, hitched high, left her boots unencumbered. One did not have to be Welsh to know that her vehement language, as she circumnavigated them, was interrogatory. Their guide answered with a shrug and the woman halted, facing Heloise.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked bluntly in understandable English.

‘Who asks?’

‘The Lady of Tretwr.’

‘Tree Tower?’ Heloise sounded out the word. ‘I never heard of it.’ She looked round at her Welsh guide. ‘I thought by now we were in the demesne of the Duke of Buckingham.’

Hoel sucked in his cheeks and, of a sudden, found the opposite tree branch worth studying.

‘Harry Stafford!’ The woman spat, wheeling her shaggy pony about. ‘He merely thinks he rules. I will ask again, woman: State your business.’

‘It is of a private and delicate nature.’ Heloise answered with intended haughtiness and let Traveller dance impatiently beneath her.

‘So someone’s fathered a brat beneath your girdle, eh.’

‘No.’ Amazement made Heloise smile without fear. ‘Do I look as though I would let a man take advantage of me?’

A spark of admiration gleamed in the narrow eyes studying her. ‘Aye, if it pleased you.’ As the woman’s keen gaze slid over Rushden’s stallion, Heloise pressed her lips together in fear and adamance, ready to grab her dagger from the sheath stitched to the saddlebag; she had travelled too far to be bested now. ‘Whither are you bound then?’

It was tempting to be discourteous but it would achieve little.

‘Brecknock castle.’

‘Of course, and your horse too.’ Mischief glimmered in the woman’s expression, fingers stroked a dagger’s spiral handle. ‘You have to pay a toll for crossing our land.’

‘Of course, the point of this little encounter.’ With a suspicion that Hoel might have had some arrangement to bring his travellers through the illicit toll, Heloise opened the purse on her girdle and drew out two rose nobles. ‘These you shall have, but I should not advise you to snatch anything else. I have friends who will not be pleased to hear of it.’ The woman’s eyes had noted the jewellery she wore and she frowned.

‘To be sure,’ she said, holding out her palm for the coins, then she gave an order to her men in Welsh and laughed, adding in English. ‘I wish you joy of Y Cysgod. Tell him and Duke Harry you met Lady Vaughan of Tretwr if you dare open your mouth to them,’ and she spurred away before an utterly puzzled Heloise could answer. Did all the Welsh talk in riddles?

‘Tree Tower?’ echoed Heloise, her heart settling back to normal rhythm as they took the road again. ‘Do the Welsh nest high in these parts?’

Hoel ignored the jest, his feathers still ruffled and he did not speak until they were into open country. ‘Nawr te, arglwyddes, that is Tretwr. Lady Vaughan is wife to the oldest of three Vaughan brothers.’

Tretwr was unbelievably stylish. Heloise had expected a Norman keep and there was an elderly round one squatting in the back yard like a forgotten relative, but it was the stone house in front that took her breath away. A window, surmounted by an arched moulding and flanked by arrow embrasures, looked out from the front of each wing and attached between them was a splendid gatehouse, three storeys high, whose huge double door stood open, giving Heloise a glimpse of a fine courtyard surrounded on four sides. The chimneyed hall looked out to the south across a walled garden. From horseback, she could glimpse trellised arches.

‘Wfft! This might look pretty, see, but those are murder holes above the door,’ muttered Hoel testily. ‘Let us hasten past lest they string us in a row for beans to climb upon. Yn affodus, Black Vaughan’s ghost still rides although he has been fourteen years in his grave. His three lovely bully sons have seen to that. Keep the legend alive, they do. And the women are no better. Their mother, Elen Gethin the Terrible, the Devil keep her in her coffin, shot a man at an archery contest in cold blood, gwelwch chi.’

If the Welshman was expecting her to turn white as a miller’s apron and tremble, he was disappointed. ‘Why?’ she asked, biting her lip, not daring to wickedly ask if Elen had been actually aiming at a bullseye butt.

The guide’s brows rose in surprise. ‘An intelligent question, Englishwoman. To settle a score, it was – because the man had killed her brother.’ As if he sensed that she was not frightened enough to please him, he added crossly, ‘Glad you have come into such lawless wilds?’

‘It thrills me exceedingly,’ she countered dryly, ‘but let us follow your advice and press on.’

God protect them from further harassment by any other local villains. If Lady Vaughan could make her own laws, then the Welsh Marches were not so crushed beneath the English heel as Heloise had expected. ‘Do all women in Wales behave so?’ she asked Hoel, curious to know if women here were permitted more freedom.

‘Gwaethaf modd,’ he muttered and then had mercy on her. ‘Yn affodus, yes!’