One could believe that sheep not Englishmen ruled Wales, for the silly beasts were as numerous as maggots on a carcass – noisy, too, with their new lambs. They decorated every hillside and, with sheer dithery malevolence, blocked the road wherever possible. It was wild and handsome country – like Miles Rushden, yet to be tamed. Great breaths of April clouds were tossed above the Black Mountains, one instant shadowing the terraced moorland, then cockily showering the riders and apologising with a rainbow. Hoel led them north to Talgarth, a village with a ruined fortress not far from the broader highway that ran ’twixt Hereford and Brecknock, and now she no longer needed a guide, Heloise paid him off.

At Bronllys next day, Heloise delegated the Huddleston men to hire a byre where they might hide Traveller from Rushden in case she needed the horse to bargain with. Just as she set her foot in Cloud’s stirrup for the last stretch to Brecknock, her maid confessed with sobbing gulps that she and the youngest Huddleston man had sworn a trothplight and please might she return with him to Lady Huddleston? Heloise enviously gave the wench her blessing and left her with her lover. Yn Affodus! Brecknock might sneer at her for arriving without a maid.

The Brecknock road led with Roman straightness along a broad, level valley. Fruitful desires were opening the whitethorn thickets and yearning seeped through Heloise as though the sap were rising in her too, but a stark future lay ahead. What use daydreaming of a knight who would adore her, or Rushden as a princely dark lover? The real man was going to be angry, cornered and ruthlessly dismissive. Dear God, she would need every ounce of courage to face him.

As they drew closer to Brecknock, other mountains, visible and invisible, barren and formidable, climbed the horizon to the southwest, and Heloise was glad that Brecknock proved not to lie in their shadow but in friendlier farmland on a meeting of roads where the River Usk coiled north. But Brecknock was not welcoming. Carrion crows perched upon a gibbet, freshly occupied by a stinking corpse. Crossing herself, and with a prayer for the dead youth’s soul, Heloise kneed Cloud on, fearful lest a vision come to her.

There were dwellings now and they passed over the town ditch, and through the Watton Gate, fuming at the iniquitous toll. No spires or towers showed them where the town’s heart lay so they slowed the horses to a walk behind a Benedictine monk who was humming plainsong as he led his ass along the eastern side of the market place. Heloise did not tarry nor let Martin try his raw Welsh on any stallkeepers, for now the castle could be plainly seen at the northern end of the town and a miserable rain was setting in.

And a humble little castle it was too. Were they in the right town? Surely this could not be the dwelling of a duke? Plumes of smoke rose from within the fortress’s walls, but no pennons decorated the towers. It was not a good omen and Heloise observed with a heavy heart that the town did not nestle close to its protector like a camp follower, but seemed to be trying to crawl away from its master’s vigilance. Maybe it was because yet another river, narrow and unfamiliar, severed the castle from its charge.

The monk turned off purposefully through the town’s northern gate and Heloise was left to face her hazardous future.

‘Will you grab the nettle now, mistress, or shall we seek lodging and return tomorrow?’

‘Oh, Martin, say a prayer for me.’ Heloise bit her lip and rode forward, trying to keep her courage high. What could they do to her that her father had not done already? At least the castle drawbridge was down, but so too was the portcullis. It looked as welcoming as Rushden would be. A nettle indeed! He would recoil from her with icy hauteur and what should she do then?

‘It is not what I expected.’ She took Martin’s hand and slid stiffly from Cloud’s saddle to stare forlornly up at the rose sandstone barbican. She had anticipated something of Middleham’s splendour, but this seemed like a poor kinsman in comparison. The loops and slits hinted at a dark, cold Norman interior. Beyond the grid of the portcullis, the bailey was as empty as a larder plagued by mice. Little money had been spent here and her heart sank. If Buckingham was hardfisted, he would have little patience with her woes.

‘I think this may be the lesser entrance, mistress, but no matter.’ His belly gurgling as noisily as the river, Martin rapped at the porter’s window. ‘Ho! You asleep in there?’ He politely ushered his mistress further into the shelter of the arch and smote the shutters again with his riding crop. Egglike, they burst open and a rough-chinned, hairless fledgling poked his head out.

‘My lady,’ he exclaimed in a cheery English voice, ‘we were not expecting you for another two days. Welcome!’

Creaking machinery urged the portcullis up and a fleshy porter in a tabard, half-scarlet, half-black, stepped out onto the drawbridge, gave her a gap-toothed grin and whistled a pair of stableboys to fetch in the laden sumpter and mud-spattered Cloud. ‘Her grace will be pleased to hear that you have arrived safely.’

Heloise made a surprised face at Martin. Who were they expecting? Obviously a stranger since the porter did not know her face.

‘She will?’

‘Aye, my life on’t,’ chortled the gatekeeper, ‘but she ain’t here at present. Over Eastertide she been at Lady Darrell’s, ’is grace the duke’s mother, with the little demoiselles, but young Lord Stafford is here. An’ his grace will be back Wednesday. Now don’t you be standing’ there afreezin’, my lady. I’ll send a lad straightway to tell Sir William that you are here. Is your maid tarrying behind, my lady?’ At least the man asked the obvious as discreetly as he could.

‘Alas.’ The expected guest crossed herself with melancholy devotion; the gatekeeper could draw his own conclusions. He did, and drew breath to press her for details, but her small silencing gesture was sufficient.

Well, thought Heloise, with a quick thanks to St Catherine as she stretched out her ungloved hands before the porter’s brazier, she was into the castle on a lie, but at least she might have a chance to speak privily with Rushden.

‘Those bells sound close by.’ She offered the porter a friendly smile; new friends were useful and she might need to leave the castle hurriedly.

‘The Priory of St John the Evangelist, my lady.’ So that explained the monk. At least she might seek a night’s shelter from the hosteller if the castle turned hostile. ‘We have Dominican Brothers too, my lady, at Llanfaes, across the bridge, over the Usk.’ He pointed south-west. Brecknock, then, lay within a carpenter’s square where the Usk and this lesser stream intermingled. It did no harm to get her bearings.

‘Sir William will see you now, my lady.’

As she followed the servant across the silent courtyard, she realised Martin was right: a larger gatehouse with a drawbridge faced the Usk. Maybe the castle looked grander from that approach. The youth led her past a roofed well, not towards the old Norman keep squatting, gaunt as a hungry anchorite, on its high motte to one side of the bailey, but up a small flight of steps, through a porched doorway and into an unheated great hall set against the southern curtain wall.

She shivered, longing for the bright, tapestried walls of Middleham, but the page ushered her into a counting chamber where a generous fire crackled blessedly. This must be the castle exchequer or the receiver’s room. Folded letters were tucked or hanging over the lower of the two wooden wall rails and sealing wax seals dangled on broad bands of tape above. Ledger boxes and parchment rolls were stacked upon the shelves behind a cheerful, well-fed man in his forties who sat before a baize-draped board with a leatherstrapped courier box at his elbow. Seeing her, he closed the inkwell, dropped his pen into a wooden jar, feather down to protect the quill tip, and came round to hold out two hands to clasp hers in greeting. Why was she being so vigorously welcomed? she wondered. An impression of sky blue eyes and a peppery mane of hair stayed with her as she lowered her eyes modestly and curtsied.

‘Lady Haute. What a long journey you have had. What do you think of our hills, wild, eh, compared to Kent?’ Kent! Saints preserve her, she had never set foot in Kent, not even to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Rapidly plumbing her memory, she managed a breezy answer. ‘I suspect that our cherries are as good as your mountains, Sir William.’

He bowed charmingly over her hand. ‘And have they repaired the Akeman Road outside Cirencester yet? You could have lost a horse and cart in some of those holes before Christmas.’

Dear God, yes, it was the old Roman route, but from where? St Albans put its hand up for a mention, but little else came to her. How dangerous would it be to lie? ‘Actually I-I journeyed up from Chepstow. I had … have … a good friend in Somerset I desired to see.’ She smiled amiably, wondering who in Hell this Lady Haute was. A noblewoman, so certainly not a midwife or a wetnurse, but was the lady wed or widowed? Thank God the duchess was at her mother-in-law’s with her children. It at least gave some respite. And who was this man? What standing did he have with the duke?

‘Sir William –?’

‘Knyvett, madam, of Buckenham, Norfolk. Acting Constable. Ah, Bess, my sweet, do not hover there. Close the door and come and greet my lady.’

Another challenge to be faced? But there was no sign of recognition, merely shy politeness as a thin young gentlewoman came across the rush matting to curtsy.

‘Is it not wonderful that my lady is here ahead of time, Bess?’ Again, that puzzling hint of relief.

‘Indeed,’ the girl agreed sweetly, nervously tucking a wisp of nutbrown hair beneath her coif. ‘Yes, indeed, we are so pleased to welcome you, my lady.’

Why? Had they a dragon this Lady Haute was supposed to tame? Had she sprung from the cauldron of her father’s unpredictable governance into an equally dangerous fire?

‘Bess is – Ah, Limerick.’ A snowy-haired man in a long houppelande, which lapped about his old-style pointed shoes, came in to greet her. He too was smiling. Worse and worse, thought Heloise.

‘Lady Haute, may I present his grace of Buckingham’s steward, Sir Thomas Limerick.’ Bess caught his eye. ‘Oh, and this demoiselle is Lord Edward’s nursemaid.’

A little dragon? Heloise took a deep breath. ‘Your porter mentioned that Lord Stafford is here,’ she ventured, wondering if she had found the right key to the gate. The statement could be construed as polite conversation if nothing else. There was a rapid exchange of glances between her hosts.

‘Mulled wine, Bess,’ Sir William exclaimed. ‘Now, Lady Haute, Bess says there has been a brood of mice in the chamber set aside for you, but we have put a mouser in there for the past two days. Toss him out if you have an aversion to the fellow.’ A human or four-pawed mouser, she wondered, warming to Sir William’s affability.

Over wafers and between sips of comforting wine that seeped down to warm her icy toes, Heloise began to edge the door of knowledge open. Her hosts were at pains to praise the Duke of Buckingham’s eldest son to her, but as their comments became more fulsome, she began to deduce that the Lord Edward also had horns and a spiked tail. In short, Lady Haute was to turn him into an angel. No wonder the duchess and the other children had sought refuge at their grandam’s. And where was the child’s father and the rest of the household?

The steward enlightened her: ‘His grace of Buckingham is at Thornbury with others of his retinue, but we expect him back this week.’ Thornbury! That was in Somerset, hard by the Bristol Channel. Dear God, all this while Rushden had been but a few days’ ride from Bramley. Dionysia had it wrong. Her quarry had not been on his way to Wales at all, and incredibly she had arrived ahead of him. Well, she must make the best of her advantage. Kind St Jude, the saint of hopeless causes, was lending a generous hand in her affairs. Two dragons! If she did her best, maybe she might make some allies before she faced Rushden’s anger.

Castles were full of information if one knew where to uncover it and Bess, anxious to please the lady appointed over her, was a pantry of tidbits and morsels. As they traversed the hall and climbed the staircase that led to the nursery and bedchambers, Heloise learned that the duchess suffered from megrims, was easily worn out by her children and exchanged letters with her royal sister twice a month, and it was the queen who had graciously recommended Lady Haute. The duke and duchess rarely kept each other company now that they had produced four children. His grace hunted a great deal with his friends. Friends? Oh yes. Unfortunately Bess showed excessive interest in one of his grace’s knightly companions, but it was not Rushden, and Heloise decided wisely not to squeeze any gossip out of her since no respectable married noblewoman should display interest in unattached noblemen unless she knew her own new status. Was Lady Haute a married woman or a widow past mourning?

She tiptoed her way through conversation at supper with anecdotes of her recent travels, deftly diverted Sir William from a discussion of hostelries on the London to Canterbury road and finally excused herself, duplicitous but unscathed. She did not like lying to these people. They would feel betrayed once Rushden unmasked her deceit, but perhaps there was a way to prevent that happening; if the little dragon liked her and she built up a treasury of good will before Rushden’s return, miracles were possible.

The young Welsh mouser that bounded out of one of the chambers partitioned off from the nursery was sleek, gelded and white-stockinged. The rest of him was shining black except for a slash of white between his ears and down his nose. At least he was welcoming, but where was the other little beast in her charge?

Bess pointed to the other door and lifted a finger to her lips.

‘I thought you had enow for the day to weary you, my lady. I would not be in a hurry to meet that one if I were you. That’s the garderobe there behind the arras, when you need it, and I have set clean water for washing in your bedchamber. If you have aught for cleaning or pressing, I will send them out to a washer woman in the morning.’

Heloise thanked her for her thoughtfulness, and began a dutiful inspection of her new realm. Inside the aumbry was a wooden fort, a baby cannon, painted boards for table games and a box of foot soldiers. In the other corner, she lifted the lid of the brightly painted wooden chest to discover a little sword and buckler, a tiny longbow, a crick ball and a gaudy top.

‘Very tidy, Bess,’ she said pleasantly, pausing to run her fingers over a hobby horse’s leather mane. Traveller! Tomorrow she would send Martin back to Bronllys to ensure the horse was properly cared for and let Margery’s men return home.

‘You should see it on a rainy day. Not an inch of floor to be seen and everything hurly-burly. And this is only my lord’s nursery. My little ladies have their own quarters close by her grace’s bedchamber, but if they are all playing here together, as sometimes happens, it is bedlam. And here is Benet, Lord Stafford’s manservant. Make your bow, Benet.’ A shambling, moon-faced fellow came out from the nursery, bowed awkwardly and took his leave again at a nod from Bess. ‘Do not be afeared of his squinty-eyes, my lady. A mill short of a grindstone, that one, but stout-hearted.’

As they enjoyed wafers and hyppocras together before the fire, it was hard not to answer the questions that the younger woman snowballed at her in honest curiosity. Heloise sidestepped them as best she could by asking her own, and was relieved to hear that Bess slept on a truckle bed beside the child. Thank goodness! It promised a rare privacy and would avoid the sleepy confidences that came from sharing a bed. Benet slept in the child’s chamber too. He might be simple, Bess assured her, but he was loyal as a dog, and would willingly fetch the water for the child’s bath and perform all the menial tasks.

Heloise’s narrow chamber contained a truckle bed. Along the opposite wall, a clean towel hung from a wooden rail above a small cup board. Upon it she found a pewter ewer, a jug of water, a jarful of pumice powder and herbs for sweetening the breath. She hung her gown up on a wallpeg, said her prayers and crept gratefully between the sheets, nestling her soles against the wrapped, heated brick, unable to believe her good fortune so far. Perhaps it was her destiny to come to Brecknock to look after the duke’s son. She hoped that was why Miles Rushden had been catapulted into her life. If she did her best, maybe she might make some allies before she faced his dark anger.

Mercy Jesu! She stifled a scream as a creature landed on the bed beside her, but it was not a rat. A confident purr coaxed her hand out from the blanket to tickle the short, soft fur at the base of his pointed ears.

‘You are supposed to be under the bed catching … things … not up here with me,’ she pointed out, as the feline’s volume increased beneath her fingertips. ‘This is not wise, master cat. You and my hair do not go together. People will gossip.’ Like most males, even gelded ones, he took no notice and burrowed beneath the coverlet. Oh well, thought Heloise, I had rather sleep with you than Sir Miles Rushden. ‘Since you are Welsh, I shall baptise you Dafydd in the morning and if there are any mice around, they shall stand your godfathers.’

Thinking about Miles Rushden robbed her of sleep, but by early morning she had her weapons primed and ready; she would make a success of handling the child and then she would have the artillery to battle her husband. At dawn she must have fallen into a heavy slumber, for Bess came in and shook her awake. Seeing the superstitious fear in the girl’s eyes at the unusual colour of her braids, Heloise hastily reassured her and made her promise not to gossip. Thank God, Dafydd had not emerged from his snug hiding place for a naming ceremony.

‘Sir Thomas said to give you this.’ Bess held out a sealed letter. ‘You made better time on the road than your carrier, my lady.’ The parchment was addressed to the duchess from the real Lady Haute.

Heloise thanked the girl and closed the door. With trembling fingers, she broke the seal and scanned the florid writing. Eleanor Haute craved her grace’s forgiveness but she and her husband were both badly smitten with the measles, and as she had no wish to infect Lord Stafford, she would be delaying her journey until the contagion had passed.

‘Thank you,’ whispered Heloise to any saints and faeries who were listening. A reprieve! A few precious days!

Fingers of sunlight were cheerfully poking through the shutters. The world was waiting for her. She ran to the window, leaned across the cold embrasure and lifted the latch to a view that took her breath away. Distant hills rose up beyond the woods. The highest peak was the hue of gorse and a laurel of light cloud hung gauzily around it like a victor’s wreath.

Moist warmth gentled the air. Her heart lifted. She could smell the fertility of the earth, imagine the young corn shoots unfurling beneath the dark red furrows and the creatures hidden in the trees and burrows stirring after their long winter sleep; her being reached out, rejoicing with them. The awkward bleating of suckling lambs came from the fields about the priory, and she could hear the impatient clanging of cart bells and the apprentices full throatedly shouting their wares down in the town. Her merchant toes fidgeted within the little beaks of her shoes and she wanted to be part of it.

The fair-haired child led in to make his bow was so beautiful that for an instant Heloise could not believe that the household thought him an ogre. He was clad like a tiny nobleman but the slashed, hanging sleeves edged with winter squirrel were unsuitable for a child and the cost of the mustard-hued brocade fabric of his doublet, which no doubt had to be kept from spills and mud, would have fed a ploughman and his family for a year. He took off his soft-crowned hat, bowed as gracefully as a courtier, and then spoilt the effect by folding his arms defensively and standing feet astride in a perfect imitation of Sir William Knyvett. The slightly winging eyebrows lent his face an elfish intelligence and perhaps this too made the servants fear him. Heloise knew too well how those sorts of suspicion hurt.

‘Thank you, Sir Thomas.’ She opened the door for the high steward. He accepted the hint and with a warning glance at his lord’s son swept majestically out.

‘So, Lord Stafford, it is clear to me,’ declared Heloise, ‘that you do not need a lady to govern your hours but I do need to make a living. You look rather boring. Are you?’

The blue eyes stopped their assessment of her quite abruptly and the child’s gaze swung back up the tawny velvet folds of her high waisted travelling gown.

‘My mother is prettier than you.’

‘Of course, she is a duchess. Duchesses are supposed to be prettier than anyone else except queens – and princesses. Do you always carry eggs in your hat?’

The small face crinkled derisively at such stupidity.

‘There!’ Heloise pointed. ‘Where is my mirror? Let me show you.’ The swift placing of the little, freckled egg that her smallest sister had solemnly given her for a keepsake was easily achieved. Thank the saints, the child’s brim was upturned and fastened with a brooch. ‘Here,’ she rubbed the silver mirror against her skirt and held it before him. ‘A swallow’s egg. It must have fallen from a nest. What a pity you did not know, you might have hatched the fledgling against your chest.’ Small fingers felt for the egg and beheld it suspiciously, but he made no accusation. He dropped it down into his sleeve and Heloise wondered what other treasures wriggled below the fur. One of his sleeves certainly seemed to possess a life of its own. Dafydd had also noticed the twitching and prowled over to investigate.

‘What have you hidden in there?’ asked Heloise. She dumped the disgruntled cat outside the door and turned back to the child. ‘I do like frogs. Or is it a mouse?’ Better now than in her shoe or the bottom of the bed.

Annoyance twitched the precocious little mouth. Muttering, he burrowed one cuffed hand down into the split and drew out a toadlet. Heloise held out her hand and he solemnly tipped it onto her palm where she gently stroked it with her fingertip and waited for it to escape. It took strategy and coordination for the pair of them to catch it and crawling on hands and knees towards each other, both calling out instructions, took the sharp edge off the tension between them, but a knock on the door spoilt the adventure. It was Bess bearing a beaker of a urine-hued brew.

‘Your physic, Lord Edward. Drink it down like a brave lad.’

‘It is foul. I hate it!’

‘What is in this, Bess?’ Heloise smelt it and took a sip. ‘Uuugh, lungwort!’

‘Bravo, my lady. Never mind, poppet,’ the girl declared as the boy jerked his head away from her expected ruffling, ‘the woodbine will soon be out and you can have a remedy from that instead.’ She took the cup from Heloise and held it out. The child ignored it; anyone could see he was working himself into a temper. In an instant, he was red and gasping for breath. Bess thrust the cup back at Heloise, knelt down and grabbed the little shoulders. Shaking him did not help and patting his cheeks was little avail.

Heloise set the concoction down with deliberate clumsiness. ‘Oh, I have spilt it.’ The tantrum instantly ceased, but he was still short of breath.

‘It happens every time he is thwarted, my lady,’ Bess explained later after she had led him away to his tutor, ‘and every time he exerts himself. He can behave correctly when it suits him, but he is a snivelling little monster most of the time.’

‘To gain attention?’

‘To get his own way, my lady. Takes after his father, I reckon, for there are plenty of folks would say so when their tongues are loosened from a bit of drinking.’

‘What happened to the last governess of the nursery?’

‘Oh, got herself into the family way within a month, or leastways that was her excuse for leaving. I hope you will stay longer, my lady.’

Not if her so-called husband got wind of her presence, sighed Heloise, but if she could make herself indispensable at Brecknock before Buckingham and his retinue returned, then she might be forgiven her duplicity. Yes, Lord Stafford was a little devil. The deceptive angelic hair might darken to honest brown as he grew to manhood, but that sulky chin strongly hinted that he would become an unpleasant master if no one took him in hand now. At least she had the authority to order a change in Lord Stafford’s meals and medicines. The rest of the day, she distracted him whenever he threw a breathing fit. By nightfall she was exhausted, but so, too, was the little boy. He went to bed right willingly, to Bess’s amazement. Now if she could only manage Rushden the same, thought Heloise – and blushed. No, bed was not quite what she had in mind.

Her initial private success with the child was not repeated in the hall next day. The crux of the matter slyly put his tongue out at her, then whinged and baulked at his food through dinner on the dais. By the end of the meal, Heloise could see why the welcome she had been extended was becoming tepid. Sir William and the others had been hoping she would make obvious changes to the child’s nature. ‘If you behave, then I will arrange an adventure,’ she whispered behind her hand.

The small tyrant licked his spoon consideringly. ‘What sort of adventure?’

‘A surprise.’ The small elbows edged slowly off the table, the question mark of a back straightened and his toes ceased causing earth tremors below the great salt.

But, what surprise? She had but a few days until Wednesday when the duke and his retainers were expected. She began by taking the boy to the ducal kitchen after his tutor had given him leave. The child’s eyes goggled as she bid him examine rabbit nets, mortars, jelly moulds, turn the spit, ladle off the fat from the large cauldron, smell the different spice jars and sniff the basket of dried toadstools for the morning firelighting. The kitcheners stumbled in their answers to his questions, unused to noble visitors. It taught the child to count his blessings, for some of the tasks were loathsome: one scullion, stripped to his waist, was cleansing greasy vessels with steamy hot water and salt; another was foolishly struggling to scale a large perch; and the master cook, annoyed to have his realm invaded, made a great play of hacking a carcass going down for salting, to affright the little noble.

Ned giggled as Heloise tied his long sleeves in a loose knot behind his back but when she tucked cloths in the top of his stomacher and her platelet belt and pushed up her sleeves, he goggled at her. He, Lord Stafford, was to make pancakes? Soon she had the small kingdom of the kitchen under her domain, fetching bowls and whisks and joining in with instructions for their little overlord. In the afternoon, Heloise bade Ned show her the garden and there they moistened a barrow of mud and designed a castle fit to rival Beaumaris. It subsided rapidly. After dinner, they made bows and shot at the butts. The following morning, they attempted a crossbolt with glue, parchment and steel, equipped with little fur tails to tell which way the wind was blowing. A pity there were insufficient flax strips to make a decent string; her father would have been ashamed of the miserable result, but it entertained the child. They crept to the stables in the early hours of Sunday morning and saw a foal born. On Monday afternoon, they made a candle shaped like Salisbury steeple and pressed woodcuts onto it.

‘A chandler’s trade!’ tut-tutted Sir Thomas Limerick, called in to admire the child’s handiwork, but he smiled and patted her hand.

‘What harm in understanding how others must live, how the world runs.’

‘It runs on greed, Lady Haute. Those with riches do as they please, the rest labour.’

‘But you will admit the child is more manageable.’

‘For the nonce, yes, my dear, but things will be different when his grace returns.’

Desperation hardened her resolve.

‘Sir William,’ she asked after prayers on Tuesday morning, drawing the knight to the fire that now warmed the hall from a central hearth. ‘I know this might strike you as an outlandish notion, but I think part of Lord Ned’s problem is boredom. He needs an adventure beyond these walls. I should like your permission to take him into Brecknock this morning.’ Her host’s face was indecipherable and she added earnestly, ‘I think it is important that he understand how everyday transactions are made. He will be lord of this demesne one day, God willing, and must understand how to negotiate a fair price. Oh, I know he will have officers to do these things but—’

‘I think it an excellent suggestion,’ he cut in.

‘You do, sir?’ she clapped in delight.

‘Whoa, my lady,’ he exclaimed laughing, catching her hands in one large fist. ‘Let us think this out. My lord of Buckingham has enemies aplenty in Wales. Two hundred years since we conquered these valleys but the accursed Welsh still resent it.’ Surely the Brecknock people would not harm a child? The town seemed no more dangerous than any English market town.

‘Then perhaps we shall go in disguise.’

‘Homespun, you mean?’ When he saw she was serious, his frown deepened. ‘Ah well, it may serve,’ he paced to the casement and stretched, his hands on his waist, while she waited. ‘Do it,’ he said at last. ‘My lord duke will not like it but hopefully no harm will come to the pair of you. I shall send a couple of doughty archers with you.’

‘Only if they follow at a discreet distance.’

‘Hmm, a winsome stranger like yourself will raise a few brows. The boy has been little seen. As long as he keeps a still tongue in his head but—’ He tugged at his ear, a plethora of doubts clouding his face.

‘Oh please, Sir William, I shall take good care of him. Please let me do this before his grace returns.’ Although he gave consent with misgiving, he thrust a fistful of coins into her hands with unlooked-for generosity.

The frightened child threw a tantrum at the suggestion he must walk down to the town or mix with commoners. While the two men sent to escort her muttered and stamped their feet like impatient tethered horses, it took Heloise the best part of an hour not only to coax her little lord into wearing meaner apparel, but also to convince him to leave the castle. Ned snivelled and grumbled down the stairs, pulling back at her hand, and she nearly gave in. Then as they crossed the bailey, he wickedly sprang and skipped, jerking her hand and jumping his whole weight on her arm.

‘Pray, stop that! The whole idea of this is to enjoy our disguise.’ Heloise drew him out of sight into the porter’s cell. ‘They will know you are a nobleman for sure, if you behave so.’ Sullen eyes regarded her from beneath a scowling brow. He had acquired the knack of making his eyes half disappear beneath his upper lids and it gave him the look of a baby demon gargoyle.

‘And if the wind changes, I shall look like this for all my life,’ he chanted nastily.

‘Which is, of course, not true.’ Heloise believed in honesty but then spoilt her principles by saying, ‘I shall very likely sell you to a blacksmith if you misbehave and you will spend the rest of your days in a sweltering smithy hammering horseshoes, or maybe I might apprentice you to a beggar. Your angel curls might earn some extra groats.’

‘My father will have you hanged if you sell me,’ he muttered.

‘Pah, no one will buy you anyway. Besides, I should miss you.’

He glanced up at her. ‘Truly?’

‘Yes.’ Like a chill wind. ‘Now you are to be plain Ned and I shall be your mam. So what say you?’ He pouted like a water spout. ‘My lord, if you draw attention to us, the Welsh might thieve us, hold you in chains for ransom and feed us naught but leeks.’

She briskly marched him across the Honddu bridge like any housewife on her way to market and they overtook a pardoner and a woodman, spiky with kindling across his shoulders. It was reassuring to know that the two archers were following behind at a sensible distance, but Heloise’s instincts told her the child was in no danger and it was so wonderful to be free of fortress walls.

Her clothes had been chosen with care – a plain russet gown, borrowed from one of the women servants, and a calf-length cloak against the cold. Her hair was piled under a simple cap and she wound a veil over it and round about to scarf her throat. The purse, heavy with Sir William’s bounty, hung strapped to her belt at the front, not at her hip where it might be easily cut. Lord Stafford’s clothing was a simple tawny tunic, but beneath it he wore a quilted doublet to keep him warm.

Brecknock, on closer acquaintance, proved to be quince-shaped. It lacked the distinctive high street that ribboned many of its English counterparts; instead it had two main streets that ran from Castle Gate to Watton Gate. Heloise followed the traffic of carts down Shepe Street and found the market, bulging away from the main concourse, dominated by the Bothall and a chapel. Then her mind began to spin; she saw flames flickering from the thatches and the blackened stones.

‘Come,’ the child tugged at her hand. ‘What is the matter? You have gone all sickly.’

The gabled roofs and walls returned to normality; the squeal of a pig being branded a few paces away was uncomfortably real. ‘I-I felt … would you like to light a candle?’

‘Pooh, not Mass again.’

‘No, but lighting a candle would be the proper thing to do, Ned. This will be your town one day. See, St Mary’s – is it not? – lacks a tower. Perhaps you or your father may pay for one. Let us go in and see where you would build it. You may give me your opinion.’

Ned made an obligatory prayer and then inspected the ceiling while Heloise knelt. She said nothing to St Catherine, feeling that the saint had vindictively answered her prayers already, but she sent a plea to the saint who watched over Brecknock to have a fire peleton ready on the day her vision came true, and she lit a candle to St Miles of Padua that he would soften his namesake’s heart towards her. The disadvantage was that the saint was well known for helping people find what they had lost. ‘Please do not let Rushden return yet, please,’ she prayed.

Outside the church, she taught the little lord to discern the genuine needy from the cunning beggars and insisted he cast a penny in the begging bowl of a legless man. Ned wanted to make an examination of the poor wretch’s rag-covered stumps to make sure they were authentic, and she had to swiftly yank him towards a market stall that sold sugared almonds, sweet liquorice beetles and tiny marzipan apples. Not only did she promise him a sugar pig on the way back, if he behaved, but she bought it to show sincerity and tucked it in the drawstring bag upon her arm.

In the next hour, his new governess taught the duke’s son how to bargain for some comfits for Sir William and a ribbon for Bess. The marketplace was her schoolroom and the stallkeepers her counters and building bricks. The child’s cheeks turned pink from the south wind, but his eyes were bright with new experience. True, he grabbed her skirts in his fists and hung on fiercely as they watched the dancing bear – such a large creature that Heloise felt it would be good to cling to someone too – but she bravely held out an oatcake to the alien creature and won Ned’s admiration for her courage. Even her archers were beginning to enjoy the outing, especially when she allowed them to enjoy a pot of ale on the western side of the market where the better taverns and the more prosperous merchants dwelt. There was entertainment here: a travelling juggler frightening the children with his flaming breath, and a dog, dolled up with a lady’s cone and veil tied to its head, that leapt through a hoop at his master’s order. The man had a puppy too, but it was fearful of the crowd and would not perform. Shamed by its disobedience, the owner lashed its hindquarters, confusing the poor thing further.

‘Stop that!’ exclaimed Heloise, grabbing the whip from the man’s astonished hand. ‘It is doing its best to please you, you cruel lout! Can you not see that?’ Then she realised she was drawing attention. ‘Oh here, I shall buy it from you.’ She tipped the remainder of her money into the greedy, dirt-rimed palm. ‘Tie Bess’s ribbon round its neck, dearest!’ she ordered Lord Stafford.

The mouth of the heir to his grace of Buckingham was gaping, but mercifully the little fellow did what he was bid before the dog made off. Heloise caught it up over her shoulder – all paws and tongue – and whisked Ned out of the crowd. She halted at the bench outside the tavern, greeting the archers as though they were acquaintances, and set the wriggling creature down.

‘Ain’t you something, my lady,’ muttered the older man beneath his breath, squatting down to let the small dog lick his hand. He fed it a piece of his pie.

‘May I have him?’ pleaded Ned, tugging Heloise’s arm as if it was an alarum bellrope.

‘But you already have a sugar pig.’

‘Oh, please, please.’

‘I do not think it a good notion, dearest,’ she answered gravely, sitting down on the bench and drawing him onto her lap. The puppy was attacking her toes. ‘I rather think its hair would make you cough.’

The child wriggled round, making a saddle of her thighs and fastened his sticky fists around her neck. ‘Please, my lady. You may have the sugar pig, but please may I have the puppy?’ The cock-eared little creature was nipping at his heel but he laughed, showing no displeasure.

‘I shall think on it,’ Heloise promised solemnly. ‘If you manage not to have any more coughs or sniffles for the next two days, I may agree.’

One of the archers whistled and was caught gazing at the heaven with a disbelieving expression. ‘Do you take wagers, Brian?’ he asked his companion softly as the boy slid off Heloise’s lap.

As she had vowed to have Ned back at the castle long before four o’clock supper, they turned homeward, picking their way slowly up the high street that ran towards the castle on the easterly side of the market. Heloise carried Ned. Brian, the older archer, had gestured an offer to take the child from her, but she was adamant that the two men should keep their distance. A mistake, for the child grew heavier by the moment and the little dog was whining to be carried too.

It was then that townsfolk ahead of her swore and scattered to the doorways. A half-dozen horsemen in sallets and brigandines whipped their horses urgently down the street, spattering mud as they galloped past. Heloise cursed roundly and one of the hindmost riders laughed.

‘Whoresons!’ a lilting voice bawled after them, and there was an answering growl of ‘Saeson, y diawled’ from the crowd and a contemptuous spat of saliva on the cobbles. The sibilant whisper of Welsh and unease made her apprehensive. She shared the people’s anger. Perhaps these were local ruffians like the Vaughans come to drink and make trouble. She began to hurry and the archers moved closer.

The horsemen made a rapid circuit of the town and must have met up with riders who had gone counterwise, for suddenly a dozen of the knaves galloped forth from Shepe Street. Still clasping Ned, Heloise shrank back against the wall to let them pass, but the foremost man yelled at her two archers and skidded to a halt blocking her way. The others joined him, forming a semicircle of leather and sweating horseflesh about her. Ned awoke and started screaming in genuine terror at the huffing nostrils of the horses. No trouble now, she prayed, anxious for the boy’s safety, not like this, with half of Brecknock looking on and Ned’s dog whining ludicrously at her toecaps. But the men surrounding her looked as ill at ease as she.

She was cut off from the archers. Anyway, they would be no match for these armoured brigands. Then she realised that each man-at-arms wore a span-wide badge, a loose yellow knot, across their hearts. The badge that the castle servants wore upon their sable and gules tabards.

‘Go away!’ Ned shouted. ‘Take the horses away!’

An officer, clothed in black leather hose and short doublet, with the hood of his riding cloak shielding his head against the increasing rain, imperiously edged his steed into the circle. Heloise was conscious of the chain of authority glimmering across his shoulders before his gloved hand thrust back the grey hood. Disdainful eyes beneath haughty dark brows stared down upon the child, then the man’s mouth tightened in annoyance. Jesu mercy, Miles Rushden! Her heart sank; it was no use waiting like a fearful, tiny bird for the shadow of this hawk to pass. But as she braced herself to face the reckoning, Rushden’s steed threw up its head, showed its teeth and Ned began to scream and scream.

‘Draw back!’ The girl was demanding. ‘Can you not see you are terrifying him?’

They had found Harry’s boy, thank God, but where was the erring new governess of the nursery? Had she recklessly consigned the duke’s heir to a maidservant while she gossiped or bought some pretty trinkets? Miles had been unprepared to discover that the sticky-faced, exhausted burden bawling against the wench’s bodice was Lord Edward Stafford. He knew the other voice and yet …

Miles’s gaze no longer lingered on the child, it rose exploratively over the girl’s uncovered throat and was held by the troubled beauty and unlooked-for, bewitching familiarity in the creature’s face. He put a thumb and forefinger to eyes that had seen too many miles and looked again. It was his de jure wife who stood there absurdly with mud spattering her skirts and a mongrel cur stringed to her wrist.

Heloise barely heard the hiss of recognition from the people at her husband’s coming. The earth shook uncertainly beneath her feet and it was not just because the great hooves of his horse shifted restlessly. Pinioned beneath that gaze, she prayed, breathless, with all the strength she had, that he could not possibly recognise her, but the man’s expression had already darkened. The stallion protested as the grip on the reins abruptly tightened. Disbelief, disgust and anger flashed across his ruined face and then, as he remembered the waiting, watching soldiers, a visor of control slid down and he was their leader again.

‘Sir.’ Brian the archer had shouldered his way through and now stood at his stirrup like a petitioner. ‘Be easy, sir, naught has gone amiss.’

Had it not, fumed Miles, but his men were waiting for his orders. ‘Take the cur!’ he commanded, with a jerk of his head.

Heloise watched as the archer slid the string from her wrist. He gave her a wink of reassurance, but her entire being was centred on Miles Rushden’s anger. She thanked God they had an audience; he could not abuse her here – or could he?

‘Lady Haute?’ The lift of eyebrow conveyed his mockery as much as the disdainful quirk of lip. A smile no deeper than the travel stubble on his cheeks told her that she had never looked less like a noblewoman.

‘The mud is from your men’s hooves, Sir Miles,’ she retaliated, and then realised the enormity of what she had just said. In a few words of wild defence, she had turned his taunt into a recognition, made him a conspirator to her deception in front of the Stafford soldiers and in the common hearing. He drew breath, jaw clenched, and she alone guessed how much he was battling to contain his fury.

Sweet Christ help her, this was not how she had intended this meeting. She had imagined a few words with him privily, a chance to explain her circumstances, make him understand before she dared to ask for help, advice, whatever he would be prepared to give. She could only stare up at him now, bereft.

The great horse he rode frisked, impatient for its stall, and had to be reined round, but it gave its rider a chance to leash his temper. One of the burlier soldiers broke the silence, coughing in amusement at his superior being bested. A woman in the crowd sniggered and a stone skidded among the horses’ fetlocks.

Miles’s expression tightened and his soldiers officiously swivelled round with menacing glares at the townsfolk. The closest onlookers edged away.

Witchmaid! The Devil carry him to Hell if he knew what to do now. How dare she stand there, lovely despite her shabby, ill-fitting gown, with Harry’s son in her arms? The deceiving, greedy vixen! Tracking him to Brecknock! What was she after, payment to hold her tongue? Surely her father already had more gold than Midas? What then? Public acknowledgment that she was now his wife? But why the assumed name? Surely it was the queen who had recommended Lady Haute? What other game was she playing? He stared at her perplexed and then, realising that they were causing a spectacle, he swiftly saluted the duke’s grubby heir.

‘I give you good day, my little lord. His grace your father has returned and desires your presence. Come!’ He beckoned Ned to mount before him but the wretched infant shrank back, cowering at the horse’s impatient hooves.

‘I will take him,’ Sir William Knyvett, red-faced and hardly dressed for riding, spurred into the circle. ‘There is no harm done here, Rushden,’ he announced, clearly to reassure himself. No harm done! The heir of the Duke of Buckingham apparelled like a tinkers bastard? And his slatternly one-night wife here to demand her rights. No harm?

Sir Williams arrival shook Mistress Ballaster out of her daze and her cunning returned.

‘No, of course not. Please be at ease on that, Sir Miles.’ Enough sweetness to choke a man. God forgive her! Then the dissembling strumpet inclined her head graciously at him as if they were meeting at Westminster or Eltham. Her glance rose to his, but instead of a challenge or pathetic beseeching, the wench’s eyes were guileless. The Devil take her, what a player! No wonder she had already deceived Sir William into employing her. Miles was so speechless that it was she who nodded to the archer to assist her.

‘Let’s be having you, my lord.’ The man lifted the unprotesting child from her arms and passed him up onto Knyvett’s saddle where the whelp lolled back against Sir William, sucking his thumb scornfully at Miles.

‘May I leave you to bring Lady Haute, Rushden? Rushden?’

‘My pleasure, Sir William,’ he answered with feeling, and turned a predatory face towards his wife.