Текст книги "The Stone Rose"

Автор книги: Carol Townend

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‘We?’ Brother Dominig gripped his spade.

Another twig cracked, the kite mewled overhead, and the young man’s hidden companion emerged cautiously from the thicket. ‘There’s only me and the babe,’ a girl said. She wore a simple blue gown and no veil.

Brother Dominig lowered his spade, disarmed and dumbfounded. When Brother Marzin had first joined them, he had started on a mural which depicted the Virgin Mary. The wary brown eyes of the girl hovering on the edge of the fish pond mirrored Marzin’s Virgin with uncanny exactness. ‘The flight from Egypt,’ he murmured, coming forwards to gaze at the baby in the young woman’s arms. He had taken the baby’s crying to be a kite, he realised, while she must have been trying to muffle the sound.

‘Yours?’ he asked, wondering who was after this youthful pair and what they had done. The prior loved saying that evil came in many guises, but surely so handsome a couple could not have done evil. Were they married? They must be, he decided, for the young soldier’s eyes were fiercely protective when they lighted on the girl.

‘The babe is my brother,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘Help us. Please, Brother. They’ll kill him if they catch us!’

This was resembling the flight from Egypt more with every passing moment. Brother Dominig was intrigued, and his soft heart was moved. ‘Who are you running from?’

The young man, Ned, drew closer, an angry spark kindling in his eyes. ‘We don’t have time to explain. Do we look like a party of brigands?’

Brother Dominig gazed pointedly at Ned’s bloody sword, at his beaten features, and ripped clothing. He spread his hands. ‘You tell me.’

‘We’ve done no wrong!’ The girl thrust the infant under the monk’s nose. ‘Help us, or you condemn Philippe to death. If you doubt us, you must see that he can have done no wrong.’

They seemed to care more about the children than themselves. They could not be evil. Uncertain as to the best course, Brother Dominig temporised. ‘Our chapel is not secure from attack.’

The girl lost colour and clutched the babe to her breast. ‘Ned, there must be somewhere else,’ she said. ‘There has to be.’

The young man ran a hand round the back of his neck. His hand had been bleeding, and scabs were forming on his knuckles. ‘I don’t know. If the brothers won’t help us, we’ll have to keep running.’

‘Running!’ she repeated helplessly, as though she had come up against a lofty stone wall.

Dominig had marked this exchange with some interest. ‘I will help you,’ he decided, ‘if you tell me about your plight. The prior will not take it kindly if I bring trouble to our order.’

The young man named Ned drew his brows together. ‘But, Brother, you say your church is not secure. If we cannot claim sanctuary, how can you help us?’

Brother Dominig smiled. ‘I know nothing about you. You might be murderers. I’m taking a risk in trusting to your honesty. Will you not trust me?’

‘You’ve somewhere we may hide, and rest?’ the girl asked with heart-rending eagerness.

‘Aye.’

The couple exchanged glances. ‘Well, mistress?’ The young man looked at the girl. ‘It’s for you to decide.’

Ned’s mode of address revealed that the pair were not wed, and Dominig found himself wondering as to the propriety of what he had in mind. But a moment’s reflection brought him to the conclusion that since the infant’s life was at stake, the couple’s need outweighed any petty moral considerations. He prayed Prior Hubert would see eye to eye with him on this.

Large brown eyes surveyed Brother Dominig from the top of his unshaven crown to his bare toes. The baby wailed fretfully, and a tired smile flickered across the young woman’s lips. She looked spent. ‘Aye,’ she said, rocking her brother, ‘we had best go with this good monk, Ned. We can explain on the way. I swear I can run no more.’

***

The anchorite’s cell was built into the north wall of the monastery chapel, in order to test more severely the vocation of its occupants. As a consequence, it was dank and cold with rising damp. An odour of death clung to the porous stones, and Gwenn faltered as she forced herself through the low break in the wall. ‘It smells in here, Ned. I don’t like it. Is there nowhere else, Brother?’

Ned turned enquiringly to Brother Dominig. The novice was holding a bucket of mortar he’d snatched from a fellow monk who had been doing some pointing around the piscina. There had not been time to consult Prior Hubert, but he had dispatched Brother Marzin to stand as look-out.

‘This cell is the safest place there is,’ the novice said. ‘You can thank St Félix it’s empty. No one has been called to fill it since Brother Biel died.’

‘When did he die? Yesterday?’ Gwenn shuddered. ‘I swear I can smell him.’

Brother Dominig smiled. ‘Nay, sister. Your imagination plays games with you. Brother Biel died last Christmas, and no one has been called to fill his place. The hermit’s cell has been empty since then.’

Swallowing, Gwenn gripped her baby brother and ducked into the cell. Ned pushed Katarin after her and followed himself.

‘It’s cramped, I know,’ Brother Dominig thrust his head through the opening to apologise. ‘It was only designed for one person. Here,’ he tossed a bundle onto the earthen floor, ‘I sent for some blankets for you. And here’s bread and cheese, and some milk for the baby.’

As Gwenn’s eyes adjusted to the poor light, she saw a stone ledge running along the back of the cell. She set her brother down and lifted the blankets from the floor before the damp got to them. Katarin pressed close to her skirts, and she dropped a comforting arm about the child’s shoulders. ‘We’ll need water too,’ she put in, ‘to drink, and to cleanse Ned’s hurts.’

The novice lowered his head in assent. ‘Don’t worry, mistress, I can give you food and water in the usual manner via the other opening. This is to tide you over.’

‘Other opening?’

‘Even anchorites do drink and eat, sister.’ Dominig was mildly shocked at her ignorance. ‘There’s a slit in the north wall which opens onto the yard. It’s shuttered from the outside – that’s why you can’t see it. Brother Biel took all his food and drink through it.’ Dominig smiled at Gwenn. Both she and the little girl were white as chalk, poor things. And no wonder. Brother Dominig might like to be solitary, but he would hate being bricked up in that unnatural hole, where sunlight never ventured. ‘Never fear, sister,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘I’ll not leave you sealed up any longer than I have to.’

A shout drew the novice’s kindly eyes to the church door. ‘That’s Marzin,’ he said and snatched his head out of the cell. ‘He must have sighted someone.’

Stone scraped on stone. Brother Dominig grunted as he shifted the first granite block into place. Dipping a trowel into the bucket, he slapped the contents onto the stone and smoothed it down. He had three courses to complete, and though he was no mason, he must do it more swiftly than a master. He hauled another stone into position.

‘That’s mortar, isn’t it?’ Ned asked, blue eyes sharp as steel. ‘Won’t mortar be difficult to break down when they’ve gone?’

With deft strokes, Brother Dominig smoothed the mixture onto the block, and hoisted another stone. That was the first course done; with another two to go, the entrance was shrinking fast. ‘I only wall anchorites with mortar,’ Brother Dominig said, discovering that urgency had not blunted his sense of humour. ‘With women and babes, I use mud.’

‘Mud?’

Through the diminishing gap, Ned’s countenance was not amused. He was no dissembler, this honest young man. ‘My apologies.’ Brother Dominig grunted, heaving on another block. ‘It is mortar. If I piled the stones on dry, they would look out of place, and your pursuers might be tempted to rip them down to investigate. It’s got to look convincing. On my soul, it will be easy to get you out when all is clear.’

Another trowel-load of mortar slapped on stone. Another course completed.

Ned backed into the cell and trod on Gwenn’s foot. ‘Sorry, mistress.’ Her teeth were chattering.

‘I don’t like confined spaces,’ she said.

‘Neither do I.’ Ned took Gwenn’s arm and drew her towards the ledge. Clinging to her sister like ivy, Katarin came too. ‘As we have a long wait, I think we should sit down, don’t you?’

***

It was soot-black in the anchorite’s cell, save for a couple of feeble splashes of illumination where two small apertures admitted a grey light from the interior of the church. The greater of the apertures, a quatrefoil carved out of the wall, threw the distorted shape of a Greek cross onto the muddy floor. The cross on the ground measured less than a foot, but the quatrefoil itself was smaller, large enough for the anchorite to receive Our Lord’s body through it when Mass was being celebrated but with not an inch to spare. The quatrefoil had been carved at an angle to prevent the hermit from taking a too-worldly interest in the goings-on in the chapel. The other, dimmer, source of light was the squint. As its name implied, this reed-like crack was positioned so as to allow the anchorite to squint through it, and get a glimpse of the High Altar. No other portion of the church was visible, but despite this Ned had been standing with his eyes glued to it for most of the half hour they had been incarcerated in the cell.

‘Can you see anyone, Ned?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘What can be happening? It’s some time since the alarm was raised. Perhaps it’s another visitor to the monastery. Perhaps it’s not – what was the name?’

‘Malait.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t Malait. It could be anyone. A pilgrim?’

Withdrawing from the squint, Ned groped for the stone bench and wedged himself next to Gwenn. Katarin had her head buried in her sister’s lap, and Gwenn was caressing her. ‘I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it being anyone else,’ he said, candidly. ‘This monastery is too small and too out of the way to attract pilgrims. Besides, it has no relics.’

‘Aye, but until last Christmas they had a hermit,’ Gwenn pointed out, clutching at the faintest hope. ‘You know how people will bring their troubles to holy men.’ She shivered, hugging Katarin. ‘Ned, I’m cold.’

‘So am I.’ Ned draped an arm round Gwenn’s shoulders and reached for a blanket. She did not draw back. ‘Better?’

‘A little.’ She leant against him, and when she spoke again, her tone had changed, become hesitant. ‘Ned? Do...do you think my father was killed outright?’

‘Aye. That thrust would have killed anyone,’ Ned said, firmly.

‘I...I would not want him to die a lingering death.’

Ned’s hold on Gwenn tightened. ‘It would have been a swift end.’ He slanted his body towards hers. ‘Mistress Gwenn–’

‘I don’t want your pity, Ned,’ she said, stiffening her spine. ‘It would weaken me, and I have to be strong, for my sister and my brother’s sake.’

‘Your father’s last thoughts were of you, mistress,’ he said quietly. ‘He bade me look after you. He said to take you and the children north. He said that you would know where to go. Do you know what he meant, mistress?’ He heard her swallow.

‘Aye.’ Ned could hear from her voice that she was struggling to hold back the tears. ‘How like P...Papa, to think of us, when he was f..fighting for his life.’

‘He was a good man,’ Ned said, and then regretted it for he heard a stifled sob.

‘A g...good man. Aye. A dead man.’

Ned had no words with which to comfort her, though he hurt with wanting to help her.

‘Ned?’

‘Mistress Gwenn?’

‘Did you see Raymond? I saw him lying in the rushes. He was only knocked out, wasn’t he? Do you think he will have managed to escape?’

Ned chewed his bottom lip. He had indeed seen Master Raymond, lying on the floor, disarmed, and with the blood drained from his head. He’d been as pale as the limestone effigy of St Agatha in the church back home.

‘Ned?’

‘Mistress...’ Ned gulped.

‘You think Raymond’s dead.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Aye.’

She sagged against him. ‘The children are all I have left,’ she said, her voice catching in her throat. Katarin lifted her head. ‘What is it, my love?’

The little girl reached for the bundle which Gwenn had insisted on bringing and without a word, dropped it onto her sister’s lap.

Gwenn gazed at the child, uncomprehending. ‘There’s no one in the chapel. You can whisper, Katarin. What are you trying to tell me?’

‘Perhaps she’s reminding you that you have your grandmother’s statue as well as her and Philippe,’ Ned suggested.

‘Next to the children, Grandmama’s icon is as nothing,’ Gwenn said. Her voice warmed. ‘But you are right to remind me of it, Katarin. I am glad to have the Stone Rose. It will remind us of home when we are on our travels.’

Katarin made no response.

‘Why is she so quiet, Ned?’

Ned shrugged before he remembered the poor light shrouded him. ‘No doubt she loathes it in here. Count it a blessing she’s silent. Rather that than she fill the cell with crying.’

‘Aye. And thank God Philippe has gone to sleep. He screeched his head off while we ran through the woods, poor lamb. He’s worn himself out.’ Close to tears, Gwenn set the Stone Rose to one side. It was too soon to be reminded of the past, better by far to concentrate on the future. She was pleased she had her grandmother’s statue but, practically, she was more glad of its hidden treasure. She would tell Ned about that later. In all likelihood they would be forced to sell the gem if they were going to survive on the long and hazardous road north. If it bought them their lives and liberty, it would have been sold in a good cause. Izabel would approve of her selling it under these desperate circumstances. ‘Ned, if we ever get out of here, will you... will you stay with us?’

‘I am at your command, mistress,’ Ned said simply.

‘Because my father ordered it, and like him, you are a man of honour? I told you, Ned, I don’t want your pity.’

‘I would never desert you, mistress. It’s very simple, I love you.’

Touched by the simplicity of Ned’s declaration, Gwenn put her hand on his knee. ‘You are a good man, too. What would I do without you?’

‘Mistress–’

‘Hush!’ Gwenn caught his hand. ‘Someone’s entered the chapel!’

Scrambling to his feet, Ned put an eye to the squint. ‘It’s Malait,’ he hissed. ‘I’d know that tone anywhere.’

‘Not a word, Katarin,’ Gwenn mouthed in her sister’s ear. ‘Understand?’

Veiled by half-light, Katarin nodded.

The gentle Prior Hubert, having received a garbled and to his mind inadequate briefing from one of his novices, gripped his walking staff and roused himself to stand up to Captain Malait. On sight, he pigeon-holed the Viking as one of the damned – an excommunicate mercenary. He had been reluctant to allow such a heathen to defile the saint’s chapel, but Malait’s sword won the argument. The prior was not prepared to die to defend that particular tenet of the faith; Saint Félix would understand and forgive him. The wretch had entered, not even bothering to remove his helmet.

Otto Malait saw a plain, pathetic barn of a chapel. But it was the only solid building in the monastery; and save for a couple of wall paintings which put the rest in the shade, it was completely unadorned. These monks did not have so much as a brass crucifix, theirs was of varnished beech. One scornful glance told Otto that the chapel could not house his quarry.

‘What’s behind the altar stone?’ he demanded. He was beginning to regret having listened to that local trooper. He should have known better than to heed the advice of a man with an eye like that. Trooper Bernard probably couldn’t see past his own nose. Otto pictured Fletcher and the concubine’s daughter racing deep into the forest while he rattled about in this place. His feet itched to continue the chase.

‘Why nothing, Captain,’ Prior Hubert replied, blandly. The prior was of a retiring nature, but he could, if pressed, set his shyness aside. He misliked the burly, martial looks of the Norseman, who was of a breed the prior despised. He was a just man, and he did not want to betray the people who had claimed sanctuary in their hermit’s cell before he had had a chance to judge the merits of the case for himself. He looked into the mercenary’s light eyes; the pupils were mere pinpricks. This blond Goliath was full of hate. St Félix would approve of a mild deception in a good cause.

‘You have no hidden entrance? No vaults?’ Otto swung on his heels, impatient with the churchman’s unctuous manner.

The prior’s grey, tonsured head shook. ‘This is no cathedral, my son.’

‘No silver plate tidied away?’ In the matted, sweaty nest of a beard, greedy red lips curved.

‘As you have doubtless observed, my son, our community prides itself on the simplicity of its rule. But I suggest you look for yourself, and then you will have no doubts.’ Prior Hubert sucked in a breath, wondering whether it might be in the refugees’ best interests to make mention of the anchorite’s cell. If he omitted to do so, then the Norseman’s trooper, who clearly knew the area, would be bound to say something. The prior came to the conclusion that if he drew the Viking’s attention to the cell, he would dismiss the information on the grounds that anything freely given was worthless. ‘The only item worthy of interest in our chapel is the anchorite’s cell,’ he said.

‘Anchorite’s cell? Where?’

Prior Hubert pointed with the staff he used as a walking stick. It was curved at the top so it resembled a bishop’s crozier, and the prior fooled no one with his assertion that he needed the staff to hobble about, for he was a slender, sprightly man with a spring in his step.

Following the direction of the prior’s staff, Otto found himself scowling at the only plain, undecorated wall in the building. He could see why the other walls had been whitewashed, ready for painting, for the mortar was appallingly botched. ‘All I can see is an ordinary wall you’ve neglected to limewash. Where’s the door?’

‘My son,’ the prior was astonished that even a faithless mercenary should be so ignorant. ‘An anchorite abjures everything this world offers. He makes an oath never to leave the cell while he has breath in his body. There is no door.’

‘No door?’ Otto was fascinated, despite himself. ‘I had heard of anchorites, but I never thought a living man would prison himself freely.’

‘Not all anchorites attain the same levels of self-denial,’ Prior Hubert informed him. ‘Our Brother Biel, who went to God last Christmas, was renowned for his asceticism.’

‘Careful, Father,’ Otto grinned, ‘lest the Tempter sows pride in your heart.’

The prior flushed.

‘It’s a tomb for the living.’ Otto was revolted.

‘A pathway to Heaven, my son.’

‘Don’t pontificate. Is anyone in it now?’

‘Aye. A young man has taken Brother Biel’s place,’ Prior Hubert said, trusting that God would forgive him for misleading the mercenary. He was not lying, there was a young man in there...

Otto stalked to the quatrefoil. ‘Can’t see a damn thing through this. You’ve been penny-pinching with your mason. The mortar’s done very ill, and he’s chiselled this askew.’

Prior Hubert ran a thin finger over the curve of his crook. ‘You’re not meant to see in,’ he explained pleasantly, ‘if you could, it follows the hermit would be able to see out. He might be distracted by the world he has forsworn. He might be tempted–’

‘To break out?’ Shifting to the squint, Otto tried to peer through it, but he could see only shadows. ‘I can hear breathing.’

‘It’s God’s will that the young man lives. I pray he lives longer than Brother Biel.’ Prior Hubert lifted his hand and drew a blessing in the air.

‘Christ on the Cross, you’re insane!’ Otto strained his eyes at the squint. ‘It’s black as sin in there. We laymen treat prisoners better than this!’ He wrenched his head back and strode for the door.

‘Won’t you stay and pray with me, my son?’

Otto paused, his ox-like frame filling the doorway. He turned his face to the sun and his shadow spread like a dark stain over the church floor. ‘Not I.’

‘My son, you have a soul. It needs care.’

‘You’re the man of prayer, Father. Say one for me. I prefer action.’ Otto saluted indifferently, and was gone.

In the cell, Ned unclenched his fingers from his sword hilt. He had been holding it so hard he had driven the blood from his fingers. ‘Not that there would have been room for me to wield it in this oubliette of a place,’ he muttered.

‘Ned, has he gone?’

‘He’s gone.’

Gwenn sighed. ‘We’ll have to wait before they release us. The brothers will want to make sure he’s not coming back.’

‘Aye.’

Time dragged in the dismal cell until it seemed they had been immured for hours. In reality, less than an hour later the shutter on the north wall rattled, and a pale smudge of light appeared. It dimmed almost at once as one of the brethren pressed a fleshy, rotund face to the opening. ‘Here. Dominig mentioned you needed water,’ the monk said, withdrawing to thrust a goatskin flask through the aperture. ‘And here’s linen for your hurts, and for the infant.’

Ned knelt on the stone ledge to take them. ‘My thanks.’ He stared at the soft contours of the countenance framed by the wall. There was something familiar about the monk’s eyes. They were light brown and brimming with dreams, and he was sure he had seen them before. ‘What’s your name, Brother?’

‘I’m known as Brother Marzin, but I’ve yet to take my vows.’

‘Marzin,’ Ned murmured. ‘Doesn’t fit.’

‘Eh?’

‘Nothing. I must be mistaken. When will you release us?’

The monk blinked uncertainly while his eyes accustomed themselves to the inky darkness of their prison. ‘The prior says–’ Brother Marzin broke off and turned aside to speak to someone who must have come up to stand beside him in the chapel yard. After a few moments’ murmured consultation, the monk’s round cheeks came back into view. ‘Prior Hubert is here.’

The prior’s clear-cut features replaced the blurred roundness of Brother Marzin’s. ‘Good day, young man.’

‘Good day, Brother.’

‘Father,’ the prior corrected him, thinning austere lips. ‘I am prior here.’ This bloody young man looked scarcely more personable than the knave who had just left. Prior Hubert did not like soldiers of any class. If monks were the body of Christ, mercenaries must be Satan’s. And because of these men of violence, the routine of St Félix’s was in disarray. Prime had been delayed.

‘My apologies, Father,’ Ned said, politely.

The prior’s taut lips eased. This one appeared to have some concept of courtesy. ‘I am sorry that you have been housed so ill, but Brother Dominig stressed the urgency of your plight, and his idea, though unorthodox, has proved sound. Your pursuers have gone, and as far as I can ascertain, they have no idea of your presence here.’

‘Thank God,’ Ned said, with feeling.

‘Do you think they’ll come back?’ Prior Hubert asked.

‘Christ’s wounds, I hope not.’

The prior rapped on the shutter with his staff. ‘I’ll not stand for blaspheming in God’s house.’

‘Sorry, Father.’

‘Would you mind telling me your circumstances? Brother Dominig’s account was inadequate.’

Gwenn moved into the weak slant of light. ‘We’re from Kermaria, Father Hubert,’ she said. There was no reason to be secretive with the man who had married her parents.

‘Kermaria?’ The lines on the lean face sharpened. ‘Who are you? What happened there?’

‘I am Gwenn Herevi, Sir Jean’s...natural daughter. Father, we were attacked. My father has been butchered by his enemies, and we are fleeing them. I can’t tell you how grateful we are that you took us in. They would have murdered my baby brother.’

Prior Hubert frowned. ‘Brother? I was under the impression that the infant was your son.’

‘No, Father. He’s my brother.’

‘Is this young man your husband?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Bear with me, my child, while I get this clear in my mind. You say your father is Sir Jean St Clair?’

‘Was. My father has been murdered,’ Gwenn said, and bit her lip to stop it trembling.

The prior’s voice gentled. ‘Forgive me for not realising sooner, mistress, but I could not make out your features in the murk. Accept my sympathies for your loss.’

‘Th..thank you, Father.’

‘If this young man is not your husband, who is he?’

‘Ned...Ned is...was... Papa’s captain.’

A pause. ‘It won’t do,’ Prior Hubert murmured. Truly God was testing this poor girl more than he tested most. ‘It won’t do at all.’

‘Father?’

The prior met her gaze. ‘Thinking you husband and wife, I deemed it safer for you to remain in the cell awhile.’

Katarin whimpered.

‘No, Father. My sister is frightened.’

‘Your father’s enemies might return to Kermaria via the monastery,’ the prior pointed out, ‘and you cannot outrun them.’

‘They might,’ Ned agreed. ‘It’s most likely they’ll have hidden their horses nearby, and this is the clearest track.’

‘I want Katarin out of here, Ned. It’s not healthy, and the poor child hasn’t said a word since we left Kermaria.’

Prior Hubert’s crook rapped on the shutter. He was determined to find out what God’s will was for these two, but the veil seemed unusually thick today. St Clair’s Captain was obviously a foreigner. Could he be trusted? ‘Young man? Do you have a...ah...what is the term? A strategy?’

‘Aye, Father. Before Sir Jean died, he instructed me to escort Gwenn and the children to kinsfolk in the north.’

‘And the name of these kinsfolk?’

Helplessly, Ned looked to Gwenn.

‘Wymark, Father,’ Gwenn said. ‘They have a manor at Ploumanach.’

‘Mmm.’ The prior glanced at the length of the shadows to assess the hour. By rights he should have finished reciting the morning office, but the plight of Jean’s St Clair’s offspring was no light matter. Prime would have to wait. He would do a penance for this later. The two faces in the cell were white like twin moons. Could he allow Jean St Clair’s offspring to put their lives in the hands of this young man? Were his intentions good or bad? ‘The name Wymark rings a faint bell,’ he said. ‘Tell me, Mistress Gwenn, how well do you know your father’s captain?’

‘Very well, Prior Hubert. But what–?’

The prior lifted a silencing hand to the opening. ‘Calm, daughter. I seek to help you. Do you have faith in your father’s captain? Is he an honourable man?’ The prior observed how intently the captain awaited Gwenn Herevi’s verdict. He had open blue eyes and they were filled with the most blatant longing, and a pinch of fear. Fear of what? Rejection?

‘Trust Ned?’ Gwenn sounded indignant. ‘Of course I do! Ned has more honour and nobility in his little finger than some great lords have in their entire bodies.’

Pleased, Prior Hubert inclined his tonsured head. He was beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and tentatively groped towards it. ‘You are confident that...er...Ned has your best interests at heart, my daughter?’

‘I am.’

‘Do you like him?’ Prior Hubert was a realist. Bastard as Gwenn Herevi was, her chance of finding happiness had been low while her father lived. And now, with Jean St Clair killed, she would have little to look forward to. A flush had washed over the captain’s cheeks. He was gnawing his lower lip, and his eyes were pinned on Gwenn with an adoration Prior Hubert deemed best reserved for one’s patron saint. On second thoughts, perhaps not. Ned’s look of longing was more carnal than chaste. The prior’s feeling was that the lad loved the girl and would see them all safely to their relatives.

God in his wisdom had directed the young couple’s feet to St Félix-in-the-Wood. If the prior saw them married, Gwenn Herevi would bear a new name. He could help her wipe out her parents’ sins, and start afresh. But though the prior was eager for the matter to be neatly resolved, he would not marry them if Gwenn Herevi had no liking for the lad. Patiently he waited for her answer. Her dark brows, he saw, had lowered. She had pride, considering she was a bastard, and she resented being manipulated.

‘Like Ned, Father?’ Her chin tightened. She might be a pretty and dainty maid, but Prior Hubert could see she could be trouble if she put her mind to it. She threw a smile at Ned, whose cheeks were as red as a poppy. ‘I like him very much, but when will you let us out of this dismal hole, Father?’

‘I apologise for the poor quality of the accommodation,’ Prior Hubert responded dryly, ‘but I fear it would be incautious to release you sooner than dawn tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow? No, Father! We can’t spend a night in here! Have pity on my sister. And what about Philippe?’

‘I’ll release you now, on one condition.’

‘Anything,’ Gwenn said.

Prior Hubert drew in a breath. ‘I’ll release you if you’ll marry this young man.’

She gaped. ‘M...marry Ned?’

‘Sir Jean would not rest in peace, if I permitted you to chase about the Duchy with–’

‘But Ned told you, Papa commanded him to take us north!’

‘I remember. And that merely strengthens my resolve to have you married. He would not have entrusted his children to this young man, if he did not think him worth–’

‘But, Father,’ honesty compelled Ned to butt in at this point, ‘Sir Jean did trust me, but he would not countenance an alliance.’

Gwenn was lost in a tangle of emotions too entwined for Solomon to unravel, but she did know she felt strong affection for Ned. Perhaps she did love him. At any rate, she did not want to lose him as she had lost everyone else in her life. After all that had happened that morning, she could barely think, but if she married Ned, she would always have a friend. And she must get out of this cell...

She thrust Ned aside. ‘I agree with you, Prior Hubert. I’ll marry Ned, if he’ll have me.’

‘But, mistress,’ Ned objected, ‘remember how Sir Jean–’

‘Not another word, Ned. I’m happy to marry you.’

‘B...but–’

‘I’m going to my devotions, my children.’ The prior could see that Ned’s objections might take some time to overrule. ‘And while I am gone, consider my proposal.’

‘Proposal!’ Ned blurted. ‘It’s rank bribery! You know Mistress Gwenn wants her sister out of here.’

Prior Hubert’s eyes were cool. ‘Bribery? No, my son. Prudence? Perhaps. Consider how Mistress Gwenn might be treated by relatives less tolerant, and...er...partial than her father.’

‘I don’t need time to consider,’ Gwenn said, with a sidelong glance at the silent Katarin. ‘I’ll marry Ned this instant. Only, please, get us out of this pit.’