Текст книги "The Stone Rose"

Автор книги: Carol Townend

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

Alan was at his Duke’s side. She saw him lift the Duke’s helm from his squire and hand it to him. She saw the Duke smile, address Alan, and then Alan stood aside while the Duke prepared to gallop at the King of France. A shield bearing the arms of Brittany was set up at his end of the lists. Everyone fell quiet, waiting for the trumpets to blare.

A huge white bird chose that moment to pass overhead and the flapping of the snowy wings came loudly through the expectant hush. The bird’s bill was wicked as a knife, its tail a pointed diamond. Oblivious of its audience, the bird beat upwards through a cloudless sky and circled in the heights. As the crowd turned their attention back to the princes in the arena, the bird began to lose height.

The princes’ charge was more of a show than the previous ones. A bond of friendship tied Brittany and France, and it was a mark of their trust for one another that they consented to take to the field. Not a drop of royal blood was to be shed, and to this end they must hold a spear, not a lance, and aim for their opponent’s shield on the fence.

The huge white bird dropped out of the sky and landed on the central fence, on Brittany’s shield. On the Duchess’s dais, a waiting-woman gasped. ‘It’s a raven, my lady! On your lord’s shield! Christ save him!’ Ravens were associated with death.

The Duchess looked on, impassively. ‘It’s a white raven,’ she said, sedately, ‘only black ones are evil.’

The trumpets sounded. Spurs flashed. Hoofs ripped through the sand.

The Duchess of Brittany’s waiting-woman gulped. ‘If you say so, my lady.’

‘I do.’ With inflexible calm, the Duchess shifted her eyes to where her husband was thundering full tilt across the lists.

The warhorses were closing on each other. It would have been all too easy for one of the princes to break their word and aim for the heart, but as they had arranged, they turned their spears aside at the last moment and hurled them into the wooden shields marked with their arms. Brittany’s spear hung, quivering in France’s colours. The crowd shrieked their appreciation. France’s spear thudded into the sand, the great white raven impaled on its point. Blood and feathers were everywhere. A wing flapped, once. There was a second’s silence before the crowd went wild. Gwenn felt sick.

The trumpets let out a clarion blast and one of the King’s heralds ran onto the field with the baton. The King threw it down. The gates opened at either end of the field and, pennons flying, the army of knights roared onto the sand.

The mêlée had begun.

Swirls of dust and sand lifted into the hot air, it was like looking into a sandstorm. There were so many twisting, fighting men, so many screaming, biting horses, that it was impossible to tell one combatant from another. Slowly the knights spread over the field. Some were down, and as the field began to clear, Gwenn was able to distinguish individuals.

There was Sir Raoul, she knew his colours now. Not content with losing one horse to his opponent at the jousting earlier, he was trying his arm in the mêlée. Gwenn did not think that his luck had changed, for his elaborate green and white caparison had been slashed to tatters and hung raggedly from his steed’s back. Sir Raoul kicked his mount into the press, and Gwenn lost sight of him. The King of France had judiciously left the field, no doubt holding the view that an army’s commander should never be put at risk. A dark flash caught Gwenn’s eyes. She saw the ermine, and a warhorse’s wide flaring nostrils, and an ebony tail streaming like a banner. Duke Geoffrey was in the thick of it – not for him the strategic withdrawal. She watched as he unhorsed a man and crimson blood mingled with the sand. The ducal sword waved in triumph and, with either supreme arrogance or supreme folly, Duke Geoffrey lifted his helmet in the air and grinned at his Duchess seated primly on her dais. The Duchess inclined her head. The Duke jammed his helm back on, dug his spurs in his mount’s flanks, and was off again.

Ned had gone from his place on the sidelines, but Gwenn picked out Alan. He was stationed by the palisade where the Duke’s arms were laid out. As the two cousins were not of the knightly class they were forbidden to venture onto the field of combat. Alan was watching intently, dark brows frowning with concentration, and knowing that he had to stay on the boundary, Gwenn was surprised when she saw him take a step forward as though he would enter the fray. Where was Ned?

Suddenly, gripped by a hideous premonition, Gwenn forgot about the heat. She forgot about the cramp in her thigh and stood up. Alan’s face was paler than the field of the Duke’s shield. He was tugging his sword out. He was shouting. He ran between two horsemen fighting it out centre field and was swallowed up by thrashing limbs. Where was Ned?

‘Sit down, Mistress Fletcher!’ Lady Juliana hissed. ‘You mar the view.’

But Gwenn couldn’t sit down. She stood, with her heart in her mouth, staring at the spot where Alan had been. ‘No, no,’ she muttered, in a daze. ‘Something...something dreadful is happening.’

‘Mistress Fletcher,’ the Lady Juliana spoke sharply, ‘if you’re ailing, you may withdraw.’

‘I’m not ailing. It’s...’ Gwenn gasped. Alan was in the middle of the action. He had sheathed his sword and was crouching, dragging the body of a man by the belt. The man’s flaxen hair was uncovered, and mired with sand and dust. There was blood on his chest. As Alan neared the northern gate, the gate nearest Gwenn, he bellowed. A marshal raced to assist him.

It was no knight that Alan was succouring.

Impossibly, it was Ned.

Lady Juliana had seen what was happening. She rose gracefully. ‘Come, Mistress Fletcher,’ she said, with the unruffled assurance of a woman who had tended men’s hurts on such occasions a thousand times before. When Gwenn made no move, she gently took her arm. ‘We’ll go to Sir Raoul’s pavilion and see what needs to be done.’

***

Alan had barely had time to lay Ned down on a pallet when Duchess Constance’s messenger arrived, chest heaving, at Sir Raoul’s pavilion. ‘Lady Juliana!’ the messenger panted, shoving his head unceremoniously through the tent flap. ‘The Duchess is calling for you, there’s been another accident!’

‘Another?’ Lady Juliana lifted her eyes from the bloody mess that had been Ned Fletcher’s chest and avoided looking at Gwenn.

‘My lady, you’re to come at once!’

Lady Juliana rocked back on her heels, secretly relieved at her timely reprieve. As God was her witness, she didn’t mind helping when a man had a chance. But Ned Fletcher was a doomed man and she did not want to be the one to tell his young, pregnant wife. ‘One moment, my man.’ She stared at Gwenn’s jawline. ‘Can you cope, my dear?’

‘I...I think so.’ Trembling fingers reached for Ned Fletcher’s slashed gambeson. ‘But there’s not much we can do, is there?’

Lady Juliana squirmed, unable to avoid such a direct question. ‘My dear, I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time. It’s tragic, such an unlucky blow. Both lungs are affected.’

‘Both?’ This from Alan.

‘Aye. With lungs, if one only is damaged, it is not necessarily a mortal blow. But two... It’s tragic. And when the bubbles of blood come to the mouth, you know the end is near.’ Lady Juliana pressed a linen cloth to Ned’s mouth, and displayed the stained cloth to the injured man’s wife and cousin.

Gwenn fixed her with agonised dark eyes. ‘You’re saying he’s going? That it’s only a matter of time?’

‘Yes.’

‘But there must be something we can do! We’ll try anything, won’t we, Alan?’

‘Anything. My lady, are you certain we can do nothing?’ Iron fingers sunk into Lady Juliana’s arm.

‘I’m sorry, Captain. He’s drowning–’

His wife stirred. ‘Ned’s drowning in his own blood. Oh, sweet Jesus. Ned. Ned.’

Gwenn felt Ned’s pain as if it were her own. If only there was something she could do to help him. She would sell her soul if it kept Ned alive. That morning Ned had been so happy, so excited. Ned was young. Ned was strong. He should not be dying. How could God destroy someone as kind and selfless as Ned? Where was the divine purpose in his death? And why had it been Ned who had stopped that lance? It might just as easily have been someone else. Why Ned? Why?

The ducal messenger was wringing his hands. ‘My lady, you must come,’ he said. ‘The Duchess has need of you.’

‘Yes, you’re needed elsewhere,’ Gwenn said, dully. ‘Thank you, Lady Juliana. We’ll manage.’

‘Good girl,’ Lady Juliana approved, briskly. She shook herself free of Alan’s grip, faltering only when she saw the impotent rage in his eyes. ‘I...I’ll see a priest is sent, so he doesn’t die unshriven.’ Lady Juliana picked up her skirts and fled.

She kept her word, and soon one of Duke Geoffrey’s chaplains arrived at Sir Raoul’s pavilion. He took one look at Ned and efficiently administered the last rites. This done, he hovered near the entrance, unwilling to leave until Sir Raoul’s squire had gone to God.

The pain in Ned’s chest had expanded and taken over the whole of his body. He couldn’t move. He could barely see for the black shapes which floated like dark wraiths across his sight. But he could hear. He could hear a sawing noise. It was very loud. He could also hear voices – Gwenn and Alan and someone else.

Ned wanted to speak to his wife. The sawing noise faded. He managed a pathetic gasp. ‘Gwenn?’ Was that him? He tried again. ‘Gwenn?’ When he had done, he was desperate for air, and as he laboured to drag in a breath the sawing noise recommenced, and he made the chilling discovery that the sawing noise wasn’t sawing at all – it was his lungs fighting for air.

‘Hush, Ned.’ Gwenn’s voice had a break in it, as though she were forcing back tears. ‘Try to rest. Try to regain your strength.’

Something light brushed across Ned’s brow. Her hand? A cloth? His senses were disordered and it was difficult to make the distinction. He couldn’t even tell whether he was lying on a palliasse or the bare earth.

‘Gwenn?’ He coughed, and pain shrieked along every nerve. Immediately that soft something feathered across his lips. He heard a sob, a smothered gasp, and dimly made out what she said.

‘Look, Alan, more blood. Ned, don’t leave me.’ Her voice dropped. ‘You’re all I’ve got. Without you...’

Ned tried to sit up, but his limbs were sleeping. He tried to make his lips give Gwenn the reassurance that she was asking for, but they would not work either. He gave up the struggle, resolving to rest as she had suggested, for then he would be able to tell her. In a moment he would have conserved the strength to remind her that he would never leave her. Never. Had he not sworn it?

For a time, the only sound in the tent was the harsh rasping of his breathing.

‘I don’t understand it,’ the priest murmured in an undertone to Alan, whom he recognised. ‘By rights your countryman should be dead already. He’s suffering greatly. If only we could ease his passage.’

Numb with grief, Alan watched Gwenn kneeling by his cousin’s bed, grasping those solid, waxen hands. He knew what was holding Ned from the brink of death. Gwenn was, with the tears in her eyes, and the catch in her voice, and the loving touch of her hand. It was Gwenn who was making Ned cling to life, and in so doing she was prolonging his agony, for Ned would never leave this earth while she was at his side, pleading for him to stay. Ned’s face had been blue when they had brought him here. Now it was like a death-mask, and yet he lived. It was cruel that his last moments should be tortured ones. Ned had never in all his young life tormented anyone. Alan thought he knew how he could ease his cousin’s passage to death. Yet he hesitated. ‘You swear there’s no hope?’ he whispered.

‘None. God is waiting for him.’

Alan nodded. He walked to the bed and held out his hand. ‘Gwenn? Come with me.’

Gwenn looked at him from a world of sorrow, eyelids swollen and red.

A cold stone lay in Alan’s belly. ‘Come.’ He bent, and taking her hand from Ned’s, enfolded it in his own. Ruthlessly ignoring her reluctance, he drew her into dazzling sunlight. ‘We’ll walk awhile.’

‘But, Alan, I want to be with him.’

‘No. It’s better for Ned if you come with me.’

In the shadowy pavilion, Ned stirred, and stretched his hand after his wife, while sooty flakes swirled in his vision. Weakly, his hand sank back. The pain was unendurable. God help me, Ned thought. Where’s Gwenn? He strained to see her, but impenetrable grey veils screened her from his sight. Ned’s search was not completely fruitless, for in a small recess of his fragmented consciousness he found a space, a heavenly space that was not all pain.

Gwenn? Gwenn?

The space was dark, but welcoming, because it contained no pain. Ned reached towards it, but his body and the pain he was enduring were weighing him down. Tentatively, he pushed his pain aside.

The Duke’s chaplain had taken Gwenn’s place at Ned’s bedside. Scenting release, he made the sign of the cross and smiled.

Gwenn? Where was Gwenn? Lurching back into himself, Ned discovered there was nothing where Gwenn had been except unendurable agony. Floundering, he sought that blissful, pain-free space. It had grown larger. It was almost big enough for him to walk into, and it was expanding. Soon it would be large enough to swallow up the whole of the earth, the sky, and all of God’s creation. But there was one thing missing, one vital thing. It did not hold Gwenn. Ned jerked himself back, back towards pain... His hand lifted, stretching to the afternoon sunlight pouring through the door slit. The chaplain caught his hand. Ned focused on him. The chaplain had brown eyes like Gwenn’s, and in them Ned saw warm and abiding love, and great understanding. It occurred to him that if he died, he would be leaving Gwenn with his cousin. Simultaneous with that thought, came a crucifying convulsion. ‘Gwenn...’ he moaned.

‘Relax, my son,’ the priest murmured. ‘You cannot fight the inevitable. Relax, and trust to God that your souls will meet in the eternal. Let go.’

‘But, Gwenn...’

His groan was weak, but the priest heard. ‘Your friend will care for her.’

Ned tried to shake his head. Tried to say that that would not do, but he had no power to explain to a priest, even one with compassionate eyes.

‘Put yourself and Gwenn into God’s hands, my son. Trust in His infinite wisdom.’

Ned’s mouth wouldn’t move. He wanted to admit that he did not think he could do that. What if he let go, and Gwenn never came? An eternity without her was unthinkable, but he was bone-tired. ‘Tell Alan... Tell my cousin...’

‘Aye?’

‘Tell him to see her safe to Plou–’ he coughed, ‘Ploumanach.’

‘I will.’

Ned drew a rattling, agonised breath. ‘Father?’

‘My son?’

‘Ask him...ask Alan to tell my mother...to give her my love, and...’ Ned wasn’t able to finish. He was past talking. He was past worrying. His eyes closed. The great darkness was in front of him; the darkness where there was no pain. It seemed to beckon him. Slowly, Ned let go, and left his broken body behind him. He was not confident he would see Gwenn again, and could only hope that perhaps, out there, in those vast uncharted reaches, that would not matter. Bathed in peace, Ned breathed a blissful sigh. His last.

‘Requiescat in pace,’ the Duke’s chaplain muttered, and solemnly he reached out and folded Ned’s capable, farmer’s hands over the wound in the shattered, bloody chest.

***

Having escaped one death-bed, Lady Juliana had found herself standing at another, for minutes after the accident in which her fiancé’s squire had been hurt, the Duke of Brittany had fallen.

Head bowed, Lady Juliana left the ermine pavilion. Her proud features wore a stunned, incredulous look.

Sir Raoul was waiting for her. He pushed past the guards. ‘What news?’ he demanded, eyeing the closed tent flap.

Lady Juliana shook her head. It was a struggle to find any words. ‘He’s gone, Raoul,’ she said. ‘The Duke is gone.’

Sir Raoul crossed himself. ‘Mother of God, not Brittany too! He was twenty-eight – only a year older than I. How did he die? One reckless gesture too many, I suppose? He was ever a showman.’

‘He was crushed and... Please, Raoul, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘My apologies, my dear. And Duchess Constance? How is she taking it?’

‘Composedly. She’s not shed a tear. But King Philip’s weeping would cause the Seine to burst its banks.’

Sir Raoul jerked his head at the white silk pavilion. ‘His Grace the King is inside?’

‘Aye. And crying like a babe. The Duchess is comforting him.’

‘It’s a bad business.’

‘Aye.’ Lady Juliana had only come out for a breath of clean, untainted air. The heat and the smell of death in the tent was suffocating. When the King left, she would have to see to her Duchess.

‘All in all three men have died this day,’ Sir Raoul informed her. ‘Our Duke, Fletcher, and a knight from Gascony whom I do not know. Two more men have been sorely wounded, and are fighting for their lives. Oh, aye, and apparently there’s a dead beggar.’

‘B...beggar? What beggar?’ Lady Juliana seized on the diversion, for beggars did not count.

‘Christ knows. He only had one hand, so he was probably a convicted thief. One of the King’s guards heard a stray dog barking in the forest. When the barking didn’t let up, he investigated and found the body. The guard knew him for a beggar because he had seen the same man hanging around for scraps by the cookhouse. His throat had been cut, and he’d been mutilated. Hacked about.’

A look of distaste flickered across Lady Juliana’s features. ‘No grisly details, Raoul. I’ve had my fill for today.’

‘Sorry, my dear. But what in blazes could anyone gain by torturing a lousy beggar?’

‘Raoul, please.’

‘My apologies. Dear God, it’s been a bad day. The rest of the tournament will probably be cancelled.’

‘I should think so.’

‘A bad business,’ he muttered glumly, ‘a bad business.’

‘You will have to do something about that young man’s widow, Raoul. She’s pregnant.’

‘Oh, hell, is she?’ Raoul Martell sighed. ‘Then I suppose I will, especially as Fletcher was trying to warn me.’

‘Warn you?’ Lady Juliana looked a question.

Flushing, Sir Raoul fixed his eyes on a tent peg. ‘Aye, he was warning me. Some Frenchman took it into his head that I caused him to lose a favourite hawk.’

‘And did you?’

‘What, lose the wretched man his sparrowhawk? Jesu, no. It wasn’t my fault if his falconer had trained the bird ill. A tourney’s no place for a half-trained bird. It happened yesterday. All I did was ride past his hawk; it took a dislike to my horse, bated, snapped its leash, and was into the blue before you could bat an eye. The Frenchman took it into his head I was to blame. At any rate, he banded together with some other French knights and they chose me as their target. Fletcher ran onto the field to warn me.’

‘By now he will be dead,’ Lady Juliana whispered. The guy ropes of the ducal pavilion creaked. The tent flap was folded back, and Philip of France strode past them. His eyelids were swollen, his cheeks mottled and his lips compressed, but he was every inch a king. Lady Juliana curtsied deeply, and the knight bowed; but they were too slow, and their obeisances were directed at the King’s back.

‘I’d best go in, Raoul.’

‘Aye. You attend your Duchess, and I’ll attend Ned Fletcher’s widow. Adieu, till later, my dear.’ And bending over his fiancée’s hand, Sir Raoul pressed his lips to her fingers and turned on his heel.

***

It was past the ninth hour and the light was fading. Ned had been laid to rest under newly cut turves that afternoon, less than an hour after he had died. Alan and Gwenn had been his only mourners, Sir Raoul being too taken up with the Duke’s death. It had been a hasty, improvised burial on hallowed ground in a nearby village churchyard. For Alan it had been heart-breaking; it had been too quick and too impersonal. Alan had seen many such funerals, funerals of hired men whose masters hardly knew them. But it was no stranger Alan was bidding farewell today. This was his childhood playmate and cousin. For Gwenn it must have been hell. She seemed to have done into deep shock.

On their return from the burial, she had disappeared into the tent. She had been alone there for three hours, and Alan hadn’t heard so much as a whisper from her. It was unnatural. He had spent most of that three hours gazing sightlessly into his tent-side fire, straining his ears in case she broke down. It was the loneliest, most miserable guard duty that he had ever undertaken. He couldn’t believe Ned was dead. His cousin had been the happiest, most contented, accepting man Alan had ever known. And Ned was no more. Alan couldn’t believe Duke Geoffrey had gone either, but at least the Duke’s death could be thought of calmly, without too much emotion. Alan wondered whether the Duchess was reacting to her husband’s death.

Alan’s stomach felt empty. How could he feel hunger at a time like this? He drank a skinful of wine, but his hunger remained, a gnawing ache, deep in his guts. He had no food with him. He did not want to leave Gwenn to go to the cookhouse, not even for half an hour. And from his tent? Nothing. No sobbing, no weeping. Nothing.

Gwenn had taken the purse that a heavy-browed Sir Raoul had offered her by way of compensation for a lost husband. She had nodded when the knight said that he had arranged for Ned’s burial, and she seemed to accept, for the time being at least, Alan’s guardianship of her. But not a solitary tea had she shed. It was as if this latest tragedy had turned her to stone.

When Alan had told Sir Raoul that Ned’s last wishes had been that he should take care of Gwenn, the knight’s brow had cleared – what with the Duke of Brittany’s death, noblemen had politics on their minds, and no doubt the future of an untried squire’s widow did not loom large. No one had objected to her spending the night in Alan’s tent. Had she been a lady of high estate, matters would have been arranged very differently. Not that Alan was complaining. If anyone was indelicate enough to imply that he would lay a hand on her while she grieved for her husband, he’d split their slanderous tongues for them.

He had heard the rumours concerning Ned’s foray into the lists. He scowled an accusation at the fading glow in the western sky. ‘Ned, you were a fool, a chivalrous fool. See where your folly has left us.’ But it was no use blaming the dead. Ned could not help his nature any more than he could his. He would miss his vital young cousin.

Marshalling his emotions, Alan eyed the closed flap with misgivings. She had gone into his tent meekly as a lamb, asking if she could be left alone. Assuming she wished to grieve in private, Alan had withdrawn. But she was not grieving. What was she doing? Could he disturb her? Should he disturb her? His stomach growled, and thus prompted, he rose to his feet. There was bread and water in the tent.

She was sitting cross-legged exactly as he had left her, on the thin mattress she had shared with Ned. Sir Raoul’s drawstring purse was in front of her. It was unopened. Great eyes lifted briefly to Alan as he came in.

‘I came for water,’ he said, unhooking the flask from a knob on a tent pole.

Silence.

‘Are you thirsty?’

Silence.

‘Gwenn...’ Helplessly, Alan watched her downcast head. With a jerky movement he slung the waterskin onto his pallet and tried again. ‘Gwenn? Oh, Jesu, Gwenn, say something.’

Silence.

He knelt in front of her and reached for her hands. She shuddered, which was not the reaction that he looked for but it was a reaction of sorts, which was a beginning. ‘Gwenn, please. You can’t cut yourself off like this.’

‘Why not?’ Her voice was harsh, not her voice at all.

‘It...it’s not healthy.’

‘My sister cut herself off when life became unbearable.’

‘Katarin is sick, shocked. She had suffered much.’

‘Am I not sick and shocked? Have I not suffered much? I vow I will suffer no more. If I have to cut myself off to ensure that, then so be it.’ And, as if to illuminate her words, she jerked free of his hold and hunched away from him.

At least she was talking. Alan’s aim was to goad her into relieving her feelings. ‘Katarin’s a child, Gwenn. You cannot retreat as she did.’

‘For God’s sake, Alan!’ Her mouth was angry. ‘My husband has died! You don’t get over something like that in a few minutes, you know.’

‘You loved him.’

She swallowed, and her answer was husky. ‘Aye. Ned is...was very lovable.’

Alan could only agree.

‘Why did Ned have to die, Alan?’

She sounded like a child crying at the night. Alan had no comfort to offer her.

‘I should have been there, Alan. I should have been with him.’

He made a swift, negative gesture. ‘No.’

‘I should. It’s your fault I wasn’t with him. If you hadn’t taken me outside...’

Her voice cracked, and brown, melancholy eyes met his. She was grieving, inwardly and in silence; and her grief hit him like a blow in his empty stomach. To think that he had once wished her and Ned unmarried. They were unmarried now, and just look at her. It wasn’t Ned who was the fool, Alan reflected sourly, but himself. He was a selfish, simple, bloody fool. If he were granted one wish now, it would be that he could master time and turn it back for her. He would do anything to lift that bleak misery from her eyes.

‘Oh, Alan, why did Ned have to die!’ Her control slipped for an instant, and Alan heard a small sob. ‘He swore he’d never leave me! He promised, Alan! And now he’s broken his word! It’s your fault.’

‘No!’

‘It is! I’ve no one now! No one!’

‘You have me,’ Alan said, taking her hands again. They were cold as blocks of ice.

‘You!’ she exclaimed, derisively to Alan’s ears.

He bit his lip and told himself that it was her grief that made her cruel. ‘And there’s Katarin, and Philippe,’ he continued. ‘You are not alone. You have your relatives in north Brittany. They’ll take responsibility for you. Ned wanted me to take you to them. I’ll happily oblige.’

‘I don’t want anyone to take responsibility for me,’ Gwenn muttered, with a flash of her old waywardness. ‘I want to take responsibility for myself. I want to be independent.’

Alan shook his head. Women never took responsibility for themselves, and with the world structured as it was, how could they? Her grief was unhinging her. ‘Take responsibility for yourself? You’re not serious, Gwenn. It is your loss talking. You cannot be independent, it’s impossible.’

Her eyes glittered. ‘Impossible? Why? You’re independent.’

‘It’s different for me.’ Alan smiled. ‘I’m a man. I can fight my own battles.’

‘You’re not taking me seriously.’

‘How can I? Such a notion is ridiculous.’

‘Why? Why is it ridiculous? All I want is to be an island, like you.’

‘An island?’ Was that how she saw him?

‘I like you, Alan. I admit that I don’t know you well, but I probably know you as well as anyone. I’ve watched you. You have no ties. You’re careful to keep your friends at a distance. And I’ve noticed that whatever happens, Alan le Bret never gets hurt. And that is because his feelings are never engaged. I have decided to become like you. I am going to be independent. I have been hurt enough, and Ned’s death is the last blow I shall take. From now on,’ she spoke as solemnly as a nun making her holy vows, ‘I shall be an island. I take responsibility for myself, and myself alone.’

Alan could tell her that that way led to damnation and misery, and he should know, he had trod the solitary path for years. To think that she, in her grief, was taking him for her model... But he had changed. He had rejoined the human race, and was allowing himself to feel. As ever, they were out of step. Would they ever be in step? ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘you need to rest. We should discuss this in the morning.’

‘Don’t patronise me! We’ll discuss it now.’

‘You’re overwrought.’

‘I won’t deny that. But I tell you this, I won’t let you cart me back to Ploumanach. Lady Wymark did not approve of Ned, but she would offer false sympathy, and I do not think that I could stand it. She will be glad I am not longer married to a mercenary, and after a respectable time has elapsed, she and my uncle will honour me by finding me another husband. Only this new husband will be respectable – a pot-bellied merchant or some such – because they want someone they can have at their board who will not embarrass them.’

Alan grimaced. ‘You paint a vivid image. But I trust Lady Wymark would not force you to marry against your will.’

‘Force? What is force? I agree that she would probably not drag me kicking and screaming to the church gate. No, she would not do that. But there are other, more subtler persuasions. As her guest, I would feel bound to repay her for her generosity to me and my family. In the end I would surrender, and I would marry the pot-bellied merchant, and I would have to spend my days breeding pot-bellied children, and...’ her voice was almost inaudible ‘...I do not want that. So my thanks, Alan, for offering to escort me to Ploumanach, but I do not wish to go.’

Deciding his best course was to go along with her and hope that by morning she would see reason, Alan said, ‘You will need money.’

Gwenn pointed at Sir Raoul’s purse. ‘Money, I have.’

Alan picked up the purse. The knight’s conscience had obviously pricked him, for it was heavy. ‘It won’t last forever.’

‘It will last long enough,’ Gwenn answered shortly. She had the contents of the Stone Rose and what remained in Waldin St Clair’s wallet, but she did not trust this rootless mercenary as she had trusted her husband, and she would not tell him about that.

‘You’ll need protection.’

She smiled sweetly at Sir Raoul’s purse. ‘I can buy it.’

‘And what will you do, Gwenn, with this independence of yours?’

‘I have a desire to go to England.’

‘To England?’

‘Aye.’ Her hand fluttered delicately to her stomach. ‘I would like to meet Ned’s mother, and tell her what a good man her son was. I want to tell her how brave he was, and that his last thoughts were of her.’

‘There’s no need for you to go to England,’ Alan interrupted curtly. ‘I’m homeward bound myself, and with Duke Geoffrey dead, there’s no reason for me to delay.’