It was then that I saw Fleur. Amazing that I had not noticed her before. Not ten feet away from me, head slightly averted, a grubby cap covering her curls and an apron, much too large for her, tied around her waist. Her face was set in an expression of childish disgust, and her hands and arms were stained with the leavings from the fish cart behind which she stood. My first instinct was to call her name, to run to her and take her in my arms, but caution halted me. Instead I looked at LeMerle, who had reappeared at my side and was watching me closely. “What’s this?” I said.

He shrugged. “You asked to see her, didn’t you?”

There was a drab-looking woman standing beside Fleur. She too wore an apron and false sleeves over her own to protect them from the stinking merchandise on display. As I watched, a woman pointed out the fish she wanted and the drab woman handed it to Fleur to gut. Her face twisted as she slid the short blade into the creature’s belly, but I was surprised at my daughter’s deftness with the unaccustomed task. There was a bandage, now slick with a fishy residue, on her hand. Perhaps she had not always been so deft.

“For God’s sake, she’s five years old! What business have they to make her do that kind of work?”

LeMerle shook his head. “Be reasonable. The child has to earn her keep. They have a large family. An extra mouth to feed is no little thing for a fisherman.”

A fisherman! So Antoine had been right about that. I looked at the woman, trying to determine whether or not I had seen her before. She could have been from Noirs Moustiers, I supposed; she had that look. On the other hand, she could easily be from Pornic or Fromentine, even maybe from Le Devin or one of the smaller islands.

LeMerle saw me watching. “Don’t concern yourself,” he said dryly. “She’s being well looked after.”

“Where?”

“Trust me.”

I did not reply. My eyes were already taking in every detail of my daughter’s transformation, each one bringing with it a new kind of pain. Her pinched cheeks, their roses gone. Her lank hair under the ugly cap. Her dress, not the one she wore at the abbey but some other child’s castoff of prickly brown wool. And her face: the face of a child with no mother.

I turned back to LeMerle. “What do you want?”

“I told you. Your silence. Your loyalty.”

“You have it. I promise.” My voice was rising and I was powerless to stop it. “I promised last night.”

“You didn’t mean it last night,” he said. “You do now.”

“I want to talk to her. I want to take her back!”

“I can’t allow that, I’m afraid. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’m certain you won’t just take the child and disappear.” He must have seen murder in my eyes then, because he smiled. “And in case you were wondering, there are precise instructions to be carried out in case of any misfortune happening to me,” he said. “Very precise instructions.”

I sheathed my gaze with an effort. “Let me talk to her, then. Just for a moment. Please, Guy.”

It was harder than I had expected. LeMerle had told me that if I caused any mischief or suspicion, then there might be no further opportunities to see Fleur. But I had to take the risk. I moved slowly, curbing my impatience, through the crowd to the fish cart. I was vaguely aware of the women on either side of me, one demanding fifty red mullet, the other exchanging recipes with the fishwife. At my back, more customers jostled. Fleur lifted her eyes to mine and for a moment I thought she had not recognized me. Then her face lit up.

“Shh.” I whispered. “Don’t say anything.”

Fleur looked puzzled but, to my relief, nodded.

“Listen to me,” I said in the same low voice. “I don’t have much time.”

As if to confirm this, the fishwife shot a suspicious gaze in my direction before returning to the order of mullet. I gave a silent prayer of thanks for the woman who wished to buy such an unusually large quantity of fish.

“Have you brought Mouche?” Fleur’s voice was tiny. “Have you come to take me home?”

“Not yet.” Her small face was gray with woe, and again I fought the urge to take her in my arms. “Listen, Fleur. Where are they keeping you? A cottage? A caravan? A farm?”

Fleur glanced at the fisherman’s wife. “A cottage. With children and dogs.”

“Did you cross the causeway?”

“Excuse me.” A big woman pushed between us, stretching out her arms for a packet of fish. I stepped sideways into a line of customers; someone called out in annoyance.

“Hurry up, Sister! Some of us have families to feed!”

“Fleur. Listen. Is it on the mainland? Is it over the causeway?”

From behind the large woman, Fleur nodded. Then, infuriatingly, she shook her head. Someone stepped into the space between us, and once again my daughter was lost to sight.

“Fleur!” I was almost weeping with frustration. The large woman was wedged beside me; the crowd was pushing at my back, and the customer who had called out had begun a noisy diatribe on people who stood around gossiping in queues. “Sweetheart. Did you go over the causeway?”

For a second, then, I thought she would tell me. Puzzled, she seemed to be trying to articulate or remember something, to give me some clue that would reveal to me where she was being kept. Was it the word causeway that she did not understand? Had she been taken to the mainland in a boat?

Then the woman with the mullet turned to face me, and I knew my chance to discover the truth was over. She looked at me and smiled, holding out her basket of fish to me in her meaty red arms. “What do you think?” she said. “Will it do for tonight’s dinner?”

It was Antoine.

The journey home was difficult. I carried the fish on my back as I had the potatoes, the stench of it growing in the sun in spite of the quantities of seaweed intended to keep it cool. The load was heavy, too, fishy water dripping through the weave of the basket onto my shoulders and into my hair, soaking my habit with brine. Antoine was in a cheery mood and talked incessantly of what she had done at the market, of the gossip she had heard, the sights she had seen, the news she had exchanged. A peddler from the mainland had brought news of a group immolation in honor of Christina Mirabilis, a woman had been hanged in Angers for masquerading as a man, and there were rumors that a man from Le Devin had caught a fish with a head at both ends-a sure sign of disaster to come. She did not mention Fleur, and for that, if nothing else, I was grateful. However, I knew that she had seen her. I could only hope that she would hold her tongue.

We followed the coastal path back to the abbey. It was a longer route, but LeMerle insisted upon it-after all, he was riding, and the extra mile or so meant nothing to him. It had been one of my favorite walks in happier times, passing by the causeway and along the dunes, but laden as I was, lurching through the soft sand with the fish basket, I found little enjoyment in it. LeMerle, on the other hand, seemed to derive great pleasure from watching the sea and asked a number of questions about the tides and the crossing times from the mainland, which I ignored, but which Antoine seemed more than happy to answer.

It was midafternoon when we reached the abbey, by which time I was exhausted, half-blind from squinting at the sun, and heartily sick of the smell of fish. With relief I delivered the stinking basket to the kitchens, then, my head still ringing from the heat and my throat parched, I made my way across the outer courtyard toward the well. I was about to throw down the pan for the water when I heard a cry from behind me; turning, I saw Alfonsine.

She seemed fully recovered from the previous day’s attack; her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed with excitement as she ran toward me. “For God’s sake, don’t touch that water!” she panted. “Don’t you know what’s happened?”