She followed him up a gentle slope of rising ground. When she reached the crest she glanced back once more. She discovered that she could see across the tops of the tents and banners all the way to the distant jousting field.

A throng of spectators had gathered to view the melee. Even as Alice watched a great shout went up. The sound of it was carried toward her on the breeze. Two opposing groups of knights charged toward one another from opposite ends of the field.

Alice winced as they slammed together. Several horses and men went down in a fearsome tangle. Armor glinted in the sun and horses flailed. Alice found herself searching for a familiar black banner but it was impossible to identify Hugh or any of his men from this distance.

"This way, m'lady," Fulk whispered. He rounded one of the ramshackle outbuildings. "Hurry."

Alice told herself that Hugh was much too clever and too skilled to get hurt. Knights of his caliber thrived on mock combat. She shuddered. Her father had been no different. Sir Bernard had spent a great deal of his life in northern France seeking the glory and wealth to be had from the endless round of tournaments. Bernard had sought something else as well on those journeys, Alice thought wistfully. Escape from his responsibilities as a husband and father.

She had only scattered memories of her father. Those memories were sprinkled across the years like so many bright beads from a broken strand.

Bernard had been a handsome man with a hearty laugh, a curly red beard, and vivid green eyes. He had been loud and boisterous and full of enthusiasm for the hunt, the joust, and, according to Helen, Alice's mother, London brothels.

Bernard was gone a great deal of the time but his visits to his manor were wonderful events in Alice's childhood. He swooped down upon the household with presents and stories. He scooped Alice up in his arms and carried her through the great hall. While Bernard was home it seemed to Alice that everything, including her mother, glowed and shimmered with happiness.

But all too soon Bernard would set out again for a joust in some distant place or an extended trip to London. Many of Alice's memories from her early years included scenes of her mother crying after one of Bernard's frequent departures.

The family had seen more of Bernard for a time after his son and heir was born. Helen had been radiant during that period. But after Benedict was permanently injured in the fall from his horse Bernard had gone back to his old habits. The trips to London and northern France became frequent and prolonged once more.

As the years passed, Helen responded to her husband's lengthy absences by spending an ever-increasing amount of time at work on her handbook or mixing her herbs and potions. She grew distant from her children, seemingly obsessed by her studies.

In the later years Helen no longer greeted Bernard's brief visits with glowing happiness in her eyes. On the positive side, Alice thought, her mother no longer cried for hours after Bernard's leave-takings.

As her mother secluded herself for longer and longer periods in her study, Alice gradually took over the myriad responsibilities of managing the household and manor. She also assumed the task of rearing Benedict. She feared she had not been a great success in her efforts to be both mother and father to him. She had been unable to make up for the pain that Bernard's careless rejection had caused. The silent resentment in Benedict's eyes whenever his father was mentioned still made Alice want to weep.

But the knowledge of just how badly she had failed had not struck home until she managed to lose Benedict's inheritance.

"M'lady?"

Alice pushed aside the melancholy memories. "Where are we going, Fulk?"

"Hush." He waved frantically to silence her. "Do ye want them to hear ye?"

"I want to know where you're taking me." She walked around a sagging wooden storage shed and saw him crouched behind a stretch of thick foliage.

"Last night I heard the troubadour tell the blond-haired lady that he would meet her down there in the bushes by the stream."

"You're certain?"

"If he's not there, ye don't need to pay me," Fulk said magnanimously.

"Very well," Alice said. "Lead on."

Fulk plunged into the greenery that hid the stream from view. Alice picked up her skirts and followed cautiously. Her soft leather boots were going to be ruined, she thought.

A moment later a high, keening cry stopped her in her tracks. She grabbed Fulk's arm.

"What was that?" she whispered, horrified.

"The blonde, most likely," Fulk muttered without any show of surprise.

"Someone is attacking her. We must go to her aid."

Fulk blinked and then stared at her as though she were mad. "I don't think she'll be wantin' any help from the likes of us."

"Why not?"

"From the sounds of it, your fancy troubadour is plucking her harp string quite nicely for her."

Another high, feminine scream sounded in the distance.

"Plucking her string? I do not understand. Someone is hurting that woman. We must do something."

Fulk rolled his eyes. "The troubadour is tumblin' her in the tall grass, m'lady."

"Tumbling her? As though she were a ball, do you mean? Why on earth would he do that?"

Fulk groaned softly. "Don't ye comprehend, m'lady? He's makin' love to her."

"Here? In the bushes?" Alice was so shocked that she tripped over a twig and nearly fell flat on her face.

"Where else?" Fulk reached out to steady her. "They can hardly use her lord's tent, now, can they? And the troubadour doesn't have one of his own."

Alice felt herself grow exceedingly warm. It was unsettling to realize that this boy who was no older than Benedict knew a great deal more about such matters than she did.

"I see." She tried to sound casual.

Fulk took pity on her obvious embarrassment. "Do ye want to wait here until they're finished?"

"Well, I suppose so. I certainly don't want to interrupt them."

"As ye wish." Fulk held out his hand. "I've fulfilled me part of the bargain. If ye'll be so kind as to pay me now, I'll be on me way."

Alice frowned. "You're quite certain that it's Gilbert the troubadour who is with that lady?"

"Take a look over there." Fulk nodded toward a bright patch of yellow and orange cloth that lay on the ground beneath the drooping branches of a tree.

Alice followed his gaze. "That does look like Gilbert's outer tunic. And I think I see his lute."

A hoarse, masculine groan reverberated through the greenery just as Alice handed Fulk the last of her coins.

"From the sound of things, yon troubadour is playing his own instrument now. A horn, I believe." Fulk's fingers closed tightly around the coins. "But don't fret, fine lady. I heard him tell the blond-haired lady that he was good for more than one tune."

Alice frowned again. "I don't believe that I comprehend—"

But Fulk had vanished into the shrubbery.

Alice hesitated, not certain how to proceed. She had intended to confront Gilbert when she found him and demand that he surrender her green stone. Now, for the first time she wondered if he would even admit to possessing it. What would she do if he simply denied all knowledge of the stone?

And then there was the awkward business of Gilbert's blond-haired lady. What did one say to a man and a woman who had just finished making love? Alice wondered. Especially when that love was clearly adulterous.

Alice was forced to conclude that Gilbert was far bolder than she had realized. In having dared to seduce a married lady, he risked castration or even death at the hands of the woman's husband. A man who was willing to dare so much for passion would likely laugh at Alice when she asked him to return the green stone.

It occurred to her that things would have been much simpler at this juncture had Hugh accompanied her. He would have had no qualms about challenging Gilbert.