***

At that moment, Alan was travelling on horseback along La Rue Richemont in the company of Ned. It was a broad highway, wide enough for several knights to ride abreast, and it was easy to follow because the moonlight made rocks and road shimmer.

‘Where are you bound, Alan?’

‘East gate.’

‘Won’t it be secure at this hour?’

‘They’ll let me in.’

‘Oh.’ Ned looked puzzled. ‘Alan?’

‘Mmm?’

‘If you’re so set on getting a fortune, why didn’t you desert Mistress Gwenn and take off with her mare? You would have got yourself two horses that way. This way you get nothing, for I’m to take yours back to St Clair’s stables.’

Alan couldn’t answer Ned’s question. All he knew was that when he and the girl had arrived at the crossroads, he had found himself spurring on to the manor alongside her. And when they had got there, she had kept faith with him. She had not tattled about his attempt to steal the non-existent gemstone, or his kissing her. He shrugged. ‘By the Rood, I don’t know. It must have been a momentary lapse. You’ll not hold it against me, surely?’

Ned was accustomed to Alan’s warped humour, and he greeted this with a laugh. ‘No. But it made me think, that’s all. There might be some hope for you. Alan?’

‘Stop prattling, will you, Ned? You make my head ache. You’re worse than any maid.’

Smiling, Ned obliged.

Alan could see a pale flickering of lights in front of them. Below the lights there was a long, thin, winding darkness which he knew was the wooden wall encircling the port. After riding some way in silence, he said, ‘Our ways will part at the gate.’

‘Aye, so you mentioned before. Where will you go?’

‘I’ve a mind to seek out our noble Duke.’

‘What? Brittany himself? I understood he was in Rennes.’

‘You were misinformed,’ Alan said, his mind on the black and white of Duke Geoffrey’s ermine that he had seen that morning in Locmariaquer. He’d wasted enough of his life on the intrigues of petty lordlings. He wanted to move on to higher things.

‘Alan, why don’t you reconsider–?’

‘Don’t sing that old ballad, Ned,’ Alan said wearily, rubbing the thigh of his mended leg. ‘The melody sickens me.’

‘You’ll regret it.’

Alan laughed shortly. ‘I’ve fatter fish to fry.’

‘You’re a heartless dog,’ Ned murmured, without heat.

‘Not quite, else I’d have been long gone. Here.’ Alan came to a halt and swung himself out of the saddle. He tossed his mount’s reins at Ned and heaved his pack from the animal’s back. ‘You can lead this bag of bones back to the shack that St Clair calls his stable. I’ll walk the rest of the way. Fare you well, Ned. I should think you’ll do well with Sir Jean.’

Ned clutched his cousin’s reins and gulped down a constriction in his windpipe. ‘God speed, Alan. Will I see you again?’

‘I should think so,’ Alan answered carelessly. ‘I know where to find you.’

‘Yes.’

Alan shouldered his pack, sketched Ned a mocking bow, and turned his face towards the wooden palisade.

***

Marie de Roncier was breaking her fast in the hall of Huelgastel. Seated at the head of the table beside her son, she tipped the sunstone from one dry palm to the other as though it scorched her. A silver-topped cane lay within reach on the trestle.

Weeks earlier, when news had reached her of her sister’s death, the Dowager Countess had been overcome with guilt. If she had stayed her son’s impetuous hand, if she had not demanded the statue, her crazed sister Izabel would yet be alive. However, in the days that had followed, Marie had stopped chastising herself. Life was easier when she turned her back on her uneasy conscience. She flung the sunstone on the table with a crack. ‘My thanks, Malait, for bringing us this relic from the past, but I asked for the Virgin.’ Had Izabel died to protect a glass pebble? It looked as though her informants had been right, her sister’s wits must have gone at the end.

‘You see, Maman,’ the Count said. ‘The diamond only had form in old wives’ minds.’

‘You are insolent, François,’ Marie said, frostily.

‘No, Maman, practical.’ He smiled. ‘Honestly, accepting there was a jewel – which I doubt – is it likely they retained it all these years?’

Relieved to find the wind in this quarter, Otto took a pace towards the Dowager Countess. ‘If there had been anything of value, madame, I’m sure Alan le Bret would have known.’

Regally, Marie waved him out. ‘You may leave us.’

François booted the door shut after his captain. ‘Well, ma mère? You advocate that I do nothing, I expect?’

Marie did not want any more blood on her hands. ‘Do St Clair and his brood of bastards threaten you?’ she asked, investing her voice with as much scorn as she could.

‘Advise me.’

Marie’s dark face lighted. ‘With pleasure, François.’ Her Robert, God rest him, had often asked her advice, she liked being consulted by her menfolk. ‘Stay your hand and let matters rest. If you act, you acknowledge St Clair as a threat. And that would be tantamount to admitting you occupy shaky ground – it would be a tactical error. The man is weak, François; weak-minded, and weak in manpower. He’ll never be a real danger.’

‘Suppose he marries Yolande Herevi?’

‘He won’t. I’ve told you before, even that man wouldn’t stoop to marry his concubine. Don’t thrust a stick in a wasps’ nest.’

François rubbed his red cheeks and looked dubious. ‘I’d be happier if the nest was completely burned out.’

Marie grew pale. ‘No, François.’ It was not easy for her to plead, but she reached a hand towards her son. ‘Enough is enough. Please.’

François held his mother’s gaze for a heartbeat or two. ‘If it pleases you, Maman,’ he answered off-handedly, ‘I’ll play it your way, unless circumstances should change.’

Marie’s hand fell. ‘My thanks, François, I knew you’d see reason.’

Part Two

Champions and Heroes

O God, the sea is so wide and my boat so small:

Be good to me.

Prayer of a Breton fisherman.

Chapter Eleven

Kermaria, two years later. Spring 1185.

Jean St Clair and his family gathered for supper in the hall, together with the men-at-arms, serving women and other members of the household. The whiff of mildew and decay had long been banished, and the scents of lavender and beeswax mingled in the air. The rushes were changed regularly; the whitewash was renewed annually. A large wall-hanging brightened the gloomy north wall. As last year’s harvest had been good, Jean had money in his coffers – terracotta tiles had been carted in from Vannes, and the hearth and fire-surround had been relaid in bold chevrons of terracotta and gold.

‘The duck smells good,’ Raymond said, hooking a stool from under the trestle with his boot. Raymond’s thick brown hair fell in tousled waves. He was unusually handsome, for not only had he inherited his mother’s fine emerald eyes, but he also had her beautiful bone structure. His muscles had filled out, and he had the ungovernable appetite of any active young man. Without waiting for his parents to choose their birds, Raymond took his knife from his belt, wiped it perfunctorily on his breeches, and speared himself a fowl. It thudded on his trencher, and an onion rolled across the table leaving a glistening trail like that of a snail.

‘Raymond, your manners!’ Yolande chastised him, smiling.

Her son flashed her an incorrigible grin and flung himself on his stool. His charm he had from his father. ‘Apologies, Mama, but I’m famished! Where’s Gwenn?’ Gwenn was his dinner partner, and she was supposed to share the food on his trencher, after the fashion of nobles in larger households. Raymond never understood why they had to affect these ridiculous manners, but to save family argument he was prepared to pay lip-service to the odd caprice of his mother’s.