Raymond toyed with a piece of meat he had impaled on the point of his dagger. ‘He’s running away.’

‘He’s using his brain.’ Jean set his stoneware cup down smartly. ‘But don’t ask me. You can ask the champion himself in a couple of weeks. He plans to be here around Ascensiontide.’

‘So soon?’ Yolande murmured, under her breath. Her hands were at her girdle, tightening it, and her eyes were turned down to their trencher. ‘That’s not long at all. I’ll have to have done it by then.’

‘What are you muttering about?’ Jean demanded, noticing for the first time that Yolande had lost her sparkle. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

But she declined to meet his gaze. Instead her eyes wandered to the fire flaming in the newly-tiled hearth. She sat straight as a nun, and folded her hands neatly over her stomach. ‘We’ll be needing new linen sheets if Waldin is to come. The spare ones are fit for nothing but dish clouts.’ Then she turned her head and met her lover’s eyes straight on. Her gaze was remote, her face was set like rock, and her wide forehead was furrowed. Jean’s heart lurched. That look – it was as though she did not like him, had never liked him, and was sure she never would like him. Bemused, he ran his hand over his moustache, and then Yolande was smiling warmly at him, and her hand had come to cover his.

***

Having picked at her evening meal, Yolande retired early to the solar, taking a rush-light with her. At Kermaria, peace was almost as rare a commodity as privacy, and Yolande needed peace desperately tonight. She had some thinking to do. Pressing her hand to her belly, she paced the boards. A tiny fluttering made itself felt, as though there were a butterfly inside her. But it was no butterfly. Yolande had known that fluttering sensation before, and knew what it meant. Each time she had noticed it, a babe had followed some months later.

She was pregnant. Yolande had misgivings about this baby. She did not want another child. More precisely, she did not want another bastard.

The Stone Rose stared proudly down from a new walnut plinth on a shelf Jafrez the carpenter had fixed to the east wall. Kneeling before it, Yolande offered an Ave Maria before murmuring a more personal prayer. The Virgin watched with cold, granite eyes. ‘Holy Mother, help me. Advise me. I had thought the time had past that I could bear a child. Why else should my courses have stopped when Katarin was three? What purpose do you have in giving me another child? I count it no blessing. Why?’

It seemed to Yolande that the hard, almond-shaped eyes judged her; judged, and found her guilty. ‘I know I have sinned,’ she bowed her head, ‘but I love him. I would have married him if I could. Before each child was born, I prayed that it would not have to bear the taint of bastardy. Three times I did that. I pray that same prayer today. Holy Mother–’

The shadows shifted, light danced and skittered over the limewashed walls. Someone had entered the solar, carrying a lantern. Yolande’s moment of private contemplation was ended.

‘Mama?’ Gwenn set the lantern on a coffer and opened its door, so that the light strengthened. ‘Is anything amiss?’

Stiffly, Yolande got to her feet and forced a smile.

‘You look so sad. What is it, Mama?’

Yolande longed to confide in someone. Why not Gwenn? Her daughter was fifteen now, old enough. ‘I’m enceinte,’ she announced, bluntly.

Gwenn looked delighted. ‘But Mama, that’s wonderful! I love babies. There will be someone else for Katarin to play with.’ She kissed Yolande on the cheek. ‘Don’t be sad about that, Mama. That’s lovely news.’

‘Is it?’ Yolande murmured, bleakly. ‘That will make four of you. Four.’

‘So?’

Yolande swung away. ‘Four illegitimate children, Gwenn. I think three is more than enough for any woman to bear a man, don’t you?’

Some of the shining joy left her daughter’s expression. ‘No one minds that out here, Mama.’

‘Don’t they? Don’t you mind, Gwenn?’

Her daughter’s eyes slid to the newly worked arras hanging across the chamber door. ‘No.’ Her chin inched up. ‘It was only in Vannes that people minded. Here, on Father’s land, it is different.’

‘Is it? I’m not so sure.’ Another matter had been preying on Yolande’s mind, and dimly she perceived that the two worries were linked. ‘Lately, I have noticed that your relationship with Ned Fletcher is over-familiar – no, Gwenn, it is no use you scowling like that. It won’t do. I worry about you. If your father and I were married, Ned Fletcher wouldn’t dare let his eyes stray.’

‘Ned Fletcher is good to me,’ Gwenn said, stubbornly. ‘I won’t hear a word against him.’

Yolande kept her voice cool. ‘I’m sure he is, dear. But you must remember, he’s from common stock.’

‘Common stock!’ Gwenn spluttered. ‘What do you mean?’

So Gwenn did mind... Yolande sighed. ‘Oh, my dear, if I were married to your father, you would understand immediately what I mean. My life of sin has blinded you to the truth.’

‘That’s hogwash and you know it.’

‘Gwenn, such language!’

Higher went that defiant chin. ‘Well, it is hogwash, Mama. If you’re trying to say that the common folk lack the finer qualities, then I must disagree with you. Ned is kind.’

Ned. Yolande suppressed a groan. She called him Ned. Worse and worse.

In full spate, Gwenn rushed on. ‘Ned listens to me. Ned doesn’t patronise me like Papa. And unlike my dear brother, Ned Fletcher keeps his promises. It seems to me that Ned Fletcher is more honourable than both my father and my brother put together! Remember that it was Ned,’ Gwenn caught the spark in her mother’s eyes, ‘I mean Fletcher and his cousin, Alan le Bret, who saved me. That took courage. If that doesn’t put the case for those of common stock, I don’t know what does.’

‘Oh dear,’ Yolande said weakly, trying and failing to put her objections into a reasoned argument. She was too old to be carrying, and wished she was not so fatigued. ‘I never did like Fletcher’s kinsman.’

‘But he did save me.’

There was no answer to that. ‘I was misguided,’ Yolande murmured, ‘to let you sit in on Raymond’s lessons. It’s enabled you to talk the hind leg off a donkey, and it’s not becoming in a girl. You’ve grown so clever, you could argue wrong into right. We’ve spoiled you. God knows if we’ll ever find a husband to take you.’

‘Oh, Mama,’ Gwenn tossed her head, ‘it’s your thinking that is crooked.’ But then she saw how tired her mother was, and relented. She led her mother to her bed in the curtained recess. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. You should be resting. You’ve the babe to consider.’

Meekly, Yolande permitted Gwenn to direct her to her couch. As Gwenn pointed out, she had the babe to consider. Since de Roncier had loosed his fiends and set that terrible fire, Yolande had dismissed all thought of marriage from her mind. Marriage to Jean would not legitimise the children they already had, and any wedding might provoke the Count to further outrages against her family. She did not expect her lover to honour his promise to marry her in view of the attendant dangers.

But if there was to be another child...

After Gwenn had crept out, leaving her with the lantern, Yolande settled under her downy coverlet, and laid a hand over her womb. The babe was growing within her. Growing with it was the resolve that by hook or by crook, this child would be legitimate. She accepted that in many respects Jean had been criminally irresponsible. He had neglected his inheritance for years, claiming he had not the funds to manage it, when a more far-sighted man would have put his shoulder to the plough, and husbanded his land to make it fruitful. Latterly, Jean had seen the light and had mended his ways. These two years past had seen him wearing his fingers to the bone. Kermaria was improved beyond recognition. A disloyal voice chimed in, suggesting Yolande consider how much more improved Kermaria would have been if he had begun his stewardship of his estate when he had first inherited it.