It was almost a year since the Duke’s business had last brought Alan to Vannes, and it hadn’t altered in that time. It was true that work had progressed well on the cathedral. The walls were soaring up, and it was rumoured the bishop was bringing glaziers all the way from Paris to install some of the new coloured glass that had been so admired in Nôtre Dame. But St Peter’s aside, Vannes was unchanged.

Alan looked towards the Duke. He was riding Firebrand, a chestnut courser Alan had always admired, and he was surrounded by a vast, glittering retinue. Alan grimaced. This was one aspect of life with the Duke that he could do without, the hangers-on. There were always hangers-on, except when the Duke made a rare escape to one of his bolt-holes. And look at them. Knights in their court finery – lords wearing heavy velvets, embroidered hats with great plumes, and gauntlets encrusted with seed pearls. Their horses had ribbons plaited through their shiny well-groomed manes as if they were love-sick girls. Why, half of those pretty, plumed knights didn’t know one end of a sword from the other.

There on the quayside was all the noise and brashness of a ducal court used to moving about the country wherever its duke went. It was a pageant, staged to impress. But did it? Alan noted a handful of fishermen watching the show. Their eyes were cynical as they took in the Phrygian caps, the rich embroidery, the bright flowing capes and the gilded harness. The fisherfolk were unimpressed. Alan felt he understood. What had the Duke’s court to do with the grinding poverty of their lives?

The court was on the quayside to meet a ship from Nantes carrying a new warhorse for the Duke. He hoped to have a few months’ drilling with his latest acquisition before trying his luck at the King of France’s tournament in Paris. They would shortly be leaving the Morbihan Gulf, riding north for Rennes and the practice lists there. Alan looked forward to it. The tourney and the war games were one aspect of his service that he enjoyed. But before they departed, Alan intended to ask for leave to visit his brother William. It wasn’t far to St Félix’s Monastery, which lay in the forest about ten miles west of Vannes. He only hoped that William was still there and that his talents as a painter had not been required elsewhere.

Alan kneed his mount through the crowd of courtiers. ‘What’s the name of the vessel, Your Grace?’ he asked. He had seen François de Roncier’s colours flying from a number of ships, and concluded the Count must yet be a force in the area.

‘Name? Oh. Sea Serpent.’

‘It’s in. There.’ Alan pointed past a wide-brimmed hat at a slender ship with a green painted snake curving along its prow. It was squeezed between two hulks flying de Roncier’s flag.

‘Out of my way, Martell,’ the Duke said. ‘And try and keep this lot out of it, will you?’

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ replied a handsome young knight clad simply in brown, a pheasant among the peacocks.

‘Come on, le Bret.’ Duke Geoffrey spurred through his courtiers towards the ship. Even as the Duke and Alan trotted up, the charger was being led off. He was vast, with heavy bones and crushing hoofs the size of trenchers. Every time he put a hoof down, the gangplank creaked and shuddered. His coat was dark as a moonless night. The Duke’s Master of the Horse was no runt, being a long, stick of a man who topped Alan by over a head, but the Duke’s new warhorse dwarfed him.

‘Jesu!’ Alan let out an appreciative whistle. ‘I hardly reach his shoulders!’

Duke Geoffrey grinned. ‘He’ll even the odds for me, eh, le Bret?’

‘Fit for a king,’ Alan said, sincerely.

The Duke’s grin enlarged. ‘That’s what I hoped you’d say. Philip will be green.’

‘The animal will bear your colours well, Your Grace. His midnight coat will be handsome against the black and white.’

‘That had occurred to me.’ The Duke dismounted, eyes fixed on the warhorse.

Alan decided that now would be a good a time as any to put in his request for leave. ‘Your Grace?’

‘Mmm?’ The Duke dropped Firebrand’s reins and moved forwards.

Jumping down to the quayside, Alan stooped for the abandoned courser’s reins. ‘About my leave–’

‘Not now, le Bret.’ Duke Geoffrey put his hand to the coal-black withers which rippled under his touch. The stallion stood firm and blew out through his nose.

‘Your Grace, at Suscinio last August you said I could take my leave in a month or two. It’s April now.’

The Duke sent him a preoccupied look, and turned back to his stallion. ‘Is he ready, Brian?’

‘As ready as he’ll ever be, Your Grace,’ the Master of the Horse said.

‘Fetch his saddle.’

Brian looked concerned. ‘But Your Grace...in town?’

‘In town,’ the Duke confirmed.

Alan patted Firebrand’s silken neck. ‘We’re forgotten, my friend,’ he said. Firebrand’s ears twitched. Alan raised his voice, ‘Your Grace?’

The Duke frowned. ‘Christ’s wounds, le Bret, I thought you’d gone back to your troop.’ Brian was returning with the saddle. Grabbing it, the Duke threw it over the warhorse’s broad back himself. ‘Go on then, le Bret. Where did you say you wanted to go?’

‘St Félix-in-the-Wood.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘It’s near Kermaria, Your Grace.’

The Duke straightened. ‘Kermaria. That name’s familiar. Who holds it, do you know?’

‘Sir Jean St Clair.’

The Duke rubbed his chin. ‘A tenant of mine, a small one, but nevertheless.... Has he sworn fealty?’

‘Not to my knowledge, Your Grace.’

The Duke grunted. ‘You may have a week’s leave, le Bret, on condition that you visit Kermaria on my behalf. I want a full report on this Sir Jean, and the state of his manor, number of serfs, freemen, soldiers, and so on. The place was derelict, but that may have changed. It may actually be useful these days. Sort it out with your men, and ask my chaplain to see you get a letter of introduction to take with you. I’m to meet with Duchess Constance, and if I’m gone when you return, go to Rennes. I’ll need you there.’

‘My thanks,’ Alan said. He was well content to have a legitimate excuse to visit his cousin. He had often wondered how Ned was faring. A lot could have happened to young Ned in the two years since Alan had seen him. And apparently St Félix’s cell was a stone’s throw from Kermaria. Alan was owed rather more than a week’s leave, but at this moment a week was all he wanted. He gestured to the chestnut courser whose reins he still held. ‘Shall I have Firebrand stabled, Your Grace?’

The Duke tightened his warhorse’s girth. ‘No, you can take him, le Bret. I know you enjoy riding him. Brian here can take your mount.’

‘Thank you, Your Grace.’ Alan tossed his own mount’s reins to the Master of the Horse, switched his gear to Firebrand and mounted him swiftly, lest the Duke changed his mind. He nudged the shining chestnut flanks with his heels and trotted briskly towards his men.

***

The larks that were carolling over the fields to the east could be heard clear over Kermaria marsh. But the larks were the first creatures to waken and as their song was the only sign of life, it went largely unheard. Dawn was an hour away. The whispering sedge and rushes, which a sharp frost had coated with a delicate film of ice, stood dumb, unmoved by wind or wildfowl. The coots and moorhens, snug in nests in the reeds, slept on. The stillness was absolute. It radiated from the marsh – a web of silence spun so large it cloaked not only mere and reeds but also the bridge, the peasants’ cots, the stables, and all of St Clair’s tower right up to the sentry who sat behind a merlon with his red head nodding over his spear. Everything was snared, gently, but firmly, in that web.

The disturbance was small at first. Hardly more than a shiver in the chill, dusky air, an imperceptible ripple of movement which shook the strands of the web and then faded. The silence seemed to grow heavier. Then the movement came again, only this time it was stronger. There was an insignificant sucking noise, as though someone had been marching through the marsh and had inadvertently put their foot into a boggy patch, and was pulling it free.