‘Aye.’ Her voice was faint.

‘Stand aside, I’m coming down!’

Johanna’s hand fluttered out. ‘Ned?’ He paused, suspended by strong arms over the gap the mason had cut into the stone. He hung like a man halfway between Heaven and Hell. ‘Good luck, Captain.’ And Johanna could not prevent herself from moving towards him. She planted a kiss full on his mouth and received a preoccupied smile of acknowledgement; a crumb that she would treasure for the rest of her life. Ned lowered himself into the unfinished shaft. Johanna could see the metal rivets on the top of his helmet, and his bloodied hands gripping the mouth of the shaft. His fingers moved, and he vanished from her life. She sagged against the wall and put her fingers to her lips where they had touched his.

He had gone, and not a moment too soon. The solar door was giving way. In a trance, Johanna listened to the wood splintering apart and the rasping male voices which were getting louder. Her throat ached as though she’d been throttled. Sucking in a lungful of air, she became of something moving at the boundary of her vision.

‘Katarin!’ He had asked her to send the child down. The child, all eyes, made no answer. Wiping her sleeve across her eyes, Johanna held out her hand. ‘Come along, Katarin.’ The child was sucking her thumb so hard her cheeks were hollow. Johanna hoped she was not going to kick up a fuss. ‘Katarin, Mistress Gwenn’s waiting for you.’

Meekly, the child stepped forward and offered Johanna the hand that was not in her mouth.

‘Good girl,’ Johanna said, much relieved. ‘I’ll have you with your sister in an instant.’ And securing the sheet Gwenn had tied round the child’s waist, Johanna guided her to the privy and eased her through the gap. She lowered her down. And during the whole procedure Katarin said not a single word, not even whimpering when the sheet was stretched to its full length and Johanna released it so Ned could catch her at the bottom.

In the solar the air was heavy with sobbing and Holy Mary’s tireless chanting. Holy Mary was Johanna’s secret name for the serving woman. Mary knelt, dutiful to the last, with her head bowed before the vacant shelf where the statue of Our Lady had rested minutes earlier. The other women knelt in groups around her, clinging to each other as they wept.

Behind the tapestry screening the privy, Johanna felt stifled. She was not afraid as the other women were for she had good reason to believe that she would not be harmed. She did not want to join the other women, but there was something she ought to do...

Taking up the candle, Johanna kicked the other incriminating sheets out of sight down the shaft, and stepped confidently out. The hinges on the solar door would not withstand that relentless hammering many seconds longer. The gap between hinges and wall was widening, the door curving inwards.

Swift as an arrow, Johanna sped for Philippe’s walnut cot. She stripped what was left of the bedding from it and stuffed the baby’s mattress under Gwenn’s bed. Collecting all the infant’s linen and blankets, she rolled them into a ball and ran to the hearth. Raking the ashes into life, she cast the ball of cloth onto the embers and poked it till a warm, golden glow was thrown over the room.

When the glow fell on Holy Mary’s pallid face, the flow of petitions faltered. ‘What are you doing, Johanna?’ she asked in a strained voice. Mary had always struck Johanna as a jumpy, nervous woman. It was a wonder she wasn’t wailing with the other ninnies.

‘Covering up stray tracks,’ Johanna said. Someone had to be practical. She didn’t think praying would do much good. Satisfied that Philippe’s belongings would be burnt to nothing in a couple of heartbeats, Johanna scooped up a handful of ashes and ran back to the crib. Booting it into the darkest corner, she smeared its polished surface with the ashes, and stood back to admire her handiwork. She wiped her hands on her skirts and walked back into the solar.

At that moment, the door hinges came out of the wall and the door crashed flat, raising a small cloud of dust. For a few seconds there was a grim silence. A nail rolled loudly across the wooden boards. A woman gasped, and muffled it. Klara gave a shaky wail. And a heartbeat later Otto Malait, puce in the face and eyes because his blood was up, bore down upon the kneeling women, brandishing a crimson-tipped axe. Bella screamed.

Otto quartered the chamber for resistance; encountering none, he regretfully lowered his axe. Throwing a scornful glance at the quaking women, he strode past them, raised his frightful axe, and let it bite deep into the window shutters. ‘It’s black as pitch in here,’ he growled.

Outside the despoiled manor, darkness was retreating; and as wooden splinters darted in all directions, the rising sun shot orange spears of light into the solar. More de Roncier mercenaries poured over the wreckage in the doorway. Nicholas Warr, archer, was among them, his face carrying the uneasy expression of a man wearing a tunic that did not quite fit. He was carrying a blooded shortsword instead of his bow.

Mary saw him, and her jaw sagged. She drew a shaky cross on her breast. ‘Save us, Sweet Mother.’

Johanna regarded Otto with dull eyes. This was the Count’s right-hand man. ‘Captain Malait, isn’t it?’

He had gore in his beard. ‘Aye. And who might you be?’ He took off his helmet, but was no less terrible.

‘My name is Johanna.’

Otto’s eyes narrowed. This was Conan’s spy of a sister. ‘I hardly recognise you, you’re gowned so grandly. Where’s the brat? And where did Fletcher fly to?’

Johanna’s heart began beating with thick, slow, heavy strokes. She did not care a scrap about Gwenn Herevi, but this man must not reach Ned Fletcher, or her Philippe.

‘Spit it out, slut.’

‘You’re too late, Captain Malait.’

‘Too late? Where are they, girl?’

‘The babe caught a marsh fever,’ Johanna improvised. She knew a peasant’s baby had died a few days ago. ‘They buried him a week ago. Jean St Clair has no legitimate heir.’

The Viking’s eyes bored into her. ‘You’re lying! You would have sent word. Why did you not send word?’

It was a struggle to hold the pale, disbelieving gaze. ‘I would have, if Conan had come. Only my brother has not been here this past fortnight.’

Otto came to stand in front of her, and Johanna felt as though he could see through her flesh to the marrow of her bones. ‘You’re lying,’ he repeated, lifting his grisly axe. ‘And I want the truth, my pretty.’

Johanna discovered that she was prepared to die to protect Ned and the infant. She steeled herself not to cry out. She was dead anyway now he had gone.

‘She speaks truly!’ Mary burst out. Johanna watched, bemused, as Holy Mary surged up from the hearth, poker in hand, and corroborated her hastily spun web of lies. A flake of ash drifted from the tip of the poker. ‘Master Philippe died the Sabbath before last, and the little mite sleeps in the graveyard yonder.’ Using the poker, Mary pointed at the wall beyond which lay the hallowed ground of the graveyard.

Not in a thousand years would Johanna have guessed that Holy Mary had it in her to lie so convincingly. Finding that she was glad to have kept all her limbs in one piece, Johanna fired a grateful look at her before squinting surreptitiously at the fire. Not a shred of the baby’s linen remained. Relief – which she never thought to feel again – flooded through her. Perhaps, with Mary’s assistance, she might secure Ned’s escape...

‘Look, Captain,’ Johanna said, ‘look at the cradle. You can see for yourself it’s not been used lately.’

Stalking to the empty wooden crib, Malait peered in. ‘It’s soiled.’

‘Aye,’ brave, saintly Mary backed her up, ‘it’s not been used in over a week.’

Otto drew off his gauntlets and ran a calloused finger the length of the crib. It came away coated in grime. He rubbed finger and thumb together and lifted them to his nose. He sniffed. ‘Too soiled, perhaps?’