‘Do you trust the pedlar?’

Otto held up a chinking drawstring pouch. ‘He’s vermin. But as long as I hold this, I trust him. Conan will be back.’

***

‘You made me walk so far and so fast, Conan, my shoes are wearing out,’ Johanna said, stopping to sit on a milestone. A grey rat of a dog that had crawled out of the ground-elder by the Kermaria crossroads and had been shadowing them squatted in the road by her shoes and scratched a ragged ear. Conan had not slackened his pace, but Johanna picked up her feet and examined them. Blisters were forming – she was not used to walking. The mongrel’s stumpy tail gave a tentative wag. ‘Why is this thing following us, Conan?’

With a sigh, Conan stopped and frowned over his shoulder. ‘It’s a pest, a stray.’ Impatience was building up within him. They had not progressed above three miles; she walked painfully slowly, did his sister. ‘You should have shown some restraint at table, Johanna,’ he said. ‘There’s too much of you to carry about, that’s why your feet ache. You’re fatter than ever you were before you went to Kermaria.’

A shadow darkened Johanna’s plump countenance. Ned had preferred Gwenn Herevi over her, and Gwenn Herevi was skinny as a rake. She did not like to think that there might be some truth in her brother’s accusation. ‘It’s all very well for you to criticise, Conan, but how could I let all that food go to waste? They ate well at the manor. A saint on a Lenten fast would have been tempted. Besides, I was eating for two.’

‘Three more like,’ Conan responded sourly.

Johanna flexed her feet, counted another blister on one of her heels, and began massaging her toes.

‘Come on, do,’ Conan said, glancing at the sun. ‘I want to be back in Vannes before they lock the gates.’

‘Look, Conan, already there’s a hole in this shoe.’ Poking her finger through a rent in the leather where the upper had come away from the sole, Johanna waggled her shoe at him. The dog cocked its head on one side.

Conan prepared to walk on. ‘You can buy more shoes in Vannes, I’ve lodgings directly over the cobblers.’

‘Buy more shoes? But, Conan, I’ve no money.’

The pedlar stood still as a standing stone. ‘What, none?’

Johanna should have been warned by the set of her brother’s shoulders, but with her mind fixed on her feet, she did not notice. ‘Not a penny,’ she said, cheerfully. ‘I spent what I had on the material to make this dress.’

Conan turned. ‘I’d hoped for help with the rent. I can’t afford to keep you. I don’t need no bloody millstone.’

‘I should have thought you’ve feathered your nest enough on what I told you concerning Kermaria,’ Johanna said sharply. ‘You could help me out till I find...an alternative means of support.’

The pedlar gazed coldly at his sister. ‘I found you that position at Kermaria,’ he said, as if he’d gone out of his way to find her the job. He had indeed done well out of placing her with St Clair, but it didn’t suit him to admit that. ‘I owe you nothing. Plums like that can’t fall in your lap every day of the week.’

According to Otto Malait, the ungrateful wench was holding something back. Perhaps he could induce her to confide in him by trickery. Or fear. Fear would have to be a last resort, it might turn her away from him. However, a pinch of it would not go amiss. If Johanna was worried he might not take her in, it might spur her to talk freely.

Not for a moment did it occur to Conan to play on his sister’s affections. His life had never been enriched with family feeling, and he was Johanna’s brother only when it suited him. In the inn all those months ago when he had overheard Ned Fletcher and Raymond Herevi mention a wet nurse, he had remembered the Count’s interest in the St Clair family and had seen at once that there was gain for him in sending Johanna to Kermaria. His sister’s needs had not weighed with him at all. If the opportunity had not presented itself, he would just as happily have seen her reduced to beggary.

Now, on the long road to Vannes, he was irritable. Johanna was too slow, but he could not abandon her till he had the information Malait wanted. He cast his eyes up the road and saw, balanced on the rim of the horizon, a building which to an innocent eye resembled a hundred other wayside taverns. It had an unsavoury reputation. Honest women shunned the place, for inside, women of another stamp took the drinks to the customers’ trestles. And if, as often was the case, more intimate services were required of the women, they would lead their clients to an upstairs chamber where two rows of pallets were spread over the floorboards, each screened from the next by a series of dingy, moth-eaten curtains stretched out on poles. The tattered curtains made a mockery of privacy, but no one ever complained.

Following the direction of her brother’s gaze, and not knowing the reputation of the inn, Johanna’s eyes brightened. ‘Is that a hostelry, Conan? I’m hungry, I’ve not broken my fast. And despite that water you gave me, I could drink a well dry.’ Johanna was so invigorated by the sight of the inn that she jammed her shoes back on her swollen feet and hobbled towards him. The cur followed.

Conan opened his mouth to loose a scathing comment about gluttony, but inspiration struck and he held his peace. Perhaps if he indulged his sister and bought her wine, that would loosen her tongue. Maybe he should try persuasion on her instead of the threats he habitually used. Pinning a passable smile to his face, he held out his hand, ‘Come on, Johanna. If you step out a little, I’ll buy you some food when we reach the tavern.’

Johanna gave him a grateful smile and wondered silently what had persuaded him to offer her food instead of insults. She threaded her arm through his and limped steadily on.

Inside the hostelry, Johanna was at first too thirsty to take an account of her surroundings, and when Conan ordered a full jug of Gascon wine to be brought to their table – an expense she had never known him spare her before – it would have seemed churlish to have refused such untoward generosity and admit to a preference for a measure of small ale.

The wine was rich and heady and made her head spin. ‘Why, Conan!’ she exclaimed, when she had drained her cup. ‘You are good to me!’

Conan did not feel at all generous. Reluctantly, he topped up her cup. The mongrel had slunk under the table and to relieve his feelings, Conan tried to kick it, but the dog, used to this treatment, nimbly evaded his boot. Indeed, the expenditure rankled to such an extent that when the whore who was serving them demanded instant payment, Conan fumbled the coins, dropping them on the floor. He picked them up, and the brainless dog licked his hand. ‘You’ve had a hard time of it lately, sister,’ Conan said when the wench had disappeared with his money. And though the words stuck in his throat, he even managed to add, ‘If your brother cannot buy you a drink at a time of trial, who can?’

If Conan’s generosity was unexpected, his sympathy was doubly so, and the dim hostelry was lost in a sudden mist as Johanna counted her miseries and her eyes brimmed. Ned Fletcher’s bright, Saxon features wavered in her mind’s eye. Her feet throbbed. She had no money. She would never see the English captain again. Thrusting her nose into her cup, she emptied it like a trooper.

Trusting his money was well-spent, Conan had the bottle ready and poured bravely.

‘I’m hungry, Conan,’ Johanna said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

‘I’ll order in a minute, the servers are busy.’ The servers were not busy, but Conan wanted his sister well-oiled before she ate. If she ate before she drank, it would cost twice as much in wine to make her talk. He regarded her impartially while he waited for the wine to take effect.

Johanna had rolled her wide sleeves up to her elbows and her plump arms rested on the table. Her cheeks were round, rosy and shiny as two apples, for the walk had made her hot, and her face and forehead bore a film of perspiration. More downy hairs covered her upper lip. The dress that she had so improvidently wasted her money on, was of good quality fabric, but it was now stained with the dust of the road and there were unsightly sweat marks under her arms.