He jerked his grizzled head towards the ceiling. ‘Do the children know?’

‘Know what? That they’re yours? That they’re bastards,’ her lover flinched, ‘and that, though you swore you’d marry me years ago, you’ve not honoured that promise? You made me what I am, Jean, and now...now I begin to think you’re ashamed of me.’

Jean reached out a finger and gently touched her cheek. ‘Not ashamed, love, never that. Politics has dictated my actions. The time has not been ripe.’ Jean lowered his eyes to stare at the ring which adorned the little finger of his left hand. ‘If only Waldin would retire from the lists.’

‘Your brother?’ Yolande snorted. ‘The moon will turn green before that happens. Everyone knows how the great tourney champion Waldin St Clair is married to the lists. He’ll not leave the circuit till age or infirmity drive him away.’

Mournfully, Jean agreed, ‘I know.’ He brightened, ‘but when he does retire we could use his name to drum up support. Men might not like to ally themselves with a poor knight, but with Waldin at our side...’

‘Sometimes,’ Yolande murmured softly, ‘I wonder if you are afraid.’

Jean shot her a sharp look, bridling, but her smile had disarmed him, as she hoped it would. To Yolande, and Yolande alone, Jean St Clair could confess to fear. His shoulders drooped. ‘Who would not be afraid?’ He smiled. ‘As a mere knight I’ve never had the manpower to uphold our claim to your mother’s inheritance. De Roncier would have wiped us out before we had begun. No, love, I believed it to be safer for you and the children if he thought you were no threat. As my mistress you pose no threat. As a wife who could provide me with a legitimate male heir, an heir to those lands of your mother’s, it becomes altogether a different kettle of fish.’

‘So I believed, until today.’ Yolande drifted away from him. ‘Have you heard the latest gossip concerning your Frenchwoman?’

‘La belle Louise?’ He grinned and smoothed his greying moustache. ‘You’re not jealous? I thought you understood I’ve been ingratiating myself with her family in order to lull de Roncier’s suspicions. If he believes I am considering an alliance with the French, he’d not harm you. Come, sweet. Don’t be angry. You know I’ll never marry her.’ He directed a smile she recognised as one of his best at her.

‘Why do you think he took it into his head to loose his dogs on Gwenn?’ Yolande asked, eyeing him closely.

‘I’m blessed if I know.’

‘Perhaps he heard that Louise has got tired of waiting and has married another.’ That was the rumour that was flying round the town.

He stared, moustache drooping, face ludicrous with dismay.

Yolande had to laugh. ‘It never occurred to you did it? You never stopped to think that your French flower might not wait for ever. You’ve been dangling her on a string for years. Of course, it might not be true, but my source was good.’

‘Source?’

‘Father Mark, who married her.’

Jean’s eyes looked cloudy and confused. ‘Christ, I go away for a week’s hunting and look what happens. She kept that dark. I thought she’d wait.’

‘Such arrogance needs humbling, my love.’

‘So that’s why he moved today,’ Jean murmured.

‘Don’t test my loyalty to the limit,’ Yolande said. ‘Don’t be certain I’ll wait forever. I, too, may get tired of waiting.’

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Nay, love. What of our ambitions?’

‘Our ambitions?’ Yolande knew her laugh was brittle. ‘The only ambition I have ever had is to be able to tell my children and my mother that I am your lawful wife. With all my heart I wish that our children were legitimate, but it would take a Papal decree to accomplish that.’

‘Do they know I’m their father?’

‘No. Aye. Oh, I don’t know. Jean, my life is becoming a tangle of lies and deceit. Raymond heard the townsfolk tattling – you can’t keep a fifteen year old boy in the dark – and I had to admit the truth to the boy.’

Jean’s eyes were bleak. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘There must be an end to the lies. Take us to Kermaria.’

‘Kermaria?’ Yolande’s lover shook his head. ‘I’ve neglected it sadly. Kermaria’s a backwater.’

‘I’d live in hell if it meant my children would be safe! And my mother longs to leave Vannes. Izabel is conscious of great shame here. She has always hated it.’

‘I doubt she minds,’ Jean said with a flash of dark humour. ‘Shame is a cross your mother likes to bear. There’s something of the martyr in her.’

‘Jean!’

‘Believe me, she enjoys it.’

‘You say that because it suits you. You say that because you don’t want to take us.’

‘It’s no use your turning those green eyes on me,’ Jean said stiffly. ‘It’s not a time of my choosing.’

‘Not a time of your choosing!’ Yolande lost grip of her temper. ‘I’ve been waiting sixteen years for the time to be right! When will it be right, that’s what I want to know? When?’

‘It could spoil every–’

‘It could kill our children, if that thieving vulture strikes again!’ She saw Jean’s jaw harden.

‘Be reasonable, woman,’ he said, striking a fist against his thigh. ‘It’s for the best. Think of our children’s future.’

‘Our children’s future?’ Yolande spoke so quietly that Jean had to bend his head to hear her. ‘If you sacrifice any more of the present, they’ll have no future left.’

Sighing, Jean draped an arm round her. ‘It won’t be for much longer. I’ll write to Waldin.’

‘Waldin? Pah! You’ve not been in touch for years.’

‘I’ll write,’ Jean insisted, ‘and enlist his aid. We were close before he left to fight his way through the tourneys. He may be a champion, but I don’t think he will resist a call to arms from his brother. Waldin will come home, and you, my love, will be forced to eat your scornful words. Soon we’ll be in a position to strike. Soon.’

‘And you’ll take us to Kermaria?’ If Jean refused her, Yolande would be forced to sell the gem and flee.

The knight stared at her, brown eyes shielded, and Yolande stared back at him, balling her hands so that the nails dug into her palms. ‘Sometimes, Jean,’ she muttered, ‘I think that I hate you.’ She had come to the end of her tether.

He capitulated. ‘Of course, my love, we’ll go to Kermaria.’

Yolande closed her eyes, unaware that the intensity of her relief made her face haggard. ‘Thank the Lord.’ She let her head rest on Jean’s familiar shoulder. ‘I pray this tangle can be unravelled soon. I’m tired of living in fear. Our children have a right to be safe.’ Moving out of her lover’s arms, she crossed to the shutter and fastened it with a snap. She glanced up at the rafters; she could hear movement upstairs. ‘Jean, when shall I tell them we’re going?’

He shrugged. ‘Whenever you like.’

Yolande smiled.

***

That evening, without consulting Izabel, Yolande decided to remove the diamond from its resting place in the cedar wood base of the Virgin.

Gwenn’s ordeal had been a poignant reminder of the vulnerability of their position; and until her family was safely housed at Kermaria, Yolande was taking no chances. The gem was all the security she had, and she wanted it safely in her personal keeping. The jewel had once belonged to de Roncier’s grandmother, Andaine, and he might know of it. He might strike again.

Waiting till her mother’s bedchamber was empty, Yolande crept in and twisted the wooden plinth from the statue. A leather pouch fell from the secret cavity. Opening the pouch, Yolande removed the gemstone and dropped it into the purse at her belt.

There was a danger that Izabel might decide to look at the diamond, but Yolande had thought of that. She had a substitute in the pocket of her bliaud. It was a sunstone, or sailor’s stone, so named because pieces of quartz like it were once used in navigation. Its shape roughly resembled the gem’s. It would not bear close inspection, for the sunstone was cloudy and chipped – it had none of the sharp brilliance of the valuable jewel. But if her mother were to make an inspection, she would most likely to do so at night when there was less chance of Raymond or Gwenn discovering her. Weighing the sunstone in her hands, Yolande smiled with satisfaction. Its weight matched that of the real gem. Carefully, she put the sunstone in the pouch and tightened the strings. As long as Izabel didn’t look too closely, she might not remark on the difference. The exchange would give Yolande a little time, and would save her from lengthy and tedious explanations. There was little to be gained in alarming her mother with her fears. Once they reached Kermaria, Yolande would replace the real gem.