Ahead of her, St Peter’s bell tower loomed over the untidy rows of houses. The martins were there too, high in the sky, tiny black and white arrows diving and darting over Vannes. They would be able to see the whole of the port from up there.

Once, before the stiffness had crept into her bones, Izabel had taken Gwenn to the top of the wooden bell tower. The view it gave out over the town was extraordinary, and Gwenn would never forget it. To the south, the shadow of the tower pointed towards the port. She had seen the harbour, a long, dark finger of water which shone in the sunlight and teemed with boats reduced by the distance to a child’s toy flotilla. And beyond the harbour was the more distant glimmer of the Small Sea. Nearer to hand – to north, and west, and east – Gwenn had looked down on line after wiggly line of ramshackle wooden houses hugging the Cathedral Close. Vannes was a beehive of a town. From the vantage point of the tower, it looked as though a giant hand had reached down from heaven and squashed everything together, but the hand had done its work badly, for there was not a straight line or angle in the whole town. Many dwellings were little more than decaying hovels. Many needed rethatching. Doors swung at improbable angles, and the sea breeze rattled shutters dangling precariously on rust-eaten hinges. All the buildings, shabby and otherwise, buzzed with activity. Most of the streets were narrow, cramped and crooked, an unplanned cluster of alleys reeking with the stench of fish, but a few were marginally broader and grander; and these radiated out from the cathedral. La Rue de la Monnaie, on which Gwenn lived, was one of these more prosperous streets. She did not have far to go to reach St Peter’s, there to await the preaching of Father Jerome, the Black Monk.

Chapter Two

Duke’s Tavern sat across the square from St Peter’s Cathedral. Trade was so brisk that the innkeeper, Mikael Brasher, was beginning to worry. His inn was bursting at the seams with unruly strangers, wine was being quaffed as though it were water and violence of some sort seemed inevitable.

Uneasy, he scratched the back of his neck and blinked through the smoke haze which spiralled out from the cooking fire. Over the years, Mikael had developed an instinct for trouble, and he recognised that itch as a warning signal. A bench crashed to the ground. It was not the first that morning. Someone let out a bellow worthy of a prize bull.

‘More wine!’ Mikael cried, grabbing a flagon and donning his most genial smile. In spite of his broad girth, the innkeeper could be nimble as a dancer when he chose. Double chins wobbling, he slid swiftly between the rough-hewn tables to the source of the noise and signalled to the potboy, Tristan, to set the bench to rights. If anyone in Vannes could stop a riot it was Mikael Brasher. The trick was to sniff out the troublemakers before they had time to brew up a riot. Sniff them out and disarm them.

Two men, red-faced with wine and anger, confronted each other across a table. Mikael waved the wine flask like a flag of truce between them. They were ugly customers these, with calloused hands already clawing out their daggers, they looked like mercenaries. Professional killers. Professional swillers. French mostly. Scum. They drove away good, honest Breton locals. Mikael did not have time to ponder on their being in his tavern.

‘It’s on the house!’ he bawled over the din. The bellowing subsided and an astonished silence gripped his auditors. Four drink-hazed eyes locked onto the flask as though it was the Holy Grail. Mikael’s lips twitched. His supposition had been correct. They were mercenaries. And the mercenary had not been born that would turn down an offer of free wine. Daggers clicked back into sheaths, the flagon vanished from his hand and the two mercenaries flopped back onto their benches. The regular hum of conversation resumed. Mikael rolled his eyes to the rafters, and suppressed a grin. The free wine trick worked every time. It was like pouring oil on troubled waters. Jesu, but it was busier than market day, Mikael thought, squinting at the ungovernable crew filling his benches.

Tristan was at his elbow, a worried crease wrinkling his forehead. ‘It’s noisy, sir,’ Tristan said.

Mikael nodded brusquely. ‘Aye. And hot.’ He waited for Tristan to go about his business, but the lad fixed him with a peculiarly intense stare and didn’t budge. ‘Tristan?’

‘Shall I fetch help? We...we’re a bit short of it this morning, I think.’ Again that intense, meaningful stare.

Mikael grinned and gave the boy a playful punch in the stomach. ‘A kind thought, but there’s no need. I’m not in my dotage yet. We can handle them. Go and tap that new barrel in the yard.’

Tristan gazed at his employer a moment longer, then he nodded and turned away.

The boy was right about the noise. It was reaching unbearable levels. And the lack of air was stifling. Using the cloth wrapped round his waist, Mikael scrubbed the sweat from his brow. It was not the first time that the advent of a preacher at the Cathedral had doubled his business overnight, but these foreigners – Mikael grimaced – were not the usual run of the mill. He’d take his oath that they’d not a spiritual bone in their bodies. Their kind would sooner die than see the inside of a church. As for their coming to hear the Black Monk – it simply did not tally.

He edged through the door for a breather. It was curious how his regulars had given Duke’s a miss this morning; he hardly recognised a soul. Perhaps they had itches at the backs of their necks, too. Hardly a Breton in sight. His sweat-beaded brow furrowed as he scowled up at his upstairs window. That Frenchman closeted up there had to be paymaster for the rabble below. He racked his brains for the foreigner’s name. Ah! he had it now, François de Roncier. A French count.

The innkeeper cocked a weather eye at the sun. He made it to be after noon. A crowd was gathering round the church porch. Now there were the folk he knew. He caught sight of his daughter, Irene, in her pink bliaud, her over-gown, with a basket hanging on arm. If Irene was waiting, the monk would be spouting soon. Irene never wasted time. She was a good girl, was his Irene.

Irene had seen him standing in the doorway. She crossed the square. ‘Why so glum, Father? Custom looks good today.’

Mikael smiled resignedly. ‘Too good, my sweet. Too good. I’d wish them in Hell if I thought it would get rid of them.’

‘Father?’

‘Don’t trouble your head over it, daughter.’

Irene’s red lips curved. ‘I begin to comprehend. Your customers must be French.’

Mikael spared her a startled look. She understood more than he gave her credit for. ‘They are. And I can’t help wondering what Devil’s draught they’re brewing.’

‘Why do you dislike the French so, Father? I’ve always wondered.’

Mikael swiftly ran his mind over the countless border disputes and wrangles that had disrupted the peace in recent years and gave as an honest an answer as he could. ‘It’s not just the French. It’s foreigners in general. They’re all greedy and quarrelsome. Look at the French and English kings; they fight over Brittany like dogs scrapping over a bone. Whenever foreigners appear, Irene, you can bet your last penny that trouble isn’t far behind them.’

Irene digested this. ‘Why are they here this time?’

‘Christ knows. Nothing springs to mind, it’s been quiet of late. The two foreign kings must have been snarling over other bones.’ The innkeeper shot another glance of acute dislike at the upstairs window. ‘I can think of no reason for a French count to be skulking in our private chamber with his pack of hell-hounds straining at the leash.’ Seeing his daughter’s brows twitch together, the innkeeper hastened to reassure her. ‘It’s probably some petty personal feud, my sweet. Though why in God’s name the nobility don’t learn to keep their quarrels to themselves, I don’t know. They’ve no cause to bring chaos to Brittany as well as their own lands.’