‘You make one move after her, Edward, my lad, and I’ll see to it you forfeit every penny de Roncier owes you.’

Alan took Ned’s slack-jawed look of disbelief without a flinching. ‘You b...bastard!’ Ned got out, tripping over his tongue. ‘You bastard!’

Alan shrugged. The more enraged Ned became, the easier it was for him to maintain his distance. Long ago, Alan had discovered that an ability to remain unmoved in the face of other people’s anger was a great strength. ‘Aye,’ he agreed, blandly, ‘and you’d do best to remember that.’

The anger was slow to fade from the young trooper’s face. ‘My mother told me you were like this,’ he said, when he had calmed enough to speak coherently, ‘before we left England. She was against my going with you. But I admired my clever older cousin; I was envious of the skills your father had taught you, and longed to be as deft with the sword. God help me, I longed for your sang-froid. I looked up to you, and I thought my mother was wrong. I took your coldness for a mask which you chose to hide behind. But my mother was not wrong, was she, Alan? It’s more than a mask. It goes right through.’

Alan simply looked at Ned.

‘Jesu, Alan! You’ve a heart of stone!’

Alan let a corner of his mouth twitch upwards. ‘But I survive, Ned. And that’s the beginning and the end of it.’

Ned snorted.

Alan turned on his heel. ‘We should leave before St Clair hears about this. De Roncier doesn’t want a full-blown war on his hands. For God’s sake, pull yourself together, Ned. You’ve the makings of a good soldier if you don’t let your emotions master you.’

Though Alan would never confess it, he was relieved this distasteful business was concluded. With luck the townsfolk would scare the women witless, and they would fly Vannes. He wondered what they had done to incur de Roncier’s wrath; but when a few moments’ thought did not throw up a satisfactory answer, he fell to wondering what his next commission would entail. He hoped it would be a good, straight fight. Of course he’d do anything as long as he was paid for it – he was a professional – but affairs like this left him with a sour taste in his mouth for all that he affected otherwise. Privately, he agreed with Ned, it was a shabby affair. They had been setting a mob on a defenceless girl. She’d be bound to outrun them, but whatever angle you viewed it from, it remained a dirty business. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. A good, straight fight, that’s what he wanted. There was nothing quite like pitting yourself against an equal and winning.

A happy thought came to him. ‘Fletcher?’

‘Sir?’

‘Didn’t the good monk say today was Lady Day?’

‘He did. What of it?’

‘Lady Day is a Quarter Day.’ Alan signalled to his men to fall in behind him.

‘Pay day!’

‘Quite so. Remind me to have a word in my lord’s ear. We can’t have de Roncier neglecting his obligations, when we’re so efficient, eh?’

‘N...no, sir.’

With Ned toeing the line again, Alan turned his mind to de Roncier. De Roncier had a bad name when it came to paying his dues, and when Alan and Ned had enlisted, Alan knew there was a chance they might never get paid. But work for inexperienced soldiers was hard to find, and when they’d both been accepted, he’d jumped at the chance, being unwilling at that stage to leave young Ned to fend for himself. Alan might well have become a cold-blooded mercenary as his cousin claimed, but of all de Roncier’s officers he prided himself on the fact that Captain Alan le Bret saw his men got paid first. Impatiently, Alan pushed Ned’s disapproval to one side. Ned could do a lot worse, and he knew it.

***

Gwenn pelted the full length of La Rue des Vierges in an attempt to shake off the mob, but she could still hear them and knew that she had failed.

It was the worst of nightmares.

Burned into her brain was the image of the dark mercenary bending to scoop up the stone. Over and over in her mind’s eye she saw his cold eyes narrow as he took aim. The bruise on her stomach throbbed in time with the thumping of her heart; but despite this proof that this was no nightmare but grim reality, Gwenn’s disbelieving mind was frozen with shock. She could not believe that this was happening to her. Why should someone she had never seen before set a mob on her? Why? The question echoed back and forth in her head.

Fortunately, her legs worked independently of her stunned brain, and Gwenn flew to the crossroads where La Rue des Vierges and La Rue de la Monnaie met. Her veil slipped from her head. She left it behind. She ran on up the street, towards safety. She slipped in some mud, lost a shoe, and staggered on without it. The street had never seemed so long before.

Clutching her chest to keep her heart from bursting, she skidded to a halt and dragged in a lungful of air. Ten dwellings away, her mother’s house beckoned. Safety. Gwenn balked. Safety? Frozen no longer, her thoughts whirled. What was she to do? Lead the mob to the doorstep of her home? What would they do if they followed her there?

It made no sense. None of this made any sense. There had been people she knew in St Peter’s, people who yesterday, while they had not been friendly, had at least had exchanged the time of day with her and her grandmother. Why was this happening? Why? If Father Jerome’s words had wrought this change in the townsfolk, then his words must issue from the mouth of the Devil. This was not the work of God.

Gwenn sucked in another lungful of air and glanced back the way she had come. ‘Sweet Mary, let them not have seen me come down this street.’ And then her heart leaped into her throat, for her veil was fluttering from a nail on a post, as bright and as brash as a knight’s pennon at a joust. Her blue silk slipper betrayed her too; it sat glowing like a jewel in a dark muddy patch. She couldn’t have left a more obvious track if she’d tried. She must retrieve her possessions before they were seen.

Two people hurtled into view. There was no sign of the soldier who had thrown the first stone, but an exultant howl rose on the warm spring air. ‘The whore’s bastard! Get her!’

More people appeared, and more. They stopped at the head of the street. They looked at her. They seemed to be waiting, and all of the time more of them came, and more, like floodwater building up behind a beaver’s dam that must give way at any moment.

Gwenn let out a whimper and was off again. No time to retrieve either veil or shoe. It was too late anyway, they’d seen her. No time to think what they’d do when she got home. She must run, run, run. Something stung the back of her head. She ignored it. Something struck her shoulder. She missed her footing. All but blind with panic, she found her feet and charged on.

‘Run, Gwenn! Run!’ Her brother’s voice! It came from somewhere in front of her. She raced towards it, sobbing with relief. ‘Run, Gwenn!’ Raymond was at her side. She could not see him clearly for a dark mist clouded her vision.

It was raining missiles. One of them smacked her cheek. Raymond must have been hit too, for blood was streaked across his temple, and his wavy brown hair was plastered with mud. Two years her senior, Raymond had long legs. She would never keep pace with him. But Raymond had her by the arm, was dragging, pushing, shoving.

‘Raymond!’ Gwenn managed to screech. ‘They’re on us!’

‘Save your breath! Inside!’ Wrenching the door wide, Raymond bundled her up the steps. The door crashed. Three heavy bolts rammed home. Gwenn’s legs gave beneath her and she fell gasping onto the floorboards. The dark mist was thicker and starred with white dots.

Izabel had been setting pleats in a chainse – a shirt – in the light inside the doorway. ‘Whatever is it? What’s amiss?’ she demanded querulously, throwing the snowy linen aside.

Gwenn looked up as her grandmother floated towards her through wave after wave of starry blackness. The starry blackness began to drift up and down in front of Gwenn’s eyes, like a curtain waving in the breeze. ‘Blessed Mother–’