That frisson of fear gave her extra strength. With a mighty heave she moved the stone an inch or two. It covered a hole about a foot deep. She managed to move the stone a little farther. Inside the hole was a wide leather belt. She put her hand in and drew the belt out.

“There!” she said aloud. “I’ve got it.” It gave her great satisfaction to think that she had defeated the dishonest priest and retrieved her father’s money. Then, as she stood up, she realized that her victory was qualified: the belt felt suspiciously light. She unfastened the end and tipped out the coins. There were only ten of them. Ten bezants were worth a pound of silver.

What had happened to the rest? Father Ralph had spent it! She became enraged again. Her father’s money was all she had in the world and a thieving priest had taken four fifths of it. She marched out of the church, swinging the belt. On the street, a passerby looked startled when he caught her eye, as if there was something odd about her expression. She took no notice and went into the priest’s house.

Richard was standing over Father Ralph, with his sword at the priest’s throat. As Aliena came through the door she screamed: “Where’s the rest of my father’s money?”

“Gone,” the priest whispered.

She knelt by his head and put her knife to his face. “Gone where?”

“I spent it,” he confessed in a voice hoarse with fear.

Aliena wanted to stab him, or beat him, or throw him into a river; but none of it would do any good. He was telling the truth. She looked at the overturned barrel: a drinking man could get through a great deal of beer. She felt as if she might explode with frustration. “I’d cut off your ear if I could sell it for a penny,” she hissed at him. He looked as if he thought she might cut it off anyway.

Richard said anxiously: “He’s spent the money. Let’s take what we’ve got and go.”

He was right, Aliena realized reluctantly. Her anger began to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of bitterness. There was nothing to be gained by frightening the priest any more, and the longer they stayed, the more chance there was that someone would come in and cause trouble. She stood up. “All right,” she said. She put the gold coins back in the belt and buckled it around her waist beneath her cloak. She pointed a finger at the priest. “I may come back one day and kill you,” she spat.

She went out.

She strode away along the narrow street. Richard caught up with her hurrying. “You were wonderful, Allie!” he said excitedly. “You scared him half to death-and you got the money!”

She nodded. “Yes, I did,” she said sourly. She was still tense, but now that her fury had abated she felt deflated and unhappy.

“What shall we buy?” he said eagerly.

“Just a little food for our journey.”

“Shan’t we buy horses?”

“Not with a pound.”

“Still, we could get you some boots.”

She considered that. The clogs tortured her but the ground was too cold for bare feet. However, boots were expensive and she was reluctant to spend the money so quickly. “No,” she decided. “I’ll live a few more days without boots. We’ll keep the money for now.”

He was disappointed, but he did not dispute her authority. “What food shall we get?”

“Horsebread, hard cheese and wine.”

“Let’s get some pies.”

“They cost too much.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, then he said: “You’re awfully grumpy, Allie.”

Aliena sighed. “I know.” She thought: Why do I feel this way? I should be proud. I brought us here from the castle, I defended my brother, I found my father, I got our money.

Yes, and I stuck a knife into a fat man’s belly, and made my brother kill him, and I held a burning stick to a priest’s face, and I was ready to put his eyes out.

“Is it because of Father?” said Richard sympathetically.

“No, it’s not,” Aliena replied. “It’s because of me.”

Aliena regretted not buying the boots.

On the road to Gloucester she wore the clogs until they made her feet bleed, then she walked barefoot until she could no longer stand the cold, whereupon she put the clogs on again. She found it helped not to look at her feet: they hurt more when she could see the sores and the blood.

In the hill country there were a lot of poor smallholdings where peasants grew an acre or so of oats or rye and kept a few scrawny animals. Aliena stopped on the outskirts of a village, when she thought they must be near Huntleigh, to speak to a peasant who was shearing a sheep in a fenced yard next to a low, wattle-and-daub farmhouse. He had the sheep’s head trapped in a wooden fixture like a stocks, and was cutting its wool with a long-bladed knife. Two more sheep waited uneasily nearby, and one that was already shorn was grazing in the field, looking naked in the cold air.

“It’s early for shearing,” Aliena said.

The peasant looked up at her and grinned good-humoredly. He was a young man with red hair and freckles, and his sleeves were rolled up, showing hairy arms. “Ah, but I need the money. Better the sheep go cold than I go hungry.”

“How much do you get?”

“Penny a fleece. But I have to go to Gloucester to get it, so I lose a day in the field, just when it’s spring and there’s a lot to do.” He was cheerful enough, despite his grumbling.

“What’s this village?” Aliena asked him.

“Strangers call it Huntleigh,” he said. Peasants never used the name of their village-to them it was just the village. Names were for outsiders. “Who are you?” he asked with frank curiosity. “What brings you here?”

“I’m the niece of Simon of Huntleigh,” Aliena said.

“Indeed. Well, you’ll find him in the big house. Go back along this road a few yards, then take the path through the fields.”

“Thank you.”

The village sat in the middle of its plowed fields like a pig in a wallow. There were twenty or so small dwellings clustered around the manor house, which was not much bigger than the home of a prosperous peasant. Aunt Edith and Uncle Simon were not very wealthy, it seemed. A group of men stood outside the manor house with a couple of horses. One of them appeared to be the lord: he wore a scarlet coat. Aliena looked at him more closely. It was twelve or thirteen years since she had seen her Uncle Simon, but she thought this was he. She remembered him as a big man, and now he looked smaller, but no doubt that was because Aliena had grown. His hair was thinning and he had a double chin which she did not recall. Then she heard him say: “He’s very high in the wither, this beast,” and she recognized the rasping, slightly breathy voice.

She began to relax. From now on they would be fed and clothed and cared for and protected: no more horsebread and hard cheese, no more sleeping in barns, no more walking the roads with one hand on her knife. She would have a soft bed and a new dress and a dinner of roast beef.

Uncle Simon caught her eye. At first he did not know who she was. “Look at this,” he said to his men. “A handsome wench and a boy soldier to visit us.” Then something else came into his eyes, and Aliena knew he had realized they were not total strangers. “I know you, don’t I?” he said.

Aliena said: “Yes, Uncle Simon, you do.”

He jumped, as if scared by something. “By the saints! The voice of a ghost!”

Aliena did not understand that, but a moment later he explained. He came over to her, peering hard at her, as if he were about to look at her teeth like a horse; and he said: “Your mother had the same voice, like honey pouring out of a jar. You’re as beautiful as she was too, by Christ.” He put out his hand to touch her face, and she quickly stepped back out of reach. “But you’re as stiff-necked as your damned father, I can see that. I suppose he sent you here, did he?”

Aliena bristled. She did not like to hear Father referred to as “your damned father.” But if she protested, he would take it as further proof that she was stiff-necked; so she bit her tongue and answered him submissively. “Yes. He said Aunt Edith would take care of us.”