Her triangle of hair was reddish-brown with golden lights. “You’ve got a little mole,” he said. “Right here, on the left, beside the cleft.”

“I know. It’s been there since I was a little girl. I used to think it was ugly. I was so pleased when my hair grew, because I thought that meant my husband wouldn’t see it. I never imagined anyone would look as closely as you.”

“Friar Murdo would call you a witch – you’d better not let him see it.”

“Not if he were the last man on earth.”

“This is the blemish that saves you from blasphemy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the Arab world, every work of art has a tiny flaw, so that it doesn’t sacrilegiously compete with the perfection of God.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of the Florentines told me. Listen, do you think the parish guild will want the island?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’d like to own it.”

“Four acres of rock and rabbits. Why?”

“I’d build a dock and a builder’s yard. Stone and timber coming by river could be delivered directly to my dock. When the bridge is finished, I’d build a house on the island.”

“Nice idea. But they wouldn’t give it to you free.”

“How about as part payment for building the bridge? I could take, say, half wages for two years.”

“You charge four pence a day… so the price of the island would be just over five pounds. I should think the guild would be pleased to get that much for barren land.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea?”

“I think you could build houses there and rent them, as soon as the bridge is finished and people can travel to and from the island easily.”

“Yes,” said Merthin thoughtfully. “I’d better talk to your father about it.”

26

Returning to Earlscastle at the end of a day’s hunting, when all the men in Earl Roland’s entourage were in a good mood, Ralph Fitzgerald was happy.

They crossed the drawbridge like an invading army, knights and squires and dogs. Rain was falling in a light drizzle, coolly welcome to the men and animals, who were hot and tired and content. They had taken several summer-fat hinds that would make good eating, plus a big old stag, too tough for anything but dog meat, killed for its magnificent antlers.

They dismounted in the outer compound, within the lower circle of the figure-eight moat. Ralph unsaddled Griff, murmured a few words of thanks in his ear, fed him a carrot and handed him to a groom to be rubbed down. Kitchen boys dragged away the bloody carcasses of the deer. The men were noisily recalling the day’s incidents, boasting and jeering and laughing, remembering remarkable jumps and dangerous falls and hair’s-breadth escapes. Ralph’s nostrils filled with a smell he loved, a mixture of sweating horses, wet dogs, leather and blood.

Ralph found himself next to Lord William of Caster, the earl’s elder son. “A great day’s sport,” he said.

“Tremendous,” William agreed. He pulled off his cap and scratched his balding head. “I’m sorry to lose old Bruno, though.”

Bruno, the leader of the dog pack, had gone in for the kill a few moments too early. When the stag was too exhausted to run any farther and turned to face the hounds, its heaving shoulders covered with blood, Bruno had leaped for its throat – but, with a last burst of defiance, the deer had dipped its head and swung its muscular neck and impaled the soft belly of the dog on the points of its antlers. The effort finished the beast off, and a moment later the other dogs were tearing it apart; but, as it thrashed its life away, Bruno’s guts unravelled across the antlers like a tangled rope, and William had had to put him out of his misery, slashing his throat with a long dagger. “He was a brave dog,” Ralph said, and put a hand on William’s shoulder in commiseration.

“Like a lion,” William agreed.

On the spur of the moment, Ralph decided to speak about his prospects. There would never be a better moment. He had been Roland’s man for seven years; he was brave and strong; and he had saved his lord’s life after the bridge collapsed – yet he had been given no promotion, and was still a squire. What more could be asked of him?

Yesterday he had met his brother, by chance, at a tavern on the road from Kingsbridge to Shiring. Merthin, on his way to the priory’s quarry, had been full of news. He was going to build the most beautiful bridge in England. He would be rich and famous. Their parents were thrilled. It had made Ralph feel even more frustrated.

Now, speaking to Lord William, he could not think of a neat way to introduce the subject that was on his mind, so he just plunged in. “It’s three months since I saved your father’s life at Kingsbridge.”

“Several people claim that honour,” William said. The harsh look that came over his face reminded Ralph strongly of Roland.

“I pulled him out of the water.”

“And Matthew Barber mended his head, and the nuns changed his bandages, and the monks prayed for him. God saved his life, though.”

“Amen,” Ralph said. “All the same, I was hoping for some sign of favour.”

“My father’s a hard man to please.”

William’s brother, Richard, was standing nearby, red-faced and sweating, and he overheard the remark. “That’s as true as the Bible,” he said.

“Don’t complain,” William said. “Our father’s hardness made us strong.”

“As I recall, it made us miserable.”

William turned away, probably not wanting to argue the point in front of an underling.

When the horses were stabled, the men drifted across the compound, past the kitchens and barracks and chapel, to a second drawbridge that led to a small inner compound, the top loop of the figure eight. Here the earl lived in a traditional keep, with ground-floor storerooms, a great hall above, and a small upper storey for the earl’s private bedchamber. A colony of rooks inhabited the high trees around the keep, and strutted on the battlements like sergeants, cawing their dissatisfaction. Roland was in the great hall, having changed out of his dirty hunting clothes into a purple robe. Ralph stood near the earl, determined to raise the question of his promotion at the first opportunity.

Roland was arguing good-naturedly with William’s wife, Lady Philippa – one of the few people who could contradict him and get away with it. They were talking about the castle. “I don’t think it’s changed for a hundred years,” Philippa said.

“That’s because it’s such a good design,” Roland said, speaking out of the left side of his mouth. “The enemy expends most of his strength getting into the lower compound, then he faces a whole new battle to reach the keep.”

“Exactly!” said Philippa. “It was built for defence, not comfort. But when was the last time a castle in this part of England came under attack? Not in my lifetime.”

“Nor in mine.” He grinned with the mobile half of his face. “Probably because our defences are so strong.”

“There was a bishop who scattered acorns on the road wherever he travelled, to protect him from lions,” Philippe said. “When they told him there were no lions in all England, he said: ‘It’s more effective than I thought.’ ”

Roland laughed.

Philippa added: “Most noble families nowadays live in more comfortable homes.”

Ralph did not care for luxury, but he cared for Philippa. He gazed at her voluptuous figure as she talked, unaware of him. He imagined her lying beneath him, twisting her naked body, crying out in pleasure, or pain, or both. If he were a knight he could have a woman like that.

“You should knock down this old keep and build a modern house,” she was saying to her father-in-law. “One with big windows and lots of fireplaces. You could have the hall at ground level, with the family apartments at one end, so that we could all have somewhere private to sleep when we come to visit you; and the kitchens at the other end, so that the food is still hot when it reaches the table.”