***
One fine morning about two weeks later, Gwenn was leaving the hall to lay fresh flowers on her grandmother’s grave, when Alan addressed her from his place by the fire. ‘Mistress Gwenn?’
‘Yes?’ Curious, for the routier never spoke to her except when she was tending his leg, Gwenn drifted over.
‘I was wondering if you could spare a moment or two,’ he said courteously.
‘Is your leg troubling you? The bandages chafe?’
‘No, not at all.’ He raised smoky eyes to hers. ‘Would you mind if I talked to you about your grandmother, mistress, or would it upset you?’
‘It wouldn’t upset me.’
‘Good. I’ve been thinking.’ His lips curved wryly. ‘Lying here all day, I have little else to occupy my time, and there’s something I’ve been itching to ask you.’
‘Yes?’ Gwenn felt shy and gawky when Alan smiled at her.
‘In Vannes, on the day of the fire, your grandmother made mention of a stone rose. What is it, mistress?’
‘A statue of Our Lady.’
Alan let his breath out in a soft sigh. He had thought as much. He threw another smile at the girl, who seemed to like them, and watched a delightful flush steal across her cheeks. ‘Was it precious to her?’
‘I suppose so.’ Gwenn’s voice went croaky. She would have liked to ask why her grandmother’s statue fascinated him so, but she seemed to have lost control of her tongue. When Alan le Bret smiled, his eyes were as clear as a mountain brook dancing over grey stones, yet disturbing, too.
‘You are sorry that a keepsake of your grandmother’s was destroyed in the fire?’
‘It wasn’t destroyed. But what does that matter? Grandmama’s dead. What good did the Stone Rose do her?’
Alan clicked his tongue. ‘Careful, sweet Blanche, that borders on blasphemy. Your mother’s entered the hall, and she must have heard you, because she’s frowning.’
Yolande beckoned her daughter. ‘Gwenn, come upstairs.’
***
‘Here.’ Yolande waved Gwenn onto her bed and drew the dingy curtain across the alcove’s entrance. ‘Sit down. It’s high time you and I had a little talk.’
Thinking that she must have committed some sin and was about to be rebuked for it, Gwenn scoured her mind for her misdeed. ‘My apologies, Mama. Should I not have been talking to Alan le Bret?’
Yolande touched her daughter’s arm. ‘Naturally, you must converse with the man seeing as you have taken him under your wing.’
‘I felt obliged, Mama, because he saved me, and it would be churlish to refuse to speak to him.’
Accepting this, Yolande inclined her head. ‘I know. You are a girl who likes to honour her debts, but I trust you are not blind to that man’s nature.’
‘He’s a mercenary. As is his kinsman, Ned Fletcher.’
Yolande moved her face to within a hand span of her daughter’s. ‘Aye. Just so. But I do not think that Alan le Bret is cast in the same mould as Ned Fletcher, and I’d be grateful if you would tell me what you were talking about when I stumbled across you just now.’
Gwenn lifted finely structured hands. ‘Nothing much, Mama. He was asking about the Stone Rose.’
Her mother’s green gaze sharpened. ‘Was he, indeed? How interesting.’ Yolande rose, and drawing back the curtain screen, peered into the solar. It was empty. ‘Listen attentively, Gwenn, I’ve something to discuss with you, and I want you to swear to me, on your honour, which I know means much to you, that you’ll never breathe a word of this to anyone, not even to your father or brother.’
Round-eyed, Gwenn stared at her mother.
‘This secret is not one for men,’ Yolande murmured. ‘Do I have your promise?’
‘Yes, Mama.’
‘Good. Now hear me out, and afterwards I’ll tell you my plan for ridding this house of the vermin that has slunk into it unasked.’
***
Later, Gwenn escaped to tend her grandmother’s grave.
On the glebeland, sparrows were quarrelling in an old yew tree, and in one of the apple trees which edged the graveyard a blackbird was singing. Gwenn plucked the faded primroses and cowslips from their pot and arranged fresh blossoms, turning her mother’s words over in her mind. All at once, a prickling at the back of her neck warned her that she was being observed. Out of the tail of her eye she saw someone slip out of the chapel to crouch in the shadows of the porch. She caught sight of long, straggling hair as yellow as the cowslips in her grandmother’s vase, and gained an impression of muscle-bound bulk. Her stomach knotted. Imprinted in her mind was the face and form of the Norseman, and though Gwenn had not seen this prowler’s features, she knew him to be male, and that glimpse, brief as it had been, had reminded her of him.
‘Who’s there?’ Her voice was sharp with alarm.
The figure shrank back. With slow deliberation, Gwenn climbed to her feet and shook out the skirts of her gown. Ned Fletcher had hair as bright as that when the sun was on it, she reminded herself. But the man in the doorway had been standing in the shade, and Ned Fletcher did not wear his hair so long.
The blackbird stopped singing.
As fast as her feet would carry her, Gwenn sped across the grass and through the arch in the graveyard wall. The iron gate clanged behind her, and she did not pause for breath until she had scrambled up the steps and catapulted into the hall.
At that hour, it was filled with people. Her mother was addressing Joel, the cook. Her father and brother were deep in conversation at one end of a trestle, and at the other sat Alan le Bret. He had been given employment teaching one of the village freemen recently drafted into Jean’s service how to keep an edge on a sword. A whetstone had been brought up from the vault, and a pair of crutches was handy at his elbow.
‘Where’s Fletcher?’ Gwenn demanded of the room at large.
‘Here, Mistress Gwenn.’ Ned Fletcher detached himself from the knot of men by the fireplace. ‘What’s amiss?’
If...if you’re here,’ she stretched her eyes wide, ‘who’s sneaking around the chapel?’
Jean and Raymond jumped up, and Jean barked out a series of commands. ‘Raymond, take Fletcher and search the chapel. Take your arms, and bring any loiterer here. At the double. Move!’
Raymond and Ned clattered out.
Yolande had assumed Alan le Bret’s interest in the Stone Rose was proof he was in league with de Roncier, but she was suddenly assailed by doubts. Hand smoothing her high forehead, she thought rapidly. Was le Bret working for himself, or was he feeding information to de Roncier’s scavengers piece by piece? For an instant the mercenary’s swarthy features had registered surprise – he had been as startled as any by Gwenn’s announcement. Now he was sitting stiffly at the board, head cocked to one side, listening. How slow I have been, Yolande chastised herself. It was plain as a pikestaff that he would only be working for himself. Aye, that glove fitted him more closely. Alan le Bret would own no man his master for long. ‘Count de Roncier is having us watched,’ Yolande said, voicing the words which hung on everyone’s lips. And for the routier’s benefit she added a plaintive, ‘Oh, Jean, will this nightmare never end?’
‘Peace, woman.’ Jean turned to his daughter, who was gazing at her mother in the oddest manner. ‘What precisely did you see, Gwenn?’
‘Someone lurking in the chapel porch.’
‘Could you describe him?’
‘No...at least... I couldn’t be sure. He was a big man, with hanks of straw-coloured hair. I...I got the impression he’d been there for some time. I hoped it was Fletcher. But–’
‘Fletcher’s been here this past half hour.’
‘Sir,’ Gwenn’s voice came out shrill, and catching the mercenary’s gaze on her, she toned it down, ‘I pray I’m mistaken, but I’m afraid it might have been the Norseman I saw on the day of the fire. Remember? I told you about him.’
Yolande gasped and crossed herself. ‘I knew it,’ she said, in accents of doom. ‘De Roncier will be content with nothing less than our blood.’