The knight’s grating voice penetrated the swathes of scented linen. ‘It was your great-grandmother, my dear, who was a Wymark,’ he said.
‘Izabel’s mother?’ Gwenn emerged from his wife’s stifling hug.
‘Aye, Andaine Wymark. She was sent south to marry into the de Wirce family, a sound, political marriage, but it’s possible she had no wish to leave Ploumanach, for she had this statue carved out of the local granite as a keepsake.’
‘It is very beautiful here,’ Lady Wymark said. ‘I can see why she might not have wanted to leave. I wouldn’t want to leave, and I wasn’t born here. It must have been very hard for your ancestor to be torn from her roots and sent south.’
‘Enough, Alis. Curb your tongue, will you?’ Sir Gregor said in his harsh voice, but Gwenn suspected that his harshness masked a deep and abiding affection for his wife. Sir Gregor went on, ‘You have seen the rocks outside, my dear?’
‘R...rocks?’
His smile enlarged, and the wrinkles radiated from his eyes till his ruddy, sun-browned face came to resemble a withered pear taken out of winter storage. ‘Aye. You can’t miss them, gigantic boulders which God dropped on these northern shores when He created the world. The whole place is coloured by them, even the sand on the beach – all like your statue, all salmon pink.’
‘Salmon pink? But, Sir Gregor, I thought...’ Gwenn knotted her brows. ‘Do you mean that it wasn’t the sunset that drenched the rocks with colour? Are you telling me that everything here is this colour naturally?’ She indicated the Stone Rose which was, as Sir Gregor had said, that same rosy hue.
‘Wait till tomorrow,’ Lady Wymark said. ‘You’ll see then.’
‘You’ll permit us to stay?’
Lady Wymark glanced longingly at her husband, and on receiving a confirmatory nod, she said, ‘You and the children must stay.’
Gwenn sagged with relief. ‘My thanks. I can’t tell you how much this means. You won’t regret it, I’ll see to that. I can sew, and make medicines, and help with the household. I’m not afraid of hard work, and Ned is a good soldier.’ At mention of Ned, Lady Wymark frowned, but Gwenn was so content to have found a haven for Katarin and Philippe that she did not notice. ‘Shall I bring the children up, Lady Wymark, that you may meet them?’
The good lady beamed. ‘Please do. I’m longing to meet the children,’ she said, with strange emphasis which again Gwenn missed. ‘We’ve not been blessed with children of our own. Bring them up. I suspect you’d like a bath before we eat?’
‘A bath?’ Gwenn echoed, with a longing she could not hide. ‘Oh, could we, my lady?’
Lady Wymark smiled. ‘I’ll have the tubs filled. And, Gwenn, dear? Call me Aunt Alis, will you?’
Gwenn smiled back. ‘Of course...Aunt Alis.’
With a light step, Gwenn ran down the turning stairs to fetch her siblings. It had not been necessary to offer her relatives the gemstone, and while she would not have begrudged parting with it if it bought safety for Katarin and Philippe, she was glad the Stone Rose still housed its secret treasure.
***
Having seen Gwenn and the children accepted by Sir Gregor and Lady Wymark, Alan put his personal feelings aside and confirmed his intention of leaving at daybreak the following morning. He found it more difficult than he had anticipated.
Initially, his host and hostess had been frosty in their manner towards Ned and himself, and Alan had deemed it politic to let fall that he was high in the service of the Duke of Brittany, and was expected by the Duke at Rennes. Thereafter, Sir Gregor and Lady Wymark had thawed, and Alan had been prettily thanked for his assistance. He had been well fed, and comfortably housed on a pallet in the hall, as was the custom. And Ned had received similar treatment, although by rights he should have been allocated a place in what served as married quarters.
Accommodation for married couples varied from establishment to establishment. At the Wymark manor the southern range of the hall had been set aside for their use. Curtains ran along that wall, and at first Alan had taken them for wall-hangings, for during supper they had been looped back behind great brass hooks. Once the board was cleared, however, the curtains were released, and with a few token gibes from the unattached members of the household, the married couples went into retreat behind them. There were no alcoves as such, but the curtains hid the modest from prying eyes, and provided more privacy than Alan had seen in most halls.
***
Alan woke as the first fingers of light slid into the hall. ‘I’m for stretching my legs before I spend another day in the saddle,’ he told Ned who was yawning beside him. ‘I’d like a word. Coming?’
Having left the manor, the cousins wandered in companionable silence along a slender path which snaked through vast boulders the wind had sculpted into nightmarish shapes. Ned looked at the twisted formations in awe. ‘They have the shape of monsters,’ he said.
The breeze threw Alan’s hair into his eyes. Pushing it back, he agreed, ‘Aye. You’re happy to stay here, cousin?’
‘If Gwenn is.’
‘Listen, little cousin–’
Ned grinned. He topped Alan by a good two inches, and yet Alan insisted in calling him ‘little.’
‘Sir Gregor has a small force,’ Alan continued, ‘but as his holding is built on a peninsular, it should be easy to defend if de Roncier renews his interest. But I am beginning to wonder whether he will. He would surely have struck before now if he that was his intention. If his men had been tracking us, they would have found us. We left a trail a mile wide, and could have been attacked at any time – while we ate, while we slept. I don’t know why de Roncier should decide to hold back now, but when I leave here, I’ll go south and make enquiries at Kermaria.’
‘Is that wise? I thought you were expected at Rennes?’
Alan had not told his cousin of Duke Geoffrey’s commissioning of a survey of Kermaria, and he did not plan to tell him. ‘I’m owed leave, and I’ll be discreet. I’ll see what I can dredge up concerning our old friend’s activities, and if you can attend the King’s tournament, I’ll let you know what I discover. In the meantime, you should be safe here. God knows, it’s a remote enough spot.’
Alan had some misgivings with regard to Sir Gregor and Lady Wymark, but they were minor ones concerning Ned, not Gwenn or the children, and he resolved to keep his counsel on that score. Sir Gregor and his wife would care for St Clair’s children, and that was what mattered. There was no point in worrying Ned or raising doubts on the basis of a brief impression gained over one meal in Sir Gregor’s hall. He might be making a mountain out of a molehill over the fact that Gwenn had been given different accommodation to that of her husband and had slept with the family and the unmarried women on the upper floor. Perhaps there had not been the time to find a space in the married quarters. Or perhaps Gwenn had chosen to remain with the children on their first night here. Lady Wymark had been insistent the children were lodged upstairs, a sign to everyone, and a generous one, that she was accepting them as part of her family. Alan might be mistaken in his impression that Lady Wymark looked down on Ned, and disapproved of him as Gwenn’s husband.
He pushed his misgivings aside. It had been but one night, and everyone was in disarray. In any case, it was not his business to speculate on how Gwenn and Ned conducted their marriage. She was his cousin’s wife, forbidden fruit to him. God, but it was not easy to go.
He shoved his hand at his cousin, and spoke more brusquely than he intended, ‘I’ll bid you farewell, Ned. Will you say goodbye to your wife on my behalf?’
‘Won’t you say it to her in person, Alan? I’m sure she would like to thank you for escorting us here. We wouldn’t have reached here without you.’
‘No,’ Alan disclaimed all credit, ‘I think that you would.’