Changeling

The three young men rode away from the abbey in silence, sickened by the violence, glad to escape without a lynching themselves. Every now and then Luca would shudder and violently brush smuts from the sleeves of his jacket, and Freize would pass his broad hand over his bewildered face and say, ‘Sweet saints . . .’

They rode all the day on the high land above the forest, the autumn sun hard in their eyes, the stony ground hard underfoot, and when they saw the swinging bough of holly outside a house that marked it as an inn they turned their horses into the stable yard in silence. ‘Does Lord Lucretili own this land?’ Freize asked the stable lad, before they had even dismounted.

‘He does not, you are out of his lordship’s lands now. This inn belongs to Lord Piccante.’

‘Then we’ll stay,’ Luca decided. His voice was hoarse; he hawked and spat out the smell of the smoke. ‘Saints alive, I can hardly believe we are away from it all.’

Brother Peter shook his head, still lost for words.

Freize took the horses to the stables as the other two went into the taproom, shouting for the rough red wine of the region to take the taste of wood smoke and tallow from their mouths. They ordered their food in silence and prayed over it when it came.

‘I need to go to confession,’ Luca said, after they had eaten. ‘Our Lady intercede for me, I feel filthy with sin.’

‘I need to write a report,’ Brother Peter said.

They looked at one another, sharing their sense of horror. ‘Who would ever believe what we have seen?’ Luca wondered. ‘You can write what you like: who would ever believe it?’

‘He will,’ Brother Peter said. It was the first time he had owned his fealty to the lord and the Order. ‘He will understand. The lord of the Order. He has seen all this, and worse. He is studying the end of days. Nothing surprises him. He will read it, and understand it, and keep it under his hand, and wait for our next report.’

‘Our next report? We have to go on?’ Luca asked disbelievingly.

‘I have our next destination under his own seal,’ the clerk said.

‘Surely this inquiry was such a failure that we will be recalled?’

‘Oh no, he will see this as a success,’ Brother Peter said grimly. ‘You were sent to inquire after madness and manifestations of evil at the abbey and you have done so. You know how it was caused: the Lady Almoner giving the nuns belladonna so that they would run mad. You know why she did it: her desire to win the place of the Lady Abbess for herself and grow rich. You know that Lord Lucretili encouraged her to do it so that he could murder his sister under the pretence that she was a witch and so gain her inheritance of the abbey and the gold. It was your first investigation, and – though I may have had my doubts as to your methods – I will tell my lord that you have completed it successfully.’

‘An innocent woman died, a guilty woman was burned by a mob of madwomen, and two women who may be innocent of theft but who are undoubtedly guilty of witchcraft have disappeared into thin air, and you call that a success?’

Brother Peter allowed himself a thin smile. ‘I have seen worse investigations with worse outcomes.’

‘You must have been to the jaws of hell itself, then!’

He nodded, utterly serious. ‘I have.’

Luca paused. ‘With other investigators?’

‘There are many of you.’

‘Young men like me?’

‘Some like you, with gifts and a curiosity like you. Some quite unlike you. I don’t think I have ever met one with faerie blood before.’

Luca made a quick gesture of denial. ‘That’s nonsense.’

‘The master of the Order picks out the inquirers himself, sends them out, sees what they discover. You are his private army against sin and the coming of the end of days. He has been preparing for this, for years.’

Luca pushed back his chair from the table. ‘I’m going to bed. I hope to heaven that I don’t dream.’

‘You won’t dream,’ Brother Peter assured him. ‘He chose well with you. You have the nerves to bear it, and the courage to undertake it. Soon you will learn the wisdom to judge more carefully.’

‘And then?’

‘And then he will send you to the frontier of Christendom, where the heretics and the devils muster to wage war against us and there are no good people at all.’

The women rode side by side, with their horses shoulder to shoulder. Now and then Isolde would give a shuddering sob, and Ishraq would put out a hand to touch her fists, clenched tightly on the reins.

‘What do you think will become of the abbey?’ Isolde asked. ‘I have abandoned them. I have betrayed them.’

The other girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘We had no choice. Your brother was determined to get it back into his keeping, the Lady Almoner was determined to take your place. Either she would have poisoned us, or he would have had us burned as witches.’

‘How could she do such a thing – the poisoning, and driving us all mad?’

Ishraq shrugged. ‘She wanted the abbey for herself. She had worked her way up, she was determined to be Lady Abbess. She was always against you, for all that she seemed so pleasant and so kind when we first got there. And only she knows how long she was plotting with your brother. Perhaps he promised her the abbey long ago.’

‘And the inquirer – she misled him completely. The man is a fool.’

‘She talked to him, she confided in him when you would not. Of course he learned her side of the story. But where shall we go now?’

Isolde turned a pale face to her friend. ‘I don’t know. Now we are truly lost. I have lost my inheritance and my place in the world, and we have both been named as witches. I am so sorry, Ishraq. I should never have brought you into the abbey, I should have let you return to your homeland. You should go now.’

‘I go with you,’ the girl said simply. ‘We go together, wherever that is.’

‘I should order you to leave me,’ Isolde said with a wry smile. ‘But I can’t.’

‘Your father, my beloved lord, raised us together and said that we should be together always. Let us obey him in that, since we have failed him in so much else.’

Isolde nodded. ‘And anyway, I can’t imagine living without you.’

The girl smiled at her friend. ‘So where to? We can’t stay on Lucretili lands.’

Isolde thought for a moment. ‘We should go to my father’s friends. Anyone who served with him on crusade would be a friend to us. We should go to them, and tell them of this attack on me, we should tell them about my brother, and what he has done to the abbey. We should clear my name. Perhaps one of them will restore me to my home. Perhaps one will help me accuse my brother and win the castle back from him.’

Ishraq nodded. ‘Count Wladislaw was your father’s dearest friend. His son would owe you friendship. But I don’t see how we’d get to him, he lives miles away, in Wallachia, at the very frontier of Christendom.’

‘But he’d help me,’ Isolde said. ‘His father and mine swore eternal brotherhood. He’d help me.’

‘We’ll have to get money from somewhere,’ Ishraq warned. ‘If we’re going to attempt such a journey we’ll have to hire guards, we can’t travel alone. The roads are too dangerous.’

‘You still have my mother’s jewels safe?’

‘I never take off the purse. They’re in my hidden belt. I’ll sell one at the next town.’ Ishraq glanced at Lady Isolde’s downturned face, her plain brown gown, the poor horse she was riding and her shabby boots. ‘This is not what your father wanted for you.’

The young woman bowed her head and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘But who knows what he wanted for me? Why would he send me into the abbey if he wanted me to be the woman that he raised me to be? But somewhere, perhaps in heaven, he will be watching over me and praying that I find my way in this hard world without him.’

Ishraq was about to reply when she suddenly pulled up her horse. ‘Isolde!’ she cried warningly, but she was too late. A rope that had been tied across the road to a strong tree was suddenly snatched tight by someone hidden in the bushes, catching the front legs of Isolde’s horse. At once the animal reared up and, tangled in the rope, staggered and went down on its front knees, so that Isolde was flung heavily to the ground.

Ishraq did not hesitate for a moment. Holding her own reins tightly she jumped from the horse and hauled her friend to her feet. ‘Ambush!’ she cried. ‘Get on my horse!’

Four men came tumbling out of the woods on either side of the road, two holding daggers, two holding cudgels. One grabbed Isolde’s horse, and threw the reins over a bush, while the other three came on.

‘Now, little ladies, put your hands in the air and then throw down your purses and nobody will get hurt,’ the first man said. ‘Travelling on your own? That was foolish, my little ladies.’

Ishraq was holding a long thin dagger out before her, her other hand clenched in a fist, standing like a fighter, well-balanced on both feet, swaying slightly as she eyed the three men, wondering which would come first. ‘Come any closer and you are a dead man,’ she said briefly.

He lunged towards them and Ishraq feinted with the knife and spun round, slashed at the arm of another man, and turned back her fist flying out to crunch against the first man’s face. But she was outnumbered. The third man raised the cudgel and smashed it against the side of her head, she went down with a groan, and Isolde at once stepped over her to protect her, and faced the three men. ‘You can have my purse,’ she said. ‘But leave us alone.’

The wounded man clapped his hand over his arm and cursed as the blood flowed between his fingers. ‘She-dog,’ he said shortly.

The other man gingerly touched his bruised face. ‘Give us the purse,’ he said angrily.

Isolde untied the purse that hung at her belt and tossed it to him. There was nothing in it but a few pennies. She knew that Ishraq had her mother’s sapphires safe in a belt tied inside the bodice of her tunic. ‘That’s all we have,’ she said. ‘We’re poor girls. That’s all we have in the world.’

‘Show me your hands,’ said the man with the cudgel.

Isolde held out her hands.

‘Palms up,’ he said.

She turned her hands upwards and at once he stepped forwards, twisted her arms behind her back, and she felt the other man rope her tightly.

‘Lady’s hands,’ he jeered. ‘Soft white hands. You’ve never done a stroke of work in your life. You’ll have a wealthy family or friends somewhere who will pay a ransom for you, won’t you?’

‘I swear to you that no-one will pay for me.’ Isolde tried to turn but the ropes bit tight into her arms. ‘I swear it. I am alone in the world, my father just dead. My friend is alone too. Let me . . .’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ the man said.

On the ground Ishraq stirred and tried to get to her feet. ‘Let me help her,’ Isolde said. ‘She’s hurt.’

‘Tie them up together,’ the man said to his fellows. ‘In the morning we’ll see if anyone is missing two pretty girls. If they aren’t, then we’ll see if anyone wants two pretty girls. If they don’t, we’ll sell them to the Turks.’ The men laughed and the one with the bruised face patted Isolde’s cheek.

The chief hit his hand away. ‘No spoiling the goods,’ he said. ‘Not till we know who they are.’ He heaved Ishraq to her feet and held her as she too was roped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled to Isolde.

‘Give me water for her,’ Isolde commanded the man. ‘And let me bathe her head.’

‘Come on,’ was all he said to the others and led the way off the track to their hidden camp.

Luca and his two companions were quiet the following morning when they started at dawn. Freize was nursing a headache from what he said was the worst ale in Christendom, Brother Peter seemed thoughtful, and Luca was reviewing all that had been said and done at the abbey, certain that he could have done better, sure that he had failed, and – more than anything else – puzzling over the disappearance of the Lady Abbess and her strange companion, out of chains, out of a stone cellar, into thin air.

They left the inn just as the sky was turning from darkness to grey, hours before sunrise, and they wrapped their cloaks tightly around them against the morning chill. Brother Peter said that they were to ride north, until he opened their next orders.

‘Because we like nothing more than when he breaks that seal, unfolds that paper, and tells us that some danger is opening up under our feet and we are to ride straight into it.’ Freize addressed the ground. ‘Mad nuns one day, what’s for today? We don’t even know.’

‘Hush,’ Luca said quietly. ‘We don’t know, nobody knows; that’s the very point of it.’

‘We know it won’t be kindly,’ Freize remarked to his horse, who rolled an ear back towards him and seemed to sympathise.

They went on in silence for a little while, following a dusty track that climbed higher and higher between bare rocks. The trees were fewer here, an odd twisted olive tree, a desiccated pine tree. Above they could see an eagle soaring and the sun was bright in their faces though the wind from the north was cold. As they reached the top of the plateau there was a little forested area, to the right of the road. The horses dropped their heads and plodded, the riders slumped in their saddles, when Luca’s eye was caught by something that looked like a long black snake lying in the dust of the road before them. He raised his hand for a halt and, when Freize started to speak, he turned in the saddle and scowled at him, so the man was silent.

‘What is it?’ Brother Peter mouthed at him.

Luca pointed in reply. In the road in front of them, scuffed over with dust and hidden with carefully placed leaves, was a rope, tied to a tree on one side, disappearing into the woods on the right.

‘Ambush,’ Freize said quietly. ‘You wait here; act like I’ve gone for a piss. . . . Saints save us! That damned ale!’ he said more clearly. He hitched his trousers, slid off his horse and went, cursing the ale, to the side of the road. A swift glance in each direction and he was stepping delicately and quietly into the trees, circling the likely destination of the rope into the bushes. There was a brief silence and then a low whistle like a bird call told the others that they could come. They pushed their way through the little trees and scrubby bushes to find Freize seated like a boulder on the chest of a man frozen with fear. Freize’s big hand was over his mouth, his large horn-handled dagger blade at the man’s throat. The captive’s eyes rolled towards Luca and Brother Peter as they came through the bushes, but he lay quite still.

‘Sentry,’ Freize said quietly. ‘Fast asleep. So a pretty poor sentry. But there’ll be some band of brigands within earshot.’ He leaned forwards to the man, who was gulping for air underneath his weight. ‘Where is everyone else?’

The man rolled his eyes to the woods on their right.

‘And how many?’ Freize asked. ‘Blink when I say. Ten? No? Eight? No? Five, then?’ He looked towards Luca. ‘Five men. Why don’t we just leave them to do their business? No point looking for trouble.’

‘What is their business?’ Luca asked.

‘Robbery,’ Brother Peter said quietly. ‘And sometimes they kidnap people and sell them to the Ottomans for the galleys.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Freize interrupted quickly. He scowled at Brother Peter to warn him to say no more. ‘Might just be poaching a bit of game. Poachers and thieves. Not doing a great deal of harm. No need for us to get involved.’

‘Kidnap?’ Luca repeated icily.

‘Not necessarily so . . .’ Freize repeated. ‘Probably nothing more than poachers.’

It was too late. Luca was determined to save anyone from the galleys of the Ottoman pirates. ‘Gag him, and tie him up,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll see if they are holding anyone.’ He looked around the clearing; a little path, scarcely more than a goat’s track, led deeper into the woods. He waited till the man was gagged and bound to a tree, and then led the way, sword in one hand, dagger in the other, Freize behind him and Brother Peter bringing up the rear.

‘Or we could just ride on,’ Freize suggested in an urgent whisper.

‘Why are we doing this?’ Brother Peter breathed.

‘His parents.’ Freize nodded towards Luca’s back. ‘Kidnapped and enslaved into the Ottoman galleys. Probably dead. It’s personal for him. I hoped for a moment, that you might have taken my hint, and kept your mouth shut – but no . . .’

The slight scent of a damped-down fire warned them that they were near a camp and Luca halted and peered through the trees. Five men lay sleeping around a doused fire, snoring heavily. A couple of empty wineskins and the charred bones of a stolen sheep showed that they had eaten and drunk well before falling asleep. To the side of them, tied back to back, were two figures, hooded and cloaked.

Gambling that the roaring snores would cover any noise that they made, Luca whispered to Freize and sent him towards the horses. Quiet as a cat, Freize moved along the line of tied animals, picked out the two very best and took their reins, and untied the rest. ‘Gently,’ he said softly to them. ‘Wait for my word.’

Brother Peter tiptoed his way back to the road. Their own three horses and the donkey were tied to a tree. He mounted his horse and held the reins of the others, ready for a quick escape. The brightness of the morning sun threw the shadows darkly on the road. Brother Peter prayed briefly but fervently that Luca would save the captives – or whatever he was planning to do – and come away. Bandits were a constant menace on these country roads and it was not their mission to challenge each and every one. The lord of the Order would not thank him if Luca was killed in a brawl when he was showing such early talent as an inquirer for the Order.

Back in the clearing, Luca watched Freize take control of the horses, then slid his sword into the scabbard and wormed his way through the bushes to where the captives were tied to each other, and roped to a tree. He cut the rope to the tree and both hooded heads came up at once. Luca put his finger to his lips to warn them to be quiet. Quickly, in silence, they squirmed towards him, bending away from their bonds so that he could cut the rope around their wrists. They rubbed their wrists and their hands, without saying a word, as Luca bent to their boots and cut the ropes around their feet. He leaned to the nearest captive and whispered, ‘Can you stand? Can you walk?’

There was something that snagged his memory, as sharp as a tap on the shoulder, the minute he leaned towards the captive, and then he realised that this was no stranger. There was a scent of rosewater as she put back her hood and the sea of golden hair tumbled over her shoulders and the former Lady Abbess smiled up at him and whispered, ‘Yes, Brother, I can; but please help Ishraq, she’s hurt.’

He pulled Isolde to her feet, and then bent to help the other woman. At once he could see that she had taken a blow to the side of her head. There was blood on her face, her beautiful dark skin was bruised like a plum, and her legs buckled beneath her when he tried to get her up.

‘You go to the horses,’ he whispered to Isolde. ‘Quiet as you can. I’ll bring her.’

She nodded and went silent as a doe through the trees skirting the clearing to reach Freize, who helped her up into the saddle of the best horse. Luca came behind her carrying Ishraq and bundled her onto a second horse. Tapping the horses’ chests, urging them with whispers to back away from where they had been tethered, the two men led the animals with the girls on their backs down a little track to where Brother Peter waited on the road.

‘Oh no,’ Brother Peter said flatly when he saw the white face and the thick blonde hair of the Lady Abbess. At once she pulled her brown hood up over her hair to hide her face, and lowered her eyes. Peter turned to Freize. ‘You let him risk his life for this? You let him risk us? His sacred mission?’

Freize shrugged. ‘Better go,’ was all he said. ‘And maybe we’ll get away with it.’

Freize mounted his own cob, and then cocked an ear to the woods behind them. In the clearing, one of the sleeping men grunted, and turned over in his sleep, and another one cursed and raised himself onto one elbow. The horses left untethered turned their heads and whinnied for their companions, and one started to move after them.

‘Go!’ Luca ordered.

Freize kicked his cob into a canter, leading Ishraq’s horse, with her clinging, half-conscious, to the horse’s mane. Isolde snatched up her reins and urged her horse alongside them. Luca vaulted into his saddle as they heard the men shouting from behind. The first loose horse came out of the woods, trotting to catch up with him, and then all the others followed, their reins trailing. Freize yelled an incomprehensible word of warning to the horses as they clattered from the woods and came towards him. The gang of thieves scrambled after their runaway horses, then saw the little group on the road, and realised they had been robbed.

‘Full gallop!’ Luca yelled, and ducked as the first arrow whistled overhead. ‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘Go! Go!’

They all hunched low over their horses’ necks, thundering down the road as the men spilled out of the wood, cursing and swearing, sending a shower of misdirected arrows after them. One of the stray horses bucked and screamed as it took an arrow in the rump, and raced ahead. The others weaved around them, making aim even more difficult. Luca held the pace as fast as he dared on the stony road, pulling up his frightened horse so it slowed to a canter and then a walk and then halted, panting when they were well out of range.

The stray horses collected around Freize. ‘Gently, my loves,’ he said. ‘We’re safe if we are all together.’ He got down from his cob and went to the wounded horse. ‘Just a scratch, little girl,’ he said tenderly. ‘Just a scratch.’ She bowed her head to him and he pulled gently at her ears. ‘I’ll bathe it when we get to wherever in God’s earth we are going, sweetheart.’

Ishraq was clinging on to the neck of her horse, exhausted and sick with her injury. Freize looked up at her. ‘She’s doing poorly. I’ll take her up before me.’

‘No,’ Isolde said. ‘Lift her up onto my horse. We can ride together.’

‘She can barely stay on!’

‘I’ll hold her,’ she said with firm dignity. ‘She would not want to be held by a man, it is against her tradition. And I would not like it for her.’

Freize glanced at Luca for permission and, when the young man shrugged, he got down from his own horse and walked over to where the slave swayed in the saddle.

‘I’ll lift you over to your mistress,’ he said to her, speaking loudly.

‘She’s not deaf! She’s just faint!’ Luca said irritably.

‘Both as stubborn as each other,’ Freize confided to the slave girl’s horse as her rider tumbled into his arms. ‘Both as stubborn as the little donkey, God bless him.’ Gently, he carried Ishraq over to Isolde’s horse and softly set her in the saddle and made sure that she was steady. ‘Are you sure you can hold her?’ he asked Isolde.

‘I can,’ she said.

‘Well, tell me if it is too much for you. She’s no lightweight, and you’re only a weakly little thing.’ He turned to Luca. ‘I’ll lead her horse. The others will follow us.’

‘They’ll stray,’ Luca predicted.

‘I’ll whistle them on,’ Freize said. ‘Never hurts to have a few spare horses, and maybe we can sell them if we need.’

He mounted his own steady cob, took the reins of Ishraq’s horse, and gave a low encouraging whistle to the other four horses who at once clustered around him, and the little cavalcade set off steadily down the road.

‘How far to the nearest town?’ Luca asked Brother Peter.

‘About eight miles, I think,’ he said. ‘I suppose she’ll make it; but she looks very sick.’

Luca looked back at Ishraq, who was leaning back against Isolde, grimacing in pain, her face pale. ‘She does. And then we’ll have to turn her over to the local lord for burning when we get there. We’ve rescued her from bandits and saved her from the Ottoman galleys to see her burned as a witch. I doubt she will think we have done her a kindness.’

‘She should have been burned as a witch yesterday,’ Brother Peter said unsympathetically. ‘Every hour is a gift to her.’

Luca reined back to bring his horse up alongside Isolde. ‘How was she injured?’

‘She took a blow from a cudgel while she was trying to defend us. She’s a clever fighter usually, but there were four of them. They jumped us on the road trying to steal from us and when they saw we were women without guards they thought to take us for ransom.’ She shook her head as if to rid herself of the memory. ‘Or for the galleys.’

‘They didn’t –’ he tried to find the words ‘– er, hurt you?’

‘You mean, did they rape us?’ she asked, matter-of-factly. ‘No, they were keeping us for ransom and then they got drunk. But we were lucky.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘I was a fool to ride out without a guard. I put Ishraq in danger. We’ll have to find someone to travel with.’

‘You won’t be able to travel at all,’ Luca said bluntly. ‘You are my prisoners. I am arresting you under charges of witchcraft.’

‘Because of poor Sister Augusta?’

He blinked away the picture of the two young women, bloodied like butchers. ‘Yes.’

‘When we get to the next town and the doctor sees Ishraq, will you listen to me, before you hand us over? I will explain everything to you, I will confess everything that we have done and what we have not done, and you can be the judge as to whether we should be sent back to my brother for burning. For that is what you will be doing, you know. If you send me back to him, you will sign my death warrant. I will have no trial worth the writing, I will have no hearing worth the listening. You will send me to my death. Won’t that sit badly on your conscience?’

Brother Peter brought his horse alongside. ‘The report has gone already,’ he said with dour finality. ‘And you are listed as a witch. There is nothing that we can do but release you to the civil law.’

‘I can hear her,’ Luca said irritably. ‘I can hear her out. And I will.’

She looked at him. ‘The woman you admire so much is a liar and an apostate,’ she said bluntly. ‘The Lady Almoner is my brother’s lover, his dupe, and his accomplice. I would swear to it. He persuaded her to drive the nuns mad and blame it on me so that you would come and destroy my rule at the abbey. She was his fool and I think you were hers.’

Luca felt his temper flare at being called a fool by this girl, but gritted his teeth. ‘I listened to her when you would not deign to speak to me. I liked her when you would not even show me your face. She swore she would tell the truth when you were – who knows what you were doing? At any rate, I had nothing to compare her with. But even so I listened out for her lies, and I understood that she was putting the blame on you when you did not even defend yourself to me. You may call me a fool – though I see you were glad enough for my help back there with the bandits – but I was not fooled by her – whatever you say.’

She bowed her head, as if to silence her own hasty words. ‘I don’t think you are a fool, Inquirer,’ she said. ‘I am grateful to you for saving us. I shall be glad to explain my side of this to you. And I hope you will spare us.’

The physician called to the Moorish slave as they rested in the little inn in the small town pronounced her bloodied and bruised but no bones broken. Luca paid for the best bed for her and Isolde, and paid extra for them not to have to share the room with other travellers.

‘How am I to report that we are now paying for two women to travel with us?’ Brother Peter protested. ‘Known criminals?’

‘You could say that I need servants, and you have provided me with two bonny ones,’ Freize suggested, earning him a sour look from the clerk.

‘No need to report anything at all. This is not an inquiry,’ Luca ruled. ‘This is just the life of the road, not part of our work.’

Isolde put Ishraq into the big bed, as if she were an equal, spooned soup into her mouth as if she were her sister, cared for her like her child and sat with her as she slept.

‘How is the pain?’

‘No better,’ Ishraq grimaced. ‘But at least I don’t think I am doomed any more. That ride was like a nightmare, the pain went on and on. I thought I was going to die.’

‘I couldn’t protect you from the roughness of the road nor the stumbles of the horse. It jolted me, it must have been horrible for you.’

‘It was hard to bear.’

‘Ishraq, I have failed you. You could have been killed or murdered or enslaved. And now we are captured again. I have to let you go. You can go now, while I talk to them. Please – save yourself. Go south, get away to your homeland and pray to your god we will meet again one day.’

The girl opened her bruised eyes and gleamed at Isolde. ‘We stay together,’ she ruled. ‘Didn’t your father raise us as sisters of the heart, as companions who were never parted?’

‘He may have done so, but my mother didn’t give it her blessing, she fought against us being together every day of her life,’ Isolde shrewdly reminded her. ‘And we have had nothing but heartache since we lost my father.’

‘Well, my mother blessed our friendship,’ Ishraq replied. ‘She told me: “Isolde is the sister of your heart”. She was happy that I was with you all the day long, that we did our lessons together and played together, and she loved your father.’

‘They taught you languages,’ Isolde reminded her with pretended resentment. ‘And medicine. And fighting skills. While I had nothing to learn but music and embroidery.’

‘They prepared me to be your servant and companion,’ Ishraq said. ‘To serve and protect you. And so I am. I know the things I need to know to serve you. You should be glad of it.’

A quick tap of a finger on her cheek told her that Isolde was glad of it.

‘Well, then,’ Ishraq said. ‘I need to sleep. You go to dinner. See if you can get him to release us. And if he does that, see if you can make him give us some money.’

‘You think very highly of my powers of persuasion,’ Isolde said ruefully.

‘Actually, I do.’ Ishraq nodded as her eyes closed. ‘Especially with him.’

Luca sent for Isolde at dinnertime, planning to question her privately as they ate together, but then he found that both Brother Peter and Freize intended to be in the room with them.

‘I shall serve the food,’ Freize said. ‘Better me than some wench from the inn, listening to everything you say, interrupting as like as not.’

‘While you are notably reticent.’

‘Reticent,’ Freize repeated, committing the word to memory. ‘Reticent. D’you know? I imagine that I am.’

‘And I shall take a note. This is still an inquiry for murder and witchcraft,’ Brother Peter said severely. ‘Just because we found them in yet more trouble, does not prove their innocence. Quite the opposite. Good women stay at home and mind their manners.’

‘We can hardly blame them for being homeless when their abbey was going to burn them for witches,’ Luca said irritably. ‘Or blame her for being expelled by her brother.’

‘Whatever the reason, she and her servant are homeless and uncontrolled,’ Brother Peter insisted. ‘No man rules them and no man protects them. They are certain to get into trouble and to cause trouble.’

‘I thought we had answered the questions of the abbey,’ Luca said, looking from one determined face to the other. ‘I thought we had concluded our inquiry and sent in our report? I thought they were innocent of most of the crimes? I thought we were satisfied as to their innocence?’

‘We were satisfied as to the drugging, the poisoning and the murder,’ Peter said. ‘Satisfied that the great crimes were performed by the Lady Almoner. But what were the two of them doing in the mortuary that night? Don’t you remember them tampering with the corpse, and the Lady Almoner saying they were having a Satanic Mass on the nun’s body?’

Freize nodded. ‘He’s right. They have to explain.’

‘I’ll ask,’ Luca said. ‘I’ll ask about everything. But if you remember her brother coming in, secretly hand in glove with that woman, and his readiness to see his sister burn before him – you can’t help but pity her. And, anyway, if her answers are not satisfactory we can hand them over to the Lord Piccante who is the master here, and he can burn the two of them as the Lord Lucretili would have done. Is that your wish?’ He looked at their glum faces. ‘You want to see them dead? Those two young women?’

‘My wish is to see justice done,’ said Brother Peter. ‘Forgiveness is for God.’

‘Or I suppose we could just turn a blind eye and let them get away in the morning,’ Freize suggested, as he headed out of the room.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Luca exclaimed.

Just then, Isolde came down the stairs for dinner, wearing a gown she had borrowed from the innkeeper’s wife. It was made of some coarse material, dyed a dark blue, and on her head she had a cap like countrywomen wore. It showed the golden fold of her hair where she had it twisted back into a plait. Luca remembered the tumble of gold when he had tackled her in the stable yard and the scent of rosewater when he had held her down. In the simple outfit her beauty was suddenly radiant and Luca and even Brother Peter were tongue-tied.

‘I hope you are recovered,’ Luca muttered as he set a chair for her.

Her eyes were downcast, her smile directed to her feet. ‘I was not injured, I was only frightened. Ishraq is resting and recovering. She will be better in the morning, I am sure.’

Freize entered, banging the door, and started to slap down dishes onto the table. ‘Fricassée of chicken – they killed an old rooster specially. Stew of beef with turnip, a pâté of pork – I wouldn’t touch it myself. Some sausage which looks quite good and a few slices of ham.’ He went back out and came in again with more dishes. ‘Some marchpane from the local market which tastes almost like the real thing, but I wouldn’t swear to its youth; some pastries which the goodwife made herself, I saw them come out of the oven and I tasted them for your safety and approve them. They have no fruit here at all but some apples which are so green that they are certain to half-kill you, and some sugared chestnuts which they have saved for visiting gentry for a good year. So I would not answer for them.’

‘I am sorry,’ Luca said to Isolde.

‘No,’ she said with a smile. ‘He is very engaging and probably truthful, which matters more.’

‘Some very good wine, that I took the liberty of tasting for you in the cellar, which would do my lady no harm at all.’ Freize was encouraged by Isolde’s praise into pouring the wine with a flourish. ‘Some small ale to quench your thirst that they brew here from the mountain water, and is actually rather good. You wouldn’t drink the water in any case, but you probably could here. And if you fancy a couple of eggs I can get them boiled or scrambled up as you wish.’

‘He likes to think he is devoted to my service, and really he is very good to me,’ Luca said in an undertone.

‘And moreover,’ Freize said, bearing down upon Isolde, ‘there is a nice sweet wine for your voider course, and some good bread coming out of the oven now. They don’t have wheat, of course, but the rye bread is sweet and light, being made with some kind of honey – which I established by a long conversation with the cook who is no other than the goodwife, and a very good wife, I would think. She says that the gown becomes you better than her, and so it does.’

‘But sometimes, of course, he is quite unendurable,’ Luca finished. ‘Freize, please serve the meal in silence.’

‘Silence, he says.’ Freize nodded at Isolde with a conspiratorial smile. ‘And silent I am. See me: utterly silent. I am reticent, you know. Reticent.’

She could not help but laugh as Freize folded lip over lip, put all the remaining dishes on the table, bowed low, and stood with his back to the door, facing the room like a perfect servant. Brother Peter sat down and started to help himself to the dishes, with his manuscript beside him and his ink pot adjacent to his wine glass.

‘I see that you are questioning me, as well as feeding me,’ she said to Luca.

‘As the sacred Mass,’ Brother Peter answered for him. ‘Where you have to answer for your soul and your faith before you partake. Can you answer for your soul, my lady?’

‘I have done nothing that I am ashamed of,’ she said steadily.

‘The attack on the dead woman?’

Luca shot a quelling look at Brother Peter but Isolde answered without fear. ‘It was no attack. We had to know what she had been given to eat. And by discovering that she had been poisoned we saved the others. I knew Sister Augusta, and you did not. I tell you: she would have been glad that we did that to her – after death – so that we could save her sisters pain in their lives. We found the berries of belladonna in her belly, which proved that the nuns were being poisoned, that they were not possessed or going mad as we all feared. I hoped we could have given you the berries as evidence and saved the abbey from my brother and the Lady Almoner.’

Luca spooned the fricassée of chicken onto a big slice of rye bread and passed it to her. Daintily, she produced a fork from the sleeve of her gown and ate the meat from the top of the bread. None of them had seen such table manners before. Luca quite forgot his questions. Freize at the doorway was transfixed.

‘I’ve never seen such a thing,’ Luca remarked.

‘It’s called a fork,’ Isolde said, as if it were quite ordinary. ‘They use them in the court of France. For eating. My father gave me this one.’

‘Never eaten anything that couldn’t be speared on the tip of a dagger,’ Freize offered from the doorway.

‘Enough,’ Luca advised this most interfering servant.

‘Or sucked it up,’ Freize said. He paused for a moment, to explain more clearly. ‘If soup.’

‘“If soup!”’ Luca turned on him wrathfully. ‘“If soup!” For God’s sake, be silent. No, better still, wait in the kitchen.’

‘Keeping the door,’ Freize said, motioning that his work was essential. ‘Keeping the door from intruders.’

‘God knows, I would rather have an intruder, I would rather have a band of brigands burst in, than have you commenting on everything that takes place.’

Freize shook his head in remorse and once again folded lower lip over upper lip to indicate his future silence. ‘Like the grave,’ he said to Luca. ‘You go on. Doing well: probing but respectful. Don’t mind me.’

Luca turned back to Isolde. ‘You don’t need an interrogation,’ he said. ‘But you must understand that we cannot release you unless we are convinced of your innocence. Eat your dinner and tell me honestly what happened at the abbey and what you plan for your future.’

‘May I ask you what happened at the abbey? Have you closed it down?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I will tell you more later, but we left the abbey with the nuns in prayer and a new Lady Abbess will be appointed.’

‘The Lady Almoner?’

‘Dead,’ was all he told her. ‘Now you tell me all that you know.’

Isolde ate a little more and then put the slice of bread to one side. Brother Peter served the ragout onto her slice of bread, and dipped his pen in the ink.

‘When I came to the abbey, I was grieving for my father and opposed to his wishes,’ she said honestly. ‘Ishraq came with me – we have never been parted since my father brought her and her mother home from the Holy Land.’

‘She is your slave?’ Brother Peter asked.

Vehemently, Isolde shook her head. ‘She is free. Just because she is of Moorish descent everyone always thinks she is enslaved. My father honoured and respected her mother and gave her a Christian burial when she died when Ishraq was seven years old. Ishraq is a free woman, as her mother was free.’

‘Freer than you?’ Luca asked.

He saw her flush. ‘Yes, as it turns out. For I was bound by the terms of my father’s will to join the abbey, and now that I have lost my place I am a wanted criminal.’

‘What were you doing with the body of Sister Augusta?’

She leaned forwards, fixing her dark blue gaze on him. Luca would have sworn she was speaking the truth. ‘Ishraq trained with the Moorish physicians in Spain. My father took us both to the Spanish court when he was advising them about a new crusade. Ishraq studied with one of the greatest doctors: she studied herbs, drugs and poisons. We suspected that the nuns were being drugged, and we knew that I was having the most extraordinary dreams and waking with wounds in my hands.’

‘You had the stigmata on your own hands?’ Luca interrupted her.

‘I believed that I did,’ she said, suddenly downcast at the memory. ‘At first I was so confused that I thought the marks were true: painful miracles.’

‘Was it you that came to my room and showed me your hands?’

Silently, she nodded.

‘There is no shame in it,’ Luca said gently to her.

‘It feels like a sin,’ she said quietly. ‘To show the wounds of Our Lord and to wake so troubled, after dreams of running and screaming . . .’

‘You thought it was the drug belladonna that made you dream?’

‘Ishraq thought it so. She thought that many of the nuns were taking the drug. Ishraq never ate in the refectory, she ate with the servants, and she never had the dreams. None of the servants were having dreams. Only the sisters who ate the refectory bread were affected. When Sister Augusta died so suddenly Ishraq thought that her heart had ceased to beat under the influence of the drug; she knew that if you have too much it kills you. We decided to open her belly to look for the berries.’

Brother Peter shaded his eyes with his hands, as if he could still see the two of them, bloodied to the elbow, about their terrible work.

‘It was a very great sin to touch the body,’ Luca prompted her. ‘It is a crime as well as a sin to touch a corpse.’

‘Not to Ishraq.’ She defended her friend. ‘She is not of our faith, she does not believe in the resurrection of the body. To her it was no greater sin than examining an animal. You can accuse her of nothing but of practising the craft of medicine.’

‘It was a great sin for you,’ he persisted. ‘And surely unbearable? How could you – a young lady – do such a thing?’

She bowed her head. ‘For me it was a sin. But I thought it had to be done, and I would not leave Ishraq to do it alone. I thought I should be . . .’ She paused. ‘I thought I should be courageous. I am the Lady Lucretili. I thought I should be as brave as the name I bear. And at least we saw the berries in her belly, dark specks of the dried berries.’ She put her hand into the pocket of her gown and brought out a couple of flecks of dark hard berries like peppercorns. ‘We found these. This is proof of what we were doing, and what we found.’

Luca hesitated. ‘You took these from the dead woman’s belly?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘It had to be done,’ she said. ‘How else could we prove to you that the nuns were being fed belladonna berries?’

Gingerly, Luca took them, and quickly passed them over to Brother Peter. ‘Did you know the Lady Almoner was working with your brother?’

She nodded, sadly. ‘I knew there was something between them, but I never asked. I should have demanded the truth – I always felt that she . . .’ She broke off. ‘I didn’t know, I saw nothing for sure. But I sensed that they were . . .’

‘Were what?’

‘Could they possibly have been lovers?’ she asked, very low. ‘Is it possible? Or is it my jealous imagining? And my envy of her beauty?’

‘Why would you say such a thing? Of the Lady Almoner?’

She shrugged. ‘I sometimes think things, or see things, or almost smell things, that are not very clear, or not apparent to others . . . in this case it was as if she belonged to him, as if she was . . . his shirt.’

‘His shirt?’ Luca repeated.

Again she shook her head as if to shake away a vision. ‘As if his scent was upon her. I can’t explain better than that.’

‘Do you have the Sight?’ Brother Peter interrupted, staring at her over the top of his quill.

‘No.’ She shook her head in rapid denial. ‘No, nothing like that. Nothing so certain, nothing so clear. I would not attend to it if I did have, I don’t set myself up as some kind of seer. I have a sense of things, that is all.’

‘But you sensed that she was his woman?’

She nodded. ‘But I had no evidence, nothing I could accuse her of. It was just like a whisper, like the silk of her petticoat.’

A rumbling cough from the doorway reminded the men that it was Freize who had first noted the silk petticoat.

‘It’s hardly a crime to wear a silk petticoat,’ Brother Peter said irritably.

‘It was a suggestion,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘That she was not what she seemed, that the abbey under her command was not as it seemed. Not as it should be. But . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I was new to the life, and she seemed in charge of everything. I did not question her and I did not challenge her rule of the abbey at first. I should have done so. I should have sent for an inquirer at once.’

‘How did you get out of the cellar beneath the gatehouse?’ Brother Peter suddenly changed the course of questioning, hoping to throw her. ‘How did you get out and escape when there were handcuffs and leg-cuffs and the cellar was dug into solid stone?’

Luca frowned at the harshness of his tone, but Brother Peter just waited for the answer, his pen poised. ‘It’s the major charge,’ he remarked quietly to Luca. ‘It’s the only evidence of witchcraft. The work of the slave is the work of a heretic, she is not under the command of the Church. The attack on the body is the other woman’s work also – we might think of it as evil but the heretic is not under our jurisdiction. The Lady Abbess has committed no crime, but her escape is suspicious. Her escape looks like witchcraft. She has to explain it.’

‘How did you get out?’ Luca asked her. ‘Think carefully before you reply.’

She hesitated. ‘You make me afraid,’ she said. ‘Afraid to speak.’

‘You should be afraid,’ Luca warned her. ‘If you got out of the handcuffs and the cellar by magical means or with the assistance of the Devil then you will face a charge of witchcraft for that alone. I can acquit you of tampering with the dead woman, but I would have to charge you with invoking the Devil to aid your escape.’

She drew a breath. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she started. ‘I can’t tell you anything that makes sense.’

Brother Peter’s pen was poised over the page. ‘You had better think of something; this is the one remaining charge against you. Getting out of the manacles and through the walls is witchcraft. Only witches can walk through walls.’

There was a terrible silence as Isolde looked down at her hands and the men waited for her answer.

‘What did you do?’ Luca said quietly.

She shook her head. ‘Truly, I don’t know.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was a mystery.’

‘Was it witchcraft?’ Brother Peter asked.

There was a long painful silence.

‘I let her out,’ Freize suddenly volunteered, stepping into the room from his post at the door.

Brother Peter rounded on him. ‘You! Why?’

‘Mercy,’ Freize said shortly. ‘Justice. It was obvious they had done nothing. It wasn’t them panning for gold and swishing around in silk petticoats. That brother of hers would have burned her the moment he got his hands on her, the Lady Almoner had the pyres built ready. I waited till you were all busy in the yard, deciding what should be done, then I slipped down to the cell, released them, helped them up the ladder, got them into the stable yard on horses, and sent them on their way.’

‘You freed my suspects?’ Luca asked him, disbelievingly.

‘Little lord.’ Freize spread his hands apologetically. ‘You were going to burn two innocent women, caught up in the excitement of the moment. Would you have listened to me? No. For I am well-known as a fool. Would you have listened to them? No. For the Lady Almoner had turned your head and this lady’s brother was quick and ready with a torch. I knew you would thank me in the end, and here we are, with you thanking me.’

‘I don’t thank you!’ Luca exclaimed, angry beyond measure. ‘I should dismiss you from my service and charge you with interfering with a papal inquiry!’

‘Then the lady will thank me,’ Freize said cheerfully. ‘And if she doesn’t, maybe the pretty slave will.’

‘She’s not my slave,’ Isolde said, quite at a loss. ‘And you will find that she never thanks anyone. Especially a man.’

‘Perhaps she will come to value me,’ Freize said with dignity. ‘When she knows me better.’

‘She will never know you better for you are about to be dismissed,’ Luca said furiously.

‘Seems harsh,’ Freize said, glancing at Brother Peter. ‘Wouldn’t you say? Given that it was me that stopped us from burning two innocent women, and then saved all five of us from the brigands. Not to mention gaining some valuable horses?’

‘You interfered with the course of my inquiry and released my prisoners,’ Luca insisted. ‘What can I do but dismiss you and send you back to the monastery in disgrace?’

‘For your own good,’ Freize explained. ‘And theirs. Saving you all from yourselves.’

Luca turned to Brother Peter.

‘But why did you fasten up the handcuffs after you had released them?’ Brother Peter asked.

Freize paused. ‘For confusion,’ he said gravely. ‘To cause more confusion.’

Isolde, despite her anxiety, choked back a laugh. ‘You have certainly caused that,’ she said. A small smile exchanged between them made Luca suddenly frown.

‘And do you swear you did this?’ he asked tightly. ‘However ridiculous you are?’

‘I do,’ Freize said.

Luca turned to Brother Peter. ‘This vindicates them from the charge of witchcraft.’

‘The report has gone,’ Brother Peter ruled thoughtfully. ‘We said that the captives were missing, accused of witchcraft, but that their accusers were definitely guilty. The matter is closed unless you want to reopen it. We don’t have to report that we met them again. It is not our job to arrest them if we have no evidence of witchcraft. We’re not holding an inquiry now. Our inquiry is closed.’

‘Sleeping dogs,’ Freize volunteered.

Luca rounded on him. ‘What in hell do you mean now?’

‘Better let them lie. That’s what people say. Let sleeping dogs lie. Your inquiry is completed, everyone is happy. We’re off on some other damn fool mission. And the two women who were wrongly accused are free as little birds of the air. Why make trouble?’

Luca was about to argue, but then he paused. He turned towards Isolde. After one powerful blue gaze that she had shot at Freize when he had confessed to releasing them, she had returned to studying her hands held in her lap.

‘Is it true that Freize released you? He let you go? As he says?’

She nodded.

‘Why did you not say so at once?’

‘I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’

Luca sighed. It was unlikely, but if Freize was holding to his confession and Isolde would offer no other explanation, then he could not see what more he should do. ‘Who is going to believe this?’

‘Better this, than you trying to tell everyone that we melted through leg-cuffs and handcuffs,’ she pointed out. ‘Who would believe that?’

Luca glanced at Brother Peter. ‘Will you write that we are satisfied that our servant released them, exceeding his duties but believing that he was doing the right thing? And that now we are clear that there was no witchcraft? And they are free to go?’

Brother Peter was wearing his most dour look. ‘If you instruct me so to do,’ he said pedantically. ‘I think there is more to it than your servant stepping out of his place. But since he always steps out of his place and since you always allow it, and since you seem determined that these women shall go free, I can write this.’

‘You will clear my name?’ Isolde pressed.

‘I will not accuse you of escaping by witchcraft,’ Brother Peter specified. ‘That’s all I am prepared to do. I don’t know that you are innocent of everything; but as no woman is innocent since the sin of Eve, I am prepared to agree that there is no evidence and no charge to set against you for now.’

‘It’s good enough,’ Luca ruled. ‘Anyway,’ he turned to Isolde, ‘what are you going to do now?’

She sighed. ‘I have been puzzled as to what I should do. But I think I will go to the son of my father’s friend, a man who was his constant companion on crusade, my godfather, I can trust him and he has a reputation for being a tenacious fighter. I will ask him to clear my name, and to ride with me against my brother. It seems he did all of this to steal my inheritance from me, to kill me. So I will take his inheritance from him. I shall take back what is mine.’

‘There is more than you know,’ Luca told her. ‘It is worse than you know. He had commanded the Lady Almoner to set the nuns to pan for gold in the stream in your woods.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Gold?’

‘It’s probably why your brother was determined to drive you out of the abbey. There may be a fortune in gold in the hills, draining out into the stream in dust.’

‘They were panning for gold?’

He nodded. ‘He was using the Lady Almoner to steal gold from your abbey lands. Now she is dead and you have run away, the abbey and the lands and the gold are all his.’

He saw her jaw harden. ‘He has won my home, my inheritance, and a fortune as well?’

Luca nodded. ‘He left the Lady Almoner to her death and rode away.’

She turned on Brother Peter. ‘But you didn’t charge him! You didn’t pursue him for all the sins since Adam! Though I am responsible for everything done by Eve?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘He committed no crime that we saw at the time. Now he pans for his own gold on his own land.’

‘I will hold him to account. I will return and take back my lands. I am no longer bound by obedience to my father’s will when my brother is such a bad guardian of our family honour. I will drive him out as he drove me away. I will go to my godfather’s son and get help.’

‘Was your godfather a man of substance? Your brother has his own castle and a small army to command.’

‘He was Count Wladislaw of Wallachia,’ she said proudly. ‘His son is the new count. I will go to him.’

Brother Peter’s head jerked up. ‘You are the goddaughter of Count Wladislaw?’ he asked curiously.

‘Yes, my father always said to go to him in time of trouble.’

Brother Peter lowered his eyes and shook his head in wonderment. ‘She has a powerful friend in him,’ he said quietly to Luca. ‘He could crush her brother in a moment.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘It’s a long journey,’ she admitted. ‘To the east. He is at the court of Hungary.’

‘That would be beyond Bosnia?’ Freize abandoned any attempt at standing in silence by the door and came into the room.

‘Yes.’

‘Further east than that?’

She nodded.

‘How are two pretty girls like you and the slave going to make that journey without someone stealing from you . . . or worse?’ Freize asked bluntly. ‘They will skin you alive.’

She looked at Freize and smiled at him. ‘Do you not think that God will protect us?’

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘My experience is that He rarely attends to the obvious.’

‘Then we will travel with companions, with their guards, wherever we can. And take our chances when we cannot. Because I have to go. I have no-one else to turn to. And I will have my revenge on my brother, I will regain my inheritance.’

Freize nodded cheerfully at Luca. ‘Might as well have burned them when you got the chance,’ he observed. ‘For you are sending them out to die anyway.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Luca said impatiently. ‘We will protect them.’

‘We have our mission!’ Brother Peter objected.

Luca turned to Isolde. ‘You may travel with us under our protection until our ways diverge. We are on a mission of inquiry, appointed by the Holy Father himself. We don’t yet know our route but you may travel with us until our ways part.’

‘Very important,’ Freize supplemented, with a nod to the young woman. ‘We are very important.’

‘You can accompany us and when you find safe and reputable travellers on the road you can transfer to them, and travel with them.’

She bowed her head. ‘I thank you. I thank you for myself and for Ishraq. And we will not delay nor distract you.’

‘It is absolutely certain that they will do both,’ Brother Peter remarked sourly.

‘We can help them on their way at least,’ Luca ruled.

‘I should give you my name,’ the young woman said. ‘I am Lady Abbess no longer.’

‘Of course,’ Luca said.

‘I am Lady Isolde of Lucretili.’

Luca bowed his head to her, but Freize stepped forwards, bowed low, his head almost to his knees, straightened up and thumped his clenched fist against his heart. ‘Lady Isolde, you may command me,’ he said grandly.

She was surprised, and giggled for a moment. Freize looked at her reproachfully. ‘I would have thought you would have been brought up to understand a knight’s service when it is offered?’

‘He is a knight now?’ Brother Peter asked Luca.

‘Seems so,’ came the amused response.

‘Say a squire then,’ Freize amended. ‘I will be your squire.’

Lady Isolde rose to her feet and extended her hand to Freize. ‘You do right to remind me to respond graciously to an honourable offer of service. I accept your service and I am glad of it, Freize. Thank you.’

With a triumphant glance at Luca, Freize bowed and touched her fingers with his lips. ‘I am yours to command,’ he said.

‘I take it you will house and clothe and feed him?’ Luca demanded. ‘He eats like ten horses.’

‘My service, as the lady well understood, is that of the heart,’ Freize said with dignity. ‘I am hers to command if there is a knightly quest or a bold venture. The rest of the time I carry on as your manservant, of course.’

‘I am very grateful,’ Isolde murmured. ‘And as soon as I have a bold venture or knightly quest I will let you know.’

When Isolde entered the bedroom, Ishraq was sleeping, but as soon as she heard the soft footsteps, she opened her eyes and said, ‘How was dinner? Are we arrested?’

‘We’re free,’ Isolde said. ‘Freize suddenly told his master that it was he who released us from the cellar under the gatehouse.’

Ishraq raised herself up onto one elbow. ‘Did he say that? Why? And did they believe him?’

‘He was convincing. He insisted. I don’t think they wholly believed him but at any rate, they accepted it.’

‘Did he say why he confessed to such a thing?’

‘No. I think it was to be of service to us. And better than that, they have said that we can travel with them while our roads lie together.’

‘Where are they going?’

‘They follow orders. They go where they are told. But there is only one way out of the village so we will all go east for the time being. We can travel with them and we will be safer on the road than with strangers or alone.’

‘I don’t like Brother Peter much.’

‘He’s all right. Freize swore to be my knight errant.’

Ishraq giggled. ‘He has a good heart. You might be glad of him one day. He certainly served us tonight.’

Isolde stripped off the blue gown, and came in her chemise to the side of the bed. ‘Is there anything you want? A small ale? Shall I sponge your bruises?’

‘No, I am ready to sleep again.’

The bed creaked gently as Isolde got in beside her. ‘Goodnight, my sister,’ she said, as she had said almost every night of her life.

‘Goodnight, dearest.’