The Stone Rose Read online

  He searched her eyes. ‘Barren? A young girl like you? How do you know?’

  ‘I know it, sir. I’m a tree that will never bear fruit.’

  She said it with such conviction that Alan believed her. He rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘My thanks, but no,’ he repeated, but in the manner of someone trying to convince himself.

  The girl had glimpsed eagerness in the foreigner’s eyes, swiftly banked down, and knew he was tempted. Heartened, she pressed him. ‘I won’t try and make you stay, or say that you love me. There will be no commitment, beyond tonight.’ He was listening to her.

  ‘No commitment?’

  ‘None.’ She heard him swallow.

  ‘And you swear you are safe? I don’t want to think I’m leaving you behind with my babe in your belly.’

  The girl’s mouth curved, she was almost certain she was going to have her way. ‘By St Ivy–’

  ‘Very well.’ A smile lightened the soldier’s dark features, and his forefinger ran softly across her prominent cheekbones. ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘To the bridge. I sleep under it.’

  ‘The bridge. Of course.’

  ***

  The beggar-girl’s assessment that her benefactor would take his pleasure slow and easy had been correct, and only when he had satisfied himself that she was enjoying it too had he let himself go and fallen with a convulsive sigh onto her breast. She stroked his thick hair, more relaxed and content than she had been for a year. Playfully, she nibbled his earlobe. He murmured and shifted, lifting his head so he blotted out the stars. ‘No more,’ he said, with gentle but unyielding firmness.

  ‘No more?’ She did not want to believe him. He had been considerate, and she was hungry for more of the same. She ran a teasing hand down his back and repeated huskily, ‘No more?’

  Alan felt wretched. Making love with this girl had not succeeded in stopping him thinking about Gwenn. He was in a miserable state of mind, and it was not one he would be in if he hadn’t decided to do his cousin a good turn, and see his family safe to Ploumanach. It is always good deeds, he reflected sourly, that get you into trouble. He eased himself away from his companion and sat up. ‘No more. I have to go.’

  ‘Daylight’s hours away.’

  ‘I have to go.’ There was an ache in his belly, and activity would dissipate it. He reached for his hose and began dressing.

  The beggar-girl watched the man who a few moments ago had been as considerate a lover as she could have wished for, and a dreadful feeling of inevitability fell over her. ‘You hate me,’ she murmured, sadly. He was in a hurry, already he was clothed.

  Alan glanced uneasily at the girl lying on her pillow of ferns. ‘I don’t hate you. It’s me I hate.’ He considered giving her more money, but did not wish to insult her. Instead he took her head between his hands and pressed his lips to her pale cheeks. ‘Fare you well.’

  ‘St Julian watch over you,’ came the whispered response.

  Firebrand was tethered to an overhanging alder. Unhooking the reins, Alan led the Duke’s courser onto Pontivy’s main thoroughfare. He walked as the far as the inn and, finding the shutters closed for the night, hammered until the landlord appeared.

  ‘What is it?’ Scrubbing sleep from his face, and none too pleased at being roused from his bed, the landlord scowled.

  ‘I want a word about the girl.’

  ‘What girl? We’re closed. I gave you your wine.’

  ‘I know that. But I’d like to ask you a favour.’

  The landlord’s scowl deepened and he did not reply. Favours usually cost money.

  ‘That girl I was with.’ Alan didn’t know her name, hadn’t wanted to know it.

  ‘The beggar-maid?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Alan took a couple of coins from his pouch and juggled them in his palm. ‘I was hoping that you might see your way to employing her.’

  ‘God’s wounds! This is a reputable hostelry, I can’t be employing poxy drabs.’

  ‘I think she would work hard if you gave her the chance.’

  The innkeeper swore. ‘No. It’s more likely she’d scare off my trade. Have you seen the state of her skin? She looks as though she’s infected with the plague.’

  Alan smiled crookedly. ‘I think if you employed her, you’d find her cured of that affliction.’ He held out his palm, and the innkeeper’s eyes did not shift from the coins.

  ‘You’re leaving the area?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What’s to stop me taking your money and not giving her work?’

  Alan remembered the well-regimented inn, the neat lines of hams, the orderly onions, and the landlord’s dazzling linen apron. He grinned. ‘Nothing. I’m taking the chance that you’re not a man to sweep things into the rushes. I shall trust to your honesty, landlord.’

  The innkeeper’s fingers closed round the money. ‘I’ll try her out,’ he agreed, reluctantly. ‘But I give you notice, if I find her dishonest, I’ll throw her back into the midden.’

  ‘My thanks, landlord.’

  It was rare for Alan to be moved to compassion, and it unsettled and disturbed him, but he could not have stalked off and dismissed that girl from his mind as once he might have done. He grimaced ruefully into the rustling night, conscious of a wave of regret at leaving her. Time was when he would not have spared her a moment’s thought, but something had opened his eyes to her plight. It would have been easier if his eyes had remained closed. It would have been far simpler to ride off and forget her.

  Alan had another leave-taking preying on his mind. He was becoming as strongly attracted to Gwenn as his cousin was, and he would shortly have to say farewell to her. If he felt like this over a girl he’d only known for one evening, how was he going to react when he parted from Gwenn? Briefly, he considered confessing his feelings to her, but he could not see what that would achieve. He could not bring himself to come between Ned and Gwenn, he had seen how they cared for each other, and even if his feelings were reciprocated, did he want to make an adulteress of Gwenn?

  Fiercely, Alan dug in his heels and Firebrand surged through the waving bracken. At least he was happier with himself having spoken to the landlord about the beggar-girl. It was best she remained nameless. Weren’t beggars always nameless? Perhaps next time he passed this way he would visit the inn and see if she was there. Perhaps he might learn her name, next time.

  ***

  Conan had stowed away among a merchant’s bales of cloth in a trading vessel bound for the northern port of Lannion. Lannion was half a day’s walk from Ploumanach. Conan had tried to shake off the white mongrel, intending to abandon it on the quayside, but the animal had clung like a tick, and in the end Conan had taken it with him. If the dog threatened to give tongue and betray him, he could always slit its throat. But the animal had learned that it paid to be silent, and while the merchantman skimmed over the waves, the cur kept a cowed silence.

  In Lannion, a fortuitous chance in La Rue des Templiers had a donkey shedding its burden at the bottom of the hill. While the load was set to rights, the way was blocked to the church at the top, and in the muddle Conan cut the strings of the cloth merchant’s elaborately tooled leather purse. As a result, he was in possession of enough minted silver to bide his time, and pick his moment.

  He reached Ploumanach two days before Alan’s party, hiring lodgings in a fisherman’s cottage in one of the many fishing hamlets that had grown up in the surrounding inlets. While he and the dog waited, he set his mind to pondering on how he could get his hands on Gwenn Herevi’s Virgin. His mind, undirected by any but himself for the first time in a decade, moved slowly.

  ***

  The last leg of their journey to Ploumanach was without mishap, and Gwenn and her companions rode into the main village at sunset on a balmy evening. There was hardly a breath of wind in the air.

  Alan and Ned had been talking tournaments for the last hour, and though Gwenn had paid attention at first, she had wearied of the topic and chose ins
tead to take an interest in the changing countryside. Clumps of gorse flamed yellow in the evening light. Slender white ribbons of cloud trailed across a fading blue sky. The trees had thinned out some miles back, and though a few oaks grew here, by comparison with their proud brothers in the forest, these were stunted and twisted. There were tall pines though, and as they drew nearer the coast, stunted oaks yielded to sprawling banks of bramble. The scent of pine lingered in the air, and in the distance, breaking up the skyline, the spiky trees formed a dark traceried screen for the evening light to glow through.

  A seagull arrowed over their heads. They must be close to their destination. Gwenn dragged her attention from the terrain and homed in on the cousins’ discussion.

  ‘If you find you can’t settle here, Ned,’ Alan was saying, ‘you could come to King Philip’s August Tournament. My Duke plans to go, and I shall be accompanying him. There are bound to be opportunities for a young man like yourself. You would love it.’

  Philippe was asleep in Gwenn’s lap, a contented little cherub, totally unaware of the dramatic train of events that had led to him being dragged to the other side of Brittany. What did the future hold for him? What did the future hold for any of them? Glancing at her husband, Gwenn felt a warm upsurge of emotion for him. Her future was with Ned. Holding her brother firmly, Gwenn steered Dancer towards him so they were riding with their arms just touching. Ned reached over and gave a plait a friendly tug. Smiling impishly at him, Gwenn faked a yawn. ‘You’re not still droning on about tourneys, are you? I should have thought you would have talked them to death.’

  ‘Sorry, my sweet.’ Ned’s expression was wistful. ‘They fascinate me. I would love to go to one.’

  Gwenn bit her lip, recalling with a pang the times she had seen him hanging on her uncle’s words as though they were his meat and drink. ‘You could go, Ned. I see nothing to prevent you.’

  Warm blue eyes met hers. Ned was trying, and failing, to hide his eagerness. ‘But there’s you and the children. I have to consider you.’

  ‘Poor Ned,’ Alan teased, ‘shackled to a wife and children at your tender age.’

  Suddenly uncomfortable so close to Ned, Gwenn threw Alan a black look. ‘Alan,’ she urged Dancer level with Firebrand’s glossy flanks, ‘I’ll have you know it won’t be me who keeps Ned from attending the King’s Joust.’

  Alan bowed his head. ‘Very gracious of you, my lady.’ He rolled audacious eyes at Ned, whose mule was dragging its heels. ‘There you are, what more do you want? You have your wife’s permission to go to King Philip’s tournament.’

  The irony in Alan’s voice was wasted on Ned, busy belabouring his mule, but not on Gwenn. It was a rare man who heeded his wife’s wishes when they conflicted with his own. A wife was a chattel. Gwenn was lucky with her Ned, he did not view her in that light. How did Alan le Bret view her? As a chattel of his cousin’s?

  ‘I’ll look for you in August, Ned,’ Alan said, and then he grinned at Gwenn, and she could not divine what he thought.

  Lagging farther behind, Ned’s eyes shone with dreamy longing, but he refused to commit himself. ‘I’ll see.’

  ‘Ned the noble,’ Alan muttered, for Gwenn’s ears alone.

  Gwenn’s eyes narrowed, for Alan had sounded almost savage. ‘I’m blessed to have him,’ she said, and braced herself for sarcasm.

  But astonishingly, Alan did not mock her, he simply locked his cool gaze with hers, and said with quiet emphasis, ‘I know. He protects you from more than de Roncier.’

  Unable at first to puzzle that one out, Gwenn was startled when Alan’s eyes dropped to her mouth. She found herself looking at his, admiring the firm, clean curve of his upper lip, and the generous, sinful curve of the bottom one. When she had finished she realised that he was watching her and she understood what he had meant. Feeling like a guilty child who had been caught stealing a sweetmeat without asking, she jerked her gaze away from him, and made a show of seeing to the baby dozing in the cradle of her arm. Then she pinned her eyes on the sandy road which was dyed sunset pink.

  She did not look at Alan again. This was a complication she could do without. For a second, she had caught herself thinking that she would like to kiss him. She had wanted to see if he tasted the same as he did two years ago. She must drive out such sinful thoughts. She had a husband for whom she felt a great affection, and she did not want to be drawn to Alan. Alan was not capable of loving in the way that Ned was – lust was what Alan le Bret was about. She had needed Alan to see the children safely to Ploumanach. For everyone’s sake, the sooner he returned to his Duke now the job was done, the better.

  They were entering a village. In one of the doorways sat an elderly matron, a spindle and distaff idle at her elbow while she warmed a wind-burned face in the gentle rays of the waning sun. With a lingering look at Gwenn, which she ignored, Alan enquired the way of the woman.

  The matron cupped a hand to her ear. ‘You want Sir Gregor?’ The aged voice was worn, and rusty as a rook’s.

  ‘Aye. Which way?’

  A trembling talon pointed down the sand-strewn road which divided two rows of long, low cottages. Like a sponge, the street had soaked up the pink twilight – the whitewashed cottages were glowing as rosily as the sky. ‘Down there,’ the old woman rasped. ‘And when you reach the bay, skirt along the left hand path past Saint Guirec’s shrine. You can’t miss it. Sir Gregor’s holding is built on the rocks on the peninsular.’

  ‘My thanks.’ Alan clapped his spurs to his horse’s sides.

  Gwenn kept pace, but she avoided his eyes.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, giving her a pensive look. ‘I’ll wager you’re glad to have made it before nightfall. You won’t want another night in the open.’

  ‘No.’ Now they had actually arrived, Gwenn was nervous. Her throat was dry, and swallowing did not ease it. Up until this moment, her mind had been focused on getting her brother to Ploumanach alive. It had taxed her to keep going. She had not had the strength to think any farther ahead than where they would be sleeping that night, and whether they were being followed by de Roncier’s men and might be slaughtered in their sleep. She had not allowed herself the luxury of considering what sort of a reception she and her family might receive from her kin – her very distant kin.

  What was Sir Gregor like? Was he married? Would he welcome an entire family turning up like beggars on his doorstep, with little more than the rags on their backs? Craning her neck to watch Ned and Katarin, Gwenn glanced briefly at her husband’s saddlebags. Ned had managed to save the greater portion of Waldin’s money, and they had the gemstone, of course. She could use that to sweeten Sir Gregor if he looked disinclined to offer them aid.

  She and Alan rode past the last of the cottages in silence. Their mounts’ hoofs raised swirling pink clouds in the dusting of sand on the path, and the irregular clopping matched the pulse of Gwenn’s heart. She could hear the sea now, another, more rhythmical beat, as waves broke gently on an unseen beach. They must come to it at any moment.

  A brace of seagulls shot past them, dazzling flashes of pure, white light, and a small bay opened out before them. It was entirely bathed in the warm, flaring beauty of the dying sun. It was a sight that was balm to the most wounded of souls, and for a few blissful moments Gwenn forgot her troubles and could only gaze in delight. The setting sun rested on the edge of the world. The colours of a ripe peach, it had tinted the western sky. The sea was gold, and the sand and rocks were washed with the most subtle, sunset pink.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Gwenn murmured. Hearing Alan sigh, she glanced across at him. He was not looking at the bay, his eyes were fixed on a modest stone structure which could only be the shrine the fisherman’s widow had mentioned.

  Alan’s chest ached. ‘I’ll miss you, my little sparring partner,’ he said, so softly that his voice was almost lost in the gentle hushing of the sea. Ned had yet to breast the gorse bushes which fringed the beach.

  ‘Miss me?’ That she had n
ot expected, though she knew she would miss him.

  ‘If...’ Alan did not shift his eyes from the shrine, and Gwenn noted his skin had darkened as though he were hiding some emotion, possibly embarrassment. ‘If anything ever happens to Ned, my Blanche, I want you to promise to call on me.’

  Astounded by Alan’s discomfiture, and by his unexpected offer of assistance, Gwenn stared at him for some seconds before she realised that her mouth hung open. Could it be that Alan actually cared? No, this was Alan le Bret, the Duke’s cold captain... She snapped her mouth shut. ‘Call on you? But I have relatives here.’

  ‘They may not be,’ Alan paused and turned to face her, giving her an inscrutable look which brought her out in goosebumps, ‘to your liking, and as Ned’s cousin I am a relative of sorts.’ The look faded and was replaced with a stiff smile.

  He was embarrassed.

  ‘Will you promise, Gwenn? I’ll be leaving in the morning.’

  ‘But why should anything happen to Ned? Have you stumbled across something you’re not telling us?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ Alan said hastily, and shrugged, as though his offer was of no account. ‘I merely wanted you to know you could turn to me, if you need me.’

  ‘Thank you, Alan. I will remember.’

  ‘I am,’ Alan’s mouth went up at the edges and as Ned rounded the corner, he gave Gwenn one of the mocking little bows which had become endearingly familiar, ‘eternally your obedient servant, mistress.’

  ‘My thanks, kind sir,’ Gwenn replied in the same light tone. ‘Where would I find you?’

  ‘Ask for Duke Geoffrey.’ He gave her one last, sinful smile and heeled Firebrand, urging him across glowing pink sands to St Guirec’s shrine. The ache in his chest was not gone, but it had diminished.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘And so, Sir Gregor, that is our tale,’ Gwenn finished, and spread her hands in the universal gesture of supplication. The interview she had dreaded ever since leaving Kermaria was proving to be as unpalatable as she had imagined. She loathed having to beg. If it was not for the innocents – poor, silent Katarin and dispossessed Philippe...