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gladly.’
    ‘Hah!’ Will looked pleased. ‘Oh, and there’s my woman, sir, my Ella. Would you have need of her, too? She’s a good, clean soul, hard-working, can turn her hand to most work of a domestic nature, whether it’s making the butter come quick, turning out a room, milking a cow, sewing a fine seam or cooking a tasty stew.’
    Josse grinned, slapping Will on the back. ‘Such a paragon of talents shouldn’t be allowed to sit idle, don’t you agree, Will?’
    ‘No, indeed, sir.’
    ‘We’d better have her, too, then. Your Ella.’ He paused. ‘But where will you live?’ He looked around. ‘I don’t think there’s anything suitable, I’d better—’
    ‘There is, sir,’ Will interrupted, looking slightly sheepish. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of having a look, and there’s a tidy little cottage tacked on the end of that row there.’ He pointed to a barn and several lean-tos, on the far side of the courtyard; Josse, who hadn’t had a close inspection, had imagined most of the row would have to be pulled down.
    ‘There’s a cottage? In that lot?’ he asked incredulously.
    ‘Aye. Run down right now, but it’s dry. The timbers are sound, it just needs a bit of work. Me and Ella’ll soon put it to rights. Given your permission, sir, naturally.’
    Again, Josse started to laugh. In the space of a quarter of an hour, he had found himself a manservant and a first-rate domestic woman, and agreed to their refurbishment of a cottage he hadn’t known he had.
    All in all, not bad going.
    *   *   *
    Now, riding towards New Winnowlands – he was quite pleased with the name – on a warm June afternoon, Josse felt for the first time a sense of coming home.
    The house stood on its slight rise, walled courtyard in front, walled garden stretching out to the rear. All of those walls looked strong, and the manor itself was soundly roofed, with a whisper of smoke from some cooking fire floating up on the gentle breeze.
    It looked, at last, as if the house was almost finished.
    Josse rode into the courtyard. As if he had been waiting, Will appeared from the barn, and came to stand at Josse’s horse’s head.
    ‘Shall I take him for you, sir?’ he asked. ‘Ella’s been baking, she can have food ready for you in a trice.’
    ‘Yes, thanks, Will.’ Josse dismounted, handing over Horace’s reins. ‘Oh, just let me get my pack. I’ll have to see to—’
    ‘Ella’ll see to your kit. If you’ll let her, sir, that is. Fine washerwoman, my Ella, and nimble-fingered with a needle, should any mending be called for.’
    ‘I had an idea she might be,’ Josse murmured. Then, out loud: ‘Please ask her, then, Will.’ He grinned at his manservant. ‘I must say, it’s quite a novelty, to be so well-received.’
    ‘This is your home, sir!’ Will said, clearly surprised. ‘Should not a man be welcomed, in his own home?’
    My home, thought Josse. Ah, how good it sounded!
    *   *   *
    He spent a lazy evening, and, replete after an excellent supper, retired early to bed. His chamber had been swept so clean that he could have eaten his food off the floor, and his bed had been made up with bedding that smelt faintly of lavender. The straw-filled mattress lay, he noticed, on a layer of dried tansy leaves; Ella had made sure he wasn’t going to be troubled by any small biting creatures.
    He slept long and deeply, and awoke from a vivid dream in which he had been waving a hay fork violently above his head, to stop strange, black, winged creatures from alighting on a steep church roof.
    Not very surprising, he reflected as he got up, that he should dream of a church. Because, as he’d been drifting off to sleep, he’d been thinking about his friend Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye, whom he had not seen for almost two years.
    And he had decided that, now he was installed as master of New Winnowlands, it was time to pay her a visit.
    Ella served him a very substantial breakfast, and, when he had finished,