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tumble of boyhood. She had not recognised him as the perfect knight astride the horse. Now, out of armour, in silk and velvet, he was again unimpressive beside his brother. With his hair cut straight round like a poet’s, he looked so frail he seemed to be woven from gossamer. When Hildegard acknowledged him he merely raised a limp hand in greeting before returning to the study of a small, ivory chessboard. For some reason there was a fur tippet lying across his lap. It’s hardly cold in here with that heap of logs spitting and roaring in a hearth big enough to house a small army, she thought, moving closer into its radiance and stretching out her hands.
    Roger took her by the elbow. ‘Let’s get away from this rabble. I want to have a word in private.’
    ‘Exactly my own desire.’ Pleased that she might get a chance to ask for his help so soon, she followed him up the gallery stairs towards the solar.
    On the way he said, ‘You’ll never believe this, she’s got me eating separate from the lads in the hall! She even wants me to employ a fool like the one Philippa of Hainault used to have. Can you beat it?’ He was laughing jovially at the folly of, presumably, his new wife, and Hildegard was just about to make a polite enquiry when there was a shriek and a gaggle of women came fluttering along the corridor in the wake of a bejewelled young woman who looked like nothing more than a child in dressing-up clothes.
    ‘Ah, here she is now,’ said Roger, coming to a stop. He started to coo like a ringed dove. ‘Melisen, my sweet—’
    She ignored him.
    To say she was pretty would be churlish, thought Hildegard. From her chaplet of filigree gold to the embroidered basquinets on her feet she was a vision from a chanson d’amour . She glittered. She sparkled. And she wore a single blood-hued gem as large as a duck egg nestling in her décolleté. La belle dame sans merci . What had Ulf said? The woman who knows the price of everything.
    Roger was clearly besotted. Even though Melisen was stamping and screaming like a Calais fishwife, he smiled fondly through it all. Apparently she wanted her entire staff of Saxons thrown out on their thieving ears and a reputable bunch of Kentish maids sent up from her father’s estates near Deal because of a lost brooch filched from off her very gown.
    Roger’s face blanched when he understood. He imagined, no doubt, the spies his father-in-law would smuggle in with such a wholesale incursion from Kent and began to chuckle in a hearty fashion that could not have concealed even from a deaf man, his utter desperation.
    ‘Now, now, my pretty martlet,’ he repeated several times, ‘I’m sure we can sort it out without getting rid of them all.’
    The screaming stopped briefly for want of breath and, quickly noticing his wife’s expression and without an iota of guile evident, he said, ‘On the other hand, my sweetkin, maybe you’re right, you always are, you’re so clever, so yes, let’s get rid of them first thing tomorrow, why don’t we? Then you can choose every one of your maids yourself.’ A tentative smile flickered for a moment before he added, smoothly, ‘Why one arth didn’t I think of that?’ He put a hand round her tiny waist. ‘And now, gentle sweeting,’ laying it on, judged Hildegard, who was observing the whole scene with interest, ‘we must down to dine.’
    So saying, he began to guide her towards the stairs. But wife number five was not to be so easily placated. She snatched at his sleeve and opened her mouth to start again. Luckily for Roger, before she could launch forth, a maid came pell-mell along the corridor with, in the palm of her hand, the lost brooch, glittering.
    ‘Here it is after all, my lady!’ said the maid, white faced but triumphant. Melisen picked up the brooch and stared at it as if convinced it was a trick of the light, but before she could demand to know where it was found and by whom, Roger, smooth as silk, took it from between