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would have thought a married woman would not want men to stare at her bosoms in such a way, but apparently she did. Marie and René had grown up in Saumur and Margaret saw her aunt’s assessing eye flicker from the bare ears and throat of her mother to the enormous tapestries hanging along the walls. Margaret wondered if she would recognize any ofthem. Like the servants, they were borrowed or leased for a few days only. She could almost hear her aunt’s thoughts clicking away like a little abacus. Her mother always said Marie had a hard heart, but she had won a king with it and all the luxury of his life.
    Not for the first time, Margaret wondered what could have brought King Charles to Saumur Castle. She knew there would be no serious talk during the dinner, perhaps not even until the king had rested or hunted the following day. Margaret resolved to visit the balcony above the upper hall when she was allowed to go to bed. Her father took honoured guests in there to enjoy the great fire and a selection of his better wines. At the thought, she leaned closer to Yolande, just as the girl was trying to tweak her bare arm in pure mischief.
    ‘I’ll twist your ear and make you shriek if you do, Yolande,’ she muttered.
    Her sister pulled her hand back sharply from where it had been creeping over the table. At fifteen, Yolande was perhaps her closest companion, though of late she had taken on the airs and graces of a young woman, telling Margaret pompously that she couldn’t play childish games any more. Yolande had even given her a beautiful painted doll, spoiling the gift with a dismissive comment on baby things she no longer needed.
    ‘Will you come up the back stairs with me after the feast, to listen at the balcony? By the Crow Room.’
    Yolande considered, tilting her head slightly as she weighed her exciting new sense of adulthood against her desire to see the king speak to their father in private.
    ‘For a little while, perhaps. I know you get frightened in the dark.’
    ‘That’s you, Yolande, and you know it. I’m not afraid of spiders either, even the big ones. You’ll come, then?’
    Margaretcould sense her mother’s disapproving stare turned on her and she applied herself to some cut fruit on a bed of ice. The slender pieces were half-frozen and delicious and she could hardly remember when a meal had finished with such fine things.
    ‘I’ll come,’ Yolande whispered.
    Margaret reached out and rested her hand on her sister’s, knowing better than to risk her mother’s wrath with another word. Her father was telling some tedious story about one of his tenant farmers and the king chuckled, sending a ripple of laughter down the table. The meal had surely been a success, but Margaret knew he hadn’t come to Saumur for wine and food. With her head low, she looked up the table at the king of France. He looked so very ordinary, but John, Louis and Nicholas were apparently fascinated by him, ignoring their food at the slightest comment from his royal lips. Margaret smiled to herself, knowing she would mock them for it in the morning. It would pay them back for hunting her like a little fox.

3
     
    The Crow Room was silent as Margaret moved across it in bare feet. She’d spent part of the previous summer sketching the floor in charcoal on the back of an old map, marking each groaning joint or board with tiny crosses. The light from the fire in the upper hall spilled up over the balcony and she crossed it like a dancer, taking exaggerated steps in a pattern that matched the one she saw in her memory. The crows remained silent and she reached the balcony in triumph, turning back to gesture to Yolande.
    Lit by flickering gold and shadow, her sister gestured in frustration, but she had caught the same illicit excitement and crept out across the polished boards, wincing with Margaret as they groaned under her. The two girls froze at every sound, but their father and the king were oblivious. The fire huffed and