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above with a small room alongside for your maidservant, and is in readiness for you as soon as should require it. For the knights in your entourage, there are chambers that would be suitable on both the upper and lower floors and all have been aired and laid with clean linen.”
    â€œIt might be best if Miles and I slept on the ground floor, lady,” Gilles suggested. “If this murderer is seeking to harm the king, it might be wise for us to keep guard over your person while you are staying in a house which he might visit. We can alternate in keeping watch at night.”
    â€œI hope your fear will prove groundless,” Nicolaa replied, “but it is a sensible precaution, nonetheless.” She spoke to Dauton. “Have my knights shown over the premises and accommodate their direction as to sleeping arrangements and the like.”
    The steward nodded and Criel, who had been standing listening to their conversation, now took his leave. “I am at your service, lady,” he said to her. “The castle is not far away. Send for me if you should require my assistance with any matter at all.”
    After the constable left, and Gilles and Miles had gone about their inspection of the rooms, Nicolaa directed Clare to go upstairs and unpack the two small coffers of clothing and personal effects she had brought from Lincoln. She then told Gianni to remain with her. As Dauton hurried away to fetch the promised wine she entered the hall and sank gratefully onto the comfortable padded cushions of the settle, indicating to Gianni that he seat himself on a chair across from her. After the wine had been brought and they were alone, Nicolaa sat for a few moments in contemplation of the lad perched nervously in front of her, a sliver of doubt beginning to assail her. Was Gianni, after all, mature enough to undertake the responsibility she was about to give him? He had often assisted the Templar in previous investigations and she knew that his intelligence was swift, but the leading role she was about to assign him might prove to be too weighty for his young shoulders. She recalled when he had first arrived in Lincoln with de Marins three years before, a malnourished and timorous young lad, in fear of any but the Templar. de Marins had found him begging on a wharf in Palermo as he had made his way back to England from the Holy Land and, to save the child from death by malnutrition, had taken him as his servant, teaching him to read and write as they progressed on the journey. The intervening years of good food and decent shelter had made their impact of the boy’s physical condition. Although he had never grown much in stature—due, perhaps, to a lack of nutrition during the formative years of childhood—he was now of a slim but sturdy build, with a mop of lustrous brown hair and luminous dark eyes. But he was still young. Gianni had not known how old he had been when the Templar found him, but it had been assumed that he was, then, about twelve years of age and, if they were correct in their estimation, would now be in his fifteenth year. She could see the dark shadow of a beard on his cheeks and upper lip where he had recently begun to shave, and although this was a sign of his approaching manhood, it did not signify he would be capable of the task she was about to set him. But she had tested his competence before and not found him wanting, she reminded herself. And so, thrusting her uncertainty aside, she told him the details of the murder, adding that the Templar had been sent for and that it was possible he may be allowed to come to Canterbury and investigate the crime.
    At this information, Gianni’s eyes lit up. He had not seen his former master for some months. Although the lad was happy with his new life in Nicolaa’s service, he missed the Templar’s company and often thought longingly of the time when they had been together.
    â€œEven if de Marins is