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are, which is why he will have to practise until he weeps tears of blood,’ Arnaud replied. ‘What I am saying is that he has the potential to become skilled.’
    Alexander flushed with pleasure. His mind’s eye was filled with the image of himself dressed as Hervi had been that afternoon, a sword at his hip and a mail coat meshing his body. ‘It is what I want to do,’ he said fervently.
    Hervi bestowed him a brooding look but made no more adverse remarks. Clemence de Cerizay rose abruptly and began clearing away the empty bowls and bread basket. Glancing at her, Alexander saw that her lips were pursed and her eyelids tense. He could sense her irritation, but did not know what was wrong. There was a rueful expression on Arnaud’s face. Hervi examined his fingernails.
    ‘Some of us are here by necessity,’ Arnaud said. ‘God grant you peace of soul, the gift of wise choice and the wherewithal not to squander your life. You will need more than prowess in battle to survive.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ Alexander said on a more subdued note.
    Arnaud considered him. ‘Hervi tells me that you read and write Latin.’
    Alexander moved his shoulders. ‘Enough to get by. I was not the most apt pupil.’
    ‘He wasted his time writing secular love poems,’ Hervi said drily.
    Arnaud shook his head. ‘It matters not, it is another string to his bow when it comes to finding an employer. If he can prove entertaining company in the great hall of a snowbound winter’s evening, as well as fight, then he will always have a hearth at which to warm his hands.’
    ‘And a snug bed too, I’ll warrant!’ Hervi laughed, then bit his lip beneath Clemence’s severe look. ‘Speaking of which, it is time we made our farewells if I’m to be bright-eyed for the morrow!’ He slapped Alexander’s bony shoulder. ‘Come, lad, the moon’s half waxed already.’
    Alexander rose from his stool and thanked the de Cerizays for their hospitality. The girl smiled at him, her loose plait of brown-bronze hair outlined by the lanternlight, her eyes wide and sparkling. He had wondered earlier whether to mention their encounter by the stream, but had decided against it lest it cause trouble for them both. He needed this niche in the world. The mother smiled too, but she seemed preoccupied, and although she warmly wished them good night, Alexander could tell that she was glad to see them leave.
    He did not brood on the reason, for too many other thoughts were churning in his mind. Arnaud de Cerizay had said that he had the potential to become a knight, that with his background and the training to come, he was almost assured of a high career. Nervous excitement surged through his body. He thought of the girl’s grey eyes upon him and embroidered on her look until his imagination was filled with the vision of hundreds of young women tossing flowers at him in admiration as he sat astride a champing Spanish war horse. Not even the mildewed smell of Hervi’s tent and the scratchy texture of the coarse woollen bed blanket could dampen his enthusiasm. He had set his feet on his chosen road as a penniless beggar, but he knew that his destination would make him wealthy beyond compare.
    And when that happened, the skeletons in the walls would be unable to touch him.
    Arnaud de Cerizay lay upon his pallet and gazed up into the darkness. Beside him Clemence was silent, but he knew that she was not asleep. Her hair tickled his chest; the warmth of her thigh lay along his own. They had a modicum of privacy, their bed separated from Monday’s by a gaily coloured hanging of woven homespun. On the other side of the screen he could hear his daughter’s regular, soft breathing.
    Arnaud wished that it was a midsummer evening so that he could see the pale glimmer of his wife’s hair and the slender shape of her body. The thought stirred his loins to sleepy arousal. He had been twenty years old and she sixteen when they had eloped together and married against her powerful