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was, yes. I was less than a year old. My mother, Anne of Tyre, had me by my father, but she could not escape from the city when it was taken. She gave me to my nurse, and this woman took me away.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œYes, she took me from Acre and brought me home. You see this ring?” When he lifted his left hand, Baldwin saw a gold ring which held a large red stone. The Bourc stared at it for a moment, then let his arm fall and stared into the flames. “This was given to my mother by my father. She gave it to my nurse, who gave it to my people as a token that I was my father’s son. She saved my life and made sure I was safe. Now she lives near here. That’s why I’ve come. To see her and thank her. For my life. I saw her briefly today on my way here, and will return to her tomorrow, then go home.”
    â€œWho was she? Maybe I know her.”
    â€œA lowly nurse? Maybe. She was named Agatha Kyteler.”
    Baldwin shook his head. “No. I don’t know her. The name is unfamiliar.”
    Â 
    It was late in the afternoon of the next day, Tuesday, when Simon Puttock and his wife arrived. By then Baldwin was sitting in his hall. John, Bourc de Beaumont had left at noon, and the knight was beginning to wonder if the bailiff and his wife had been forced to change their plans. Looking up at the sound of horses, he walked to the door and, seeing his friends, bellowed for servants.
    Though it was getting dark, the day’s weak sun had not managed to clear the white spatterings of frost from the dirt and grass, and Baldwin could see that behind his guests a thin gray mist was already lying in the valley. On a clear day he could see for miles from here in front of his house, and today he could make out the moors lying under their blanket of pure white snow in the far distance, looking somehow less threatening than in the summer when they loomed dark and menacing.
    Baldwin’s manor house was not a modern castellated property. Built in easier times, it was thatched like a farmhouse, the only concessions to safety being in the tiny windows and its position. Standing high on the side of the hill facing south, it lay in a clearing, surrounded at a safe distance by the old woods. In front there was a shallow gully in which the rainwater drained away, and it was here that the track lay, rising gradually to the flat area before his door.
    The knight watched as the small party approached. In the lead was the tall, slim figure of his friend SimonPuttock, a ruddy-faced, brown-haired man in his thirtieth year. Just behind him was his wife, Margaret, slim and elegant in her fur-lined gray cloak, hood down to show pale features glowing with the cold and exercise under thick tresses of blond hair trapped by her net. Bringing up the rear was their servant, Hugh, his dark face, Baldwin saw with a widening grin, pulled into his customary morose glower.
    Spreading his arms wide, Baldwin walked forward to meet them. “Simon, Margaret, welcome!” he shouted as they came close, his face breaking into a broad smile.
    After the ride from Exeter, Margaret was frozen, her fingers feeling like icicles under her gloves, but she felt a smile tugging at her mouth on seeing his pleasure. Before her husband could drop to the ground and help her down, Baldwin was beside her, bowing low, then offering her his hand with a smile, his teeth almost startling in contrast with his black moustache. Giving him a quick nod of gratitude, she accepted his hand and dropped to the ground, then stood looking at the view while she waited for the others.
    She had always loved this area, with its trees and tiny villages. The soft hills rolled gently up and down over a landscape scored with red stripes where the rich earth showed through the green carpet, smoke rising where the villeins held their smallholdings. It was so unlike the bleak, gray Devil’s heathland Simon had to look after now at Lydford. Here there were happy