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Elinor felt her empty stomach rumble. She tore a bit of bread from an unused trencher and stuffed it in her mouth; it tasted better than anything she had eaten for weeks. Her last meal.
    She had to hurry before Hugo and the kitchen servants came back for the date sweetmeats and apples dipped in honey that were spread on a table. Swiftly she crossed the room and took one of Hugo’s knives, with a horn handle. It was an old one, thin in the blade from having been honed against the whetstone so often. And it was sharp as any dagger.

    Alys had been allowed to eat dinner with the local nobility in Elinor’s place. She said little but watched and listened. Le Viguier had good manners and was no fool but he was old; she could understand why Elinor would not want to marry him.
    And his daughters were cross-grained, froward creatures. Lord Lanval and Lady Clara were polite to them but Alys could see that her parents did not regard the Viguier women as good models for their daughters. Perhaps their mother had been dead too long and they had been allowed too much freedom by their quiet, grey father?
    Alys was worried about Elinor. She had seen her wasting away and thought at first it was because she was missing Bertran. But now she was sure that her sister’s decline was because she didn’t want an old husband and had realised it was her parents’ plan to give her one. Alys shuddered and drank some hippocras to disguise her trembling.
    Suppose they had such a fate in mind for her too? She had hoped for something better. And what would Elinor do if she were forced to marry old Thibaut? Alys couldn’t imagine her sister just giving up and settling down. She had been watching her and had come to some conclusions of her own.
    When the dinner came to an end and just a few men were left drinking and listening to the musicians, Alys passed close to Huguet and whispered that she would like to talk to him on the battlements when the evening’s music was over.
    She passed a cold hour walking up and down on the walls, in spite of her fur-lined cloak. She kept herself warm by blowing on her hands and wrapping her arms round herself. After a long wait, a whistle like a bird’s single note told her that Huguet was near.
    Alys was suddenly shy. The joglar s were Elinor’s special friends and she felt all at once the scandal of meeting a young man alone in a secret tryst. She was very aware of his presence, even though she was still a little girl, and was glad to be able to pull her hood over her face.
    ‘What can I do for you, my lady?’ he said and his warm and friendly voice allayed her fears. Huguet was a friend.
    ‘I am worried about my sister,’ she said. ‘She is so unhappy I fear she will harm herself in some way.’
    ‘She has certainly looked pale and thin of late,’ agreed Huguet. ‘May I ask what you think is wrong? What is it that has taken her appetite away? I thought it was – forgive me – some ailment of women.’
    Alys sighed. ‘It is in a way. If marriage is a woman’s ailment. I’m not sure but I think our parents intend her to marry old Viguier. I know that’s what Elinor thinks he has come here for – to ask for her hand.’
    ‘The Lady Elinor and that stick!’ said the joglar . ‘Never! Besides,’ he hesitated. ‘Forgive me, not my place to mention it, but I have always thought your sister looked with favour on Bertran de Miramont?’
    Alys smiled inside her hood; did everyone in the castle know of her sister’s preference?
    ‘My sister might not be able to act upon her own wishes,’ she said. ‘If our father says she must marry Thibaut, then what else can she do?’
    She heard Huguet gasp.
    ‘No, surely she couldn’t . . .’ said the joglar anxiously.
    ‘What? What are you thinking?’ said Alys, his panic infecting her own mood.
    ‘That as I passed the kitchen, Big Hugo was bawling that someone had stolen his boning knife.’
    Alys suddenly felt a lot colder.
    And then she was flying along