‘You will thank me for this one day.’

Heloise, shrinking from her father’s voice, found her chair surrounded by the household women hovering excitedly, like agitated butterflies, to escort her beyond the solar to the best bedchamber. It was a relief to quit the company of the silent man who had been seated beside her through the feast, but a torment knowing that they would shortly haul him struggling up the stairs and thrust him into bed with her. She remained seated, staring unseeing at the delicacies on the bridal platter that neither she nor Rushden had touched. Her body was sticky where the red wine thrust at her had made shameful rivulets upon her gown and run like blood between her breasts. The musicians began the erotic shivalee with its sensuous drumming.

‘Heloise, come,’ urged Dionysia, bending over her shoulder.

‘Oh, why did you do this, Didie?’

‘Because it is the only way of escape and I love you too much to leave you here.’ Aloud, Dionysia exclaimed, ‘Come, all is ready for you.’

‘I will see you in purgatory, sweet heart.’ Rushden broke his silence, his dark-fringed eyes mad with fury, his smile icy as he rose to his feet.

Uncertain whether he intended to privily murder her or discover some other torment to feed his revenge, Heloise lifted her chin. ‘I should prefer to go to Hell alone.’

‘Oh, take ’em both up,’ exclaimed her father. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of his sour manners.’ He eyed the untouched food with miserly regret. ‘Set the platter in their chamber. Mayhap, son Rushden, you will have an appetite on you after you have played the man.’

Rushden’s fist missed her father’s jaw by a whisker and the sole of his boot sent the board from its trestles, heaving the huge salt, the platters and the goblets. The dogs rushed at the tumbled repast and the hall rose in consternation.

Gulping back tears, Heloise took to her heels and ran up the stairs. She grabbed the wooden bar behind the solar door and tried to set it across before the others could reach her, but her little sisters ducked in beneath it, giggling.

‘Oh, what is the use,’ Heloise cried in despair at the huge human torrent bearing Rushden towards her like a hapless log. ‘No, please!’ she cried as Dionysia pushed her backwards into their father’s bedchamber. His splendid bed with its green tasselled celure and David and Bathsheba frolicking on the costly tester was now a torture. Silk, diapered pillows made her tremble.

‘Tame him. Bell him,’ purred Dionysia.

‘Take off his horns and stroke his tail,’ giggled someone else as the women surrounded their victim, plucking at her belt, kneeling to untie her garters and roll down her stockings. Was this what it felt like to be attacked by carrion birds?

‘Where is his tail, then?’

Someone hushed her youngest sister.

Leading the male procession, the chaplain stepped in to sprinkle holy water on the sheets and her new husband was carried awkwardly through the doorway like an unloaded coffer and set up beside the wooden bedstairs. Outside on the wooden landing, Matillis lingered, wringing her hands, and the minstrels fiddled frantically.

Sir Dudley pointed a finger at the bridegroom. ‘Remember, you are not setting foot outside this chamber until the marriage is consummated.’

Rushden laughed. ‘If I have enjoyed your daughter already, as you allege, then this,’ he waved a hand to the bed, ‘is quite unnecessary.’

‘Oh, I applaud your clever tongue, lad, but I like to see things through.’

‘Have you not meddled enough, Father!’ exclaimed Heloise from the circle of women, slapping their hands away.

Her parent ignored her, standing at the foot of the bed like a tourney marshal while Rushden’s escort, bruised and black-eyed, grabbed at the man’s clothing like enemy soldiers robbing a dying commander of his armour. Heloise’s assailants recommenced their task as if it were a race.

‘Make sure they are mother naked,’ Sir Dudley chivvied, rubbing his hands gleefully. ‘Then let us see if a Rushden stallion can mount a Ballaster mare. Into bed with ’em.’

Miles was shoved alone between the sheets; the girl had not yet joined him. Between the moving rout of skirts and sleeves assailing her, he momentarily glimpsed a slender waist which gracefully flared into white hips that beckoned touching, and below a pale shimmer of narrow heel and shapely calf. The corner cressets were stifled and the chamber dimmed as they plucked off her headdress. The bed glinted, like an altar betwixt two candles, and he waited for the priestess. Fair like her sister, he thought at first, regretting that he dared not run his fingers across that silken skin and then blinked in disbelief as they pushed her backwards to the bed. The girl’s hair was grey. The Loathly Lady! He had been bewitched and wed to an old woman. Primeval superstition quickened his heart.

‘No, I will not bed a witch,’ he roared, crossing himself and struggling to quit the bed. ‘By sweet Christ, Ballaster, is this the only way you can find a man to mate with her? I will not bed a witch.’

There was a gasp of horror and a dreadful, ugly silence followed as if a spell had frozen every one of them to stone. Appalled at himself, Miles wished he might scrape the words back up, but they lingered on the air like the appalling stink of vomit. The woman’s silver head turned. With relief and disbelief, he saw that the complexion framed by the aged hair was still delicate and tender, but her look of tormented fury slashed him like a whip. He recoiled against the pillows, remembering the hushed whispers of his childhood that Jacquetta Woodville had bewitched King Edward, lured him to the forest and forced him to marry her eldest daughter when by rights he should have wed a foreign princess. And now it was happening to him.

The body of a siren, but her hair … The witchgirl had turned and was gazing at her sire in horror, unaware that the moonlight curtain of her hair had parted and a taut breast was jutting through. This was enchantment indeed, subtle, enticing; Miles’s spellbound gaze drank in her beauty like a thirsty man, enjoying the indulgence for a fleeting, lustful moment. Each curve was deliciously seductive; the tips of her unnatural hair that hid her womanly parts beckoned his eyes. He felt his own senses responding and reasserted control over his instincts, knowing that Ballaster was watching him like a smug magician, confident that he would be bewitched enough to slide between her thighs before the dawn.

Heloise saw the fear and contempt in Rushden’s stare grow hot with lusty interest and, with a gasp, realised that every man in the room was leering. She could only set trembling arms across her body and lower her head so that her hateful hair at least hid their faces from her. Her anger spent, she was shivering from the growing chill and trembling at the burning desire that flickered in Rushden’s eyes. Not until now had she believed that he might actually lie with her.

With an effort, Miles forced himself to look away and sensed the ancient fear stalking through the men. Carnal desire and superstition writhed in the very air. Christ ha’ mercy, what demons had he released? How long had the girl been hiding her fey hair from the men? The sea of suspicious faces needed to be calmed. He would not wish a woodpile lit beneath Heloise Ballaster, not by them.

It was an effort to coax his mouth into a semblance of humour. ‘My, Ballaster, a pretty changeling then if not a witch. Did your wife sleep in a toadstool ring the night your daughter was conceived?’

God’s Rood, worse and worse! Now he was labelling her mother a whore who had frolicked with an elfish lover, and glueing cuckold’s horns on Ballaster’s forehead.

‘Set back the covers. Daughter, get into bed.’ Ballaster’s cheeks were dark, his voice terse. One of the old besoms clucked approval at Miles as the sheet was whipped away from him and the bawdy gests began to restore normality. The magician was not smiling. Miles felt Sir Dudley’s derisive stare note the recent bruising. Hardly any pock scars spoilt his body. ‘Hail damage, sweet knight,’ his previous mistress had teased between kisses. It had only been his face that was marred.

‘My daughter’s body is unblemished as you have so thoroughly observed for yourself, Rushden.’ Miles swallowed at the just accusation. ‘I warrant her hair is uncommon but she would not have been able to stomach the Mass if she practised the black arts. As to her mother’s honour, slander that further and I will score through my daughter’s dowry. Now set your naked leg against my girl’s! Do it!’

Cursing, Miles eased himself sideways and touched anklebone and calf against his witch. He felt her shudder as if he had burned her.

‘Bear witness all of you that their naked flesh has touched. This is the way of handling royal weddings by proxy,’ Ballaster told the gawking household before he flung the bedclothes back to cover them. Everyone applauded, ignoring the swift jerk beneath the bed clothes as the protagonists moved apart.

‘Leave us! Go!’ Heloise grabbed the sheet and swiftly drew it to her collarbone. ‘Go!’

The chaplain stepped forward and gave them a very hurried blessing with an extra one for Heloise’s fertility, much to her annoyance.

‘That’s done then. Bring away the bridegroom’s clothes, you ribalds.’ Sir Dudley jerked his head at Dionysia to gather up her sister’s tumbled gown. ‘Now remember, lad, you are not going from this bedchamber until you have performed your husbandly duty and, daughter, you will behave like a good, obedient wife. Acknowledge this man as your lord from now on, and do your duty to please him. To her, young man, and beget your heir. I want a grandson.’

Rushden lunged forward, fist clenched, but her father, stepping back, merely laughed. ‘You grow predictable, young fellow,’ he scoffed. He waited until everyone had trooped out the door except Sir Hubert, who lingered to blow Heloise a kiss and bowed nobly to Rushden before her father pushed him out and loudly locked the door.

Heloise’s cheeks flamed. Must she succumb like a meek slave to a man who had threatened to beat her for putting on armour, and loudly labelled her a whore and her mother a harlot? Never! She had a little courage left – although her body was shaking, beyond her control – but, Jesu mercy, she now feared this stranger who had been given lordship over her.

Wrapping himself in silence, Rushden attempted to draw up the coverlet, but it was woven of stiff metal threads and heavy brocade. With a curse, he slid out of bed. Heloise yelped in surprise as he yanked the unbleached blanket from her, draping it round him like a bishop’s cope. Then he strode across to the small table.

‘Are you hungry?’ The non-threatening, commonplace inquiry made her realise that she had been holding her breath. Her body lost some of its rigidity.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, catching hold of the words tossed to rescue her temporarily, wondering if she could wriggle out of bed, taking the sheet with her.

‘Stay there. I will bring the platter across.’ A sensible solution but hardly reassuring. She felt tethered like a bait, wondering if this Rushden mastiff might take a bite out of her at any minute.

He set the plate between them and hoicked himself up onto the bed again, carefully keeping a fold of the blanket across his thighs. The rest of his covering was permitted to fall. Heloise peeped sideways, aware of arm muscles that would take more than her two hands to encompass, and a broad triangle of back, which had stretched the borrowed doublet at the seams. Strong, elegant hands tore off a piece of bread and set a slab of cheese upon it. He took a mouthful hungrily, fine white teeth tearing the crust free before his stare rose from the silver platter to examine her, and he drew the back of his hand across his lips.

Clutching her sheet firmly, Heloise reached out for a Lenten tartlet. Its casing was sticky but it smelt divine to her starved senses and she suppressed the temptation to attack it ravenously. They ate in silence. The nourishment restored her spirits and she stole a covert glance at her new husband’s profile. Instinct told her the hate lit by her father had abated somewhat. The gentleness of the candlelight hid the scars on his cheek and showed her a face of strength that might have graced Camelot or Aix, but his strong chin and hawk-beaked nose unnerved her, and the stubborn edge to his mouth she knew already. And she had vexed his ambitions.

Yes, Holy Church had linked them, making her his property for eternity unless he found the legal means to unlock the invisible chains from both their wrists. But that was for tomorrow. It was the hours of darkness stretching before her now that made Heloise anxious. She had been given to this stranger, like the repast that lay between them, to enjoy or disdain as he pleased. A stranger, albeit no ancient creature with December skin and foul breath, but a man who knew more of women than she did of men.

She licked her fingers thoughtfully. At least her hunger was not so great now. A small sigh of satisfaction escaped her and her companion paused in his own eating and looked at her for the first time without being disagreeable or stern.

‘This can be annulled.’ His words were reassuring, but his fingers reached out and lifted some strands of her hair, testing the texture.

‘I-I am not a witch,’ she told him at last, her voice husky, sounding foreign to her hearing.

‘No? How disappointing.’ A slow smile lit his face, his steel-grey eyes teasing her tortured senses. He let her hair fall, but it seemed a long moment before he looked to the platter and selected a sweet pastry. Heloise’s heart was drumming with ill speed.

‘I thought you much younger at Potters Field.’ That, she supposed, was the nearest she would receive to an apology.

‘I am almost twenty.’

A frown tempered his amazement. ‘I thought the blonde maid was the eldest.’

Maid? Sometimes that seemed questionable but she kept that opinion folded away.

He was watching her fingertips tangle themselves in the silken silver threads against her cheek. ‘And you are still unwed. Because of your hair?’

‘I had no desire to wed. You or any other.’ That did not please him. Did witches wed? At least married women covered their hair. Some urge arose – a desire to reassure him that she would keep her hair hidden so as not to shame him – but the protest died on her lips. There would be no future with him. She watched the blanket trail behind him as he left her to stride across to the wine jug. Yes, he would leave.

He filled the goblets set out for them, not asking her will but making the decision for her in husbandly fashion. ‘It will restore you,’ he told her, bringing the winecup across.

‘Yes,’ sighed Heloise, and drew it to her lips. She watched above its rim as he lifted his.

‘We have a dilemma, you and I, mistress,’ he said eventually and emptied the vessel far too rapidly. She was mistaken if she thought it tied weights to his mind. Agile thoughts flickered like tapers behind the alert gaze, his body tense and purposeful as he ran a thumb across the goblet’s smooth perimeter.

‘What do you suggest, sir? That I change you into a sparrow so you can fly out the window?’

Rushden’s eyes glimmered wryly. ‘Witty but not very practical – if you are not a witch, that is.’ A wave of laughter from downstairs mocked them. ‘We are both resolved on annulling this marriage. Is it possible?’

Was the wine abusing her senses further? ‘Yes, of course, sir, if you petition his Holiness the Pope straightway, and I imagine that his grace of Buckingham would—’ And she must write to his grace of Gloucester.

He was holding up a hand to silence her. ‘Lady, I do not mean that. Believe me, I shall do everything within my power. What I meant was …’ he looked about the room as if the mislaid words had rolled beneath a cupboard, ‘what I need to know is, are you a virgin?’

Her cheeks burned. ‘What if I say no?’ A spontaneous verbal thrust, revenge for his earlier insults! The reckless reply snuffed out the good will in him. His gaze coldly apprised her of his response and she felt her breathing grow uneven.

‘Then we shall grow old together in mutual hate.’

‘I might be lying.’

‘You might be lying, yes, either way.’ Then he added, ‘Mistress, I have said some very hateful things in your presence. You are intelligent enough to understand why. Can we at least be honest with each other for a little space?’

Of course, Miles decided, he could put her to the test, hold her wrists against the pillow above her head and discover the answer. What, and come near ravishing her? No, touching must be avoided at all costs and he meant her no harm. As if she read his thoughts, the girl slid a hand beneath the sheet and withdrew a rondel dagger which she must have hidden earlier beneath the mattress or bribed a servant to do so.

‘Lay a hand upon me and I will make a eunuch of you,’ she snarled, then spoilt the effect by adding in astonishment, ‘Why do you laugh at me?’

Knotting the wretched blanket tighter, he walked across to the spy hole in the wall and languidly leaned into the tiny embrasure that squinted down upon his feasting enemies. ‘Not drunk enough, I fear.’ He looked back at her across his shoulder, his mouth still twisting in amusement at the weapon in her slender fist. At least she held it properly. ‘What if you had lain on my side of the bed?’

The lady’s lower lip quivered but her grip tightened. ‘I-I should have thought of some way to obtain it. Rolled on top of you and seized it that way.’

Her innocence had Miles doubled with laughter. ‘You are a virgin,’ he asserted cheerfully, relieved that no one had defiled her, and watched her lips part in pretty indignation. ‘Yes, Mistress Ballaster?’

Heloise nodded sulkily, wondering how he had deduced it.

‘Well, that is a relief. We shall obtain our annulment after all. You could have spared me the bother of guessing.’ He kicked aside his ridiculous train and tried to lecture her as if she were a company of the duke’s soldiers. ‘Now attend me, mistress. For the future, we must ensure we neither meet again nor compromise each other in any way until an annulment is received.’

‘And for the present?’ She lifted an impertinent eyebrow. Tightening the sheet about her only emphasised her breasts as she reached out for another savoury. ‘My father says that you will not—’

‘—be given my clothes back until I have pleasured you.’ He served her up a roguish smile that had thieved hearts. ‘Yes, how do I avoid that dilemma?’

‘Geld you?’ teased Heloise, waving the dagger like a fan.

‘Ravishing you is a sweeter prospect.’ A delectable proposition if only the wench was daughter to a Welsh baron, not Ballaster’s spawn. ‘Do you think you could put that thing back beneath your pillow? I know you enjoy the weapon in your hand, but it unmans me.’

‘Good.’ Heloise grinned at Rushden as if he were a friend, but it was most unseemly behaviour to speak so – especially to a man. Or could one do that with a husband? Was this what marriage could be like? If so, she rather liked the prospect. The wine must be addling her common sense, she decided, knowing that if she seduced Miles Rushden, he would probably strangle her before morning. ‘I think the wine is getting the better of me,’ she admitted, spiking a piece of cheese with the blade. ‘I have eaten nothing these last three days. I-I was locked in my chamber.’

‘I am sorry to hear it.’ Rushden was running his hand along the casement sill, noting the lock of the door, the thickness of the panels, eyeing the ceiling. ‘There has to be a way.’

‘Try the chest.’

He threw back the lid. ‘I was hoping. Pah, it is all sheets and coverlets. Some of them laundered by you, judging by the blush of them!’

Heloise ignored the taunt. ‘We might knot them to make a rope and anchor it to the chest. I should not trust this.’ She shook the nearest bedpost. ‘We had to replace these because of woodworm and I doubt the joints would hold. Knowing my father, he will post a half dozen sentries. Could you make a skirt of sorts and pass for a woman?’ The look she received was not happy.

‘Upon my soul, woman, are you crazed?’ Miles had forgotten her unworldliness. The solemn almond gaze questioned innocently, and he clenched his jaw and turned away. His covering was loosening and he retrieved it hastily with a curse and tucked it methodically about his waist so he looked less like a younger version of Elijah and more like a villein competing in a summer sackrace. The folds threatened to trip him. ‘Oh, the Devil take the thing!’ he yelled and sat down heavily on the bed feeling as sulky as the brother of the Prodigal Son. And then the bed threatened to heave him off.

‘Mistress, what in –?’

Taking advantage of his distraction, Heloise had burrowed beneath the sheet, trying to free its ends so she might not be confined to the bed. It was no use, especially with him anchoring half of it. She struggled to turn beneath the cover and emerged bedraggled and red-faced from her exertions.

‘If it is not too much trouble, sir, would you kindly loosen the sheet so I too may have some freedom?’ He had an unholy grin, she discovered.

‘Of course. Try now.’

Glowering at him, she eased up the sheet, still trying to keep herself modestly covered. She sternly gestured him to turn his back.

‘Is there likely to be needle and thread in the chest?’ Miles asked, once her manoeuvres had been completed. ‘You could sew me something.’ Now the rustling had ceased, he glanced over his shoulder to see how she had taken the suggestion. He needed her compliance and of a surety she had been trained in such skills.

‘What are you expecting? A houppelande with lined sleeves?’

‘A tunic?’ It was his most cajoling expression and had earned him a few exquisite adventures in haylofts.

‘You jest. And, no, there is no needle here.’ She had managed to stand, but the sheet was so tight about her that it hardly rendered her mobile, and the dagger had not been sheathed. It took him a swift stride and a sharp, painful twist to seize it.

‘Now, mayhap, we can put it to less bloody use.’ He tossed it on the bed, jerked the blanket from his waist and spread it like a cloth upon the floor. ‘Stand on it!’

His bride was rubbing her wrist. No doubt she would have been eyeing him sourly if she had not been so inhibited by his nakedness, for her face and pretty shoulders were blushing rosily.

Trying not to imagine what the rest of her skin was doing, he grabbed her forearms, jerking her forward. ‘Stand there! I need it taut. Godsakes, you are married now.’ Then with an oath, he grabbed her pillow, shook free its covering and slit half the seams. ‘Keep your eyes closed if you must, but hold up your arms.’ She yelped as he dragged her hand from her sheet and tugged the fine linen over her head. It would have been tempting to enjoy her nakedness as the sheet tumbled round her ankles. Heloise Ballaster squeaked, opening her eyes. With a fumbling hand, she swiftly pulled the pillow cover over her thighs. He spared her modesty, turning to hack at the silk cord that held back her father’s expensive bedcurtains. For a moment he fingered the heavy fabric, and then he turned. ‘Here!’ He dumped the fistful of cord into her astonished fingers.

She looked up into his appraising eyes and felt no less naked; the fabric was tight upon her breasts and strained across her thighs. ‘Thank you,’ she said huskily. This man was now her master; a man who wanted her and loathed her. She held her breath, knowing that, like two serpents, his destiny coiled with hers.

‘A perfect Delilah,’ Miles mocked and then regretted his cruelty. No, this was no sultry, worldly whore. For an instant, he let the memory of his first wedding night stir from the recesses of his mind; his bride, innocent Sioned, sweetly blowing the candle out and expecting to sleep. ‘Oh, God!’ he whispered, grinding his fists into his eyesockets. But this virgin was not Sioned. This was squat Ballaster’s daughter, even if she was a willowy, faery maiden. ‘Devil take you, would you … would you mind standing where I put you!’ It was beyond his strength of will to ignore her slim ankles and alluring legs as he tidied the fabric.

‘You are doing it wrong.’ To his surprise, she knelt beside him, careful to keep her gaze upon the task, and they discussed the business as diligently as two tailors. Then she told him how to hold the wool cloth tight against the bias while she drew the dagger blade through it. It was not easy and the cut edge looked as though it had been attacked by giant moths. The man made no complaint, but took the blade back from her and made a crescent rip in the centre of the rectangle.

‘Excellent,’ he muttered, sawing the blade down at a right angle while she held it taut, ‘all we need are a couple of sheep and we can go to Bethlehem.’

At least he had a sense of humour. She could have been locked in with a dour, choleric lout. Heloise shut her eyes as he rose. A pat on the cheek made them snap open. He was laughing at her and he did look like a model for a Nativity painting. The tunic reached to his calves and belted with the emerald cord. ‘It tickles damnably. I hate to imagine what a hair shirt must be like. No, I think I know.’

Miles’s hair shirt was Heloise Ballaster, staring at him now with her fawn’s eyes. For an instant, he forgot the unearthly hair.

‘Is Lord Rushden still at Monkton Bramley? Shall you go there?’ she was asking.

He remembered her warning to his father and his expression tightened defensively. Behind his back, he crossed his fingers against her. ‘My father has gone home. My mother … needed him. I shall be attending his grace of Buckingham.’ He must have read surprise in her face for he added, ‘Oh, were you expecting me to return with a small army at my heels? No, I shall not embroil my father, though he shall hear of this.’

‘I am glad of it,’ Heloise answered gravely. ‘There has been enough blooding. Two of our men were injured and one of yours died for this folly.’

The fierce intake of breath frightened her. Rushden strode to the window and slammed his hand against the wall so violently that the whole room trembled. His strong shoulders had become rigid.

‘I thought that maybe … Christ! Poor Dobbe. God save him. He had served me since I was a child,’ he murmured, and his fingers found her dagger. It was like treading on a layer of ice to wait on his uncertain temper; say the wrong words and the man’s hatred might crack his fragile courtesy. She held her tongue, hardly daring to breathe. The minutes dragged before he raised his head and swung about. ‘There must be some way out.’

She jumped as he violently thrust aside the curtain that hid the garderobe.

‘Jesu forbid, s-sir, you cannot go down that!’

‘True, lady, it would be like staffing a badger down a rabbit hole and I would lief as not be mired further by your family. Mind out!’ Grabbing the handle of the oak chest, he heaved it across to the casement. Before she could protest, he sprang onto it and drove his heel through the window.

The chatelaine in her winced at the bent spikes of ruined leading. Cold air rushed in to quiver the candles and pucker her arms. ‘Would it not have been simpler to open it?’

‘Not when your father padlocked the handles, Mistress Goose.’ Half of him disappeared to inspect the roof. ‘A marvel! The dogs are barking, but no one is willing to investigate. Brrr!’ He sprang back lightly onto the floor. ‘This is the hard part.’ He grabbed her discarded sheet, anchored it with his foot and ripped off a small strip. Then his sable head lifted, his eyes glittering with menace, like the serpents of his house.

‘W-what do you mean?’

‘This!’ It took less than a blink to bowl her back across the bed. Miles turned her, an elbow muffling her face into a dimple of the featherbed while he dragged one thrashing arm behind her back and knotted the rag about her wrist. Then, letting her breathe, he hauled the gasping, dishevelled girl up against the closest bedpost and tethered her like a witch to a stake. ‘Scream if it helps.’

‘You hellspawn!’ Heloise twisted, trying to free herself but it only tightened her bonds. The candle in the glass lamp, suspended in chains from the upper bedrails, wobbled precariously and she stilled in panic.

‘I think we need a fire to entertain your father while I escape.’ Rushden laughed as he bundled bedding from the chest into the remainder of her sheet and set it upon the windowsill. ‘Now if this was a troubadour ballad I might whistle up my horse and spring down upon his back, but I think that would ruin my chance of fatherhood and snap my spine.’ He came across to her and lifted the candlestick from the small table. The sputtering flame menaced her. ‘I could set fire to the bedclothes, Heloise, my witch wife.’ Playfully tossing the dagger, he caught it deftly by the handle. ‘Your father cannot feed you to the dogs if you are bound, be thankful for that. Adieu, lady. And never come near me again, if you value your life.’ Yet as he reached the chest, he turned, all mockery gone. ‘I doubt I can free my horse. Look after him, lady, his name is Traveller.’

An instant later, he set alight the bundle and hurled it flaming from the casement – dear God, he meant it for the kindling stacked outside the kitchen! Then he hauled himself out onto the roof.

Heloise was hoarse when the key finally turned. Old Hubert, three sheets in the wind, staggered in with Dionysia at his heels. As tipsy and useless as windfallen apples, the Ballaster servants, shooed from the feast, rolled into the courtyard. Heloise – once they cut her free – ran out barefoot, shouting for fire brooms. The kitchen was in flames.