"Come on," said Captain Lukas, beckoning to his men who were, after all, waiting on the stairs in the path of the approaching company. "Move along to the chapel, but keep at the back, and make sure you're quiet." He nodded at Alain. "The lady won't mind it if the hounds rest just inside the door. She often brings her coursers with her, as does the duke. His alaunts and whippets are usually with him. Will they fight with other dogs?"

"Only if they're attacked."

The captain took him at his word. It was a rare man who did not know his dogs well enough to understand and predict their behavior, and such dogs would never have sat still for long stretches; they would have been off and sniffing and snuffling into every crook and cranny they could find no matter how furiously their master called them back. Most folk did not have time for ill-trained dogs, and certainly would not go to the trouble to feed them.

A number of soldiers loitered under the colonnade, watching with interest but without initiative.

"There are many soldiers here in Autun," remarked Alain.

"Truly," agreed Captain Lukas good-naturedly as they crossed the gravel, footsteps shifting and grinding on the rocks. "More soldiers than commoners, it's said."

"How are the soldiers all fed?"

"Taxes. Tithes." He shrugged. "The lady takes what she needs. It's to the benefit of all to be protected."

"What if there's a poor harvest this year? It seems likely, doesn't it? So cold as it is still that folk can't risk planting for fear a late frost will kill the seedlings."

"That's not my concern."

"It might become so, if the lady can't feed her soldiers."

"She'll not turn us out. War's coming. Perhaps you haven't heard."

"Coming from where?"

"They say the Wendish mean to drag us back though we've no wish to cower under the yoke of the Wendish regnant. Not anymore. Not now we have a queen of our own."

To think of Tallia no longer hurt him. They entered the chapel and took a place at the back, under the ambulatory where the other servants and hangers-on waited.

This was prayer, of a kind. Lady Sabella knelt on a thick pillow, her chin resting on a fist. She stared not at the altar where a cleric intoned psalms but at the stone effigy of Taillefer. After a moment she leaned to her right to murmur to an attendant, a youthful man with the burly shoulders of a fighter and hunter. A dozen noble companions surrounded her, and the buzzing murmur of their conversation provided an undertone to the pious prayers of the clerics.