He was looking at me again, a half smile curving his mouth.

“Perhaps I did not quite understand you, Uncle,” said Red quietly. “Are you suggesting that if my brother were captured and subjected to some form of torture, he would have been unable to withstand it? I’m sorry to speak openly of this, Mother,” he added, “but this is no time for playing games. Perhaps we might speak alone,” he said to his uncle.

“No need for that, my boy,” said Richard affably. “We’re all friends here, I trust. Apart from the little Jenny, maybe, who occupies such a unique position in your household that I can’t for the life of me work out just what it is. And as she can’t speak, we need not concern ourselves with what she hears, need we? You certainly don’t seem to think so.”

“Simon may have been misguided,” put in John, “but nobody could ever have accused him of lacking backbone. His strength of will was formidable in one so young.” That was true, I thought, remembering the desperation in those bluest of eyes, the hatred turned in on himself. He could not bear to believe himself a traitor. I was convinced that he was not one.

“He was only sixteen,” said Lady Anne. “We know what stuff he was made of; I have only to look at you, Hugh, to see him before me again. But he was just a boy, for all that courage and resolve. Perhaps this was more than anyone could take.” Her voice was tight with unshed tears.

“This is mere speculation, surely,” said Ben, a small frown appearing on his brow. “Besides, no Irish lord worth his salt could afford to lose such a prisoner. What about the hostage price? And they’d have an idea who he was, whether he told them or not. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Richard strode gracefully across the room. He took his time to speak, as if weighing his words with great care. “The undeniable fact is,” he said at last, “that all my men were slain. Each and every one. Except Simon. Now why would our enemy do that? Clearly, the boy was not preserved for who and what he was, for no ransom was ever demanded. Did he simply desert his mission in fear and vanish of his own accord? Hardly. Such a one does not blend readily into that race of black-locked, whey-faced fanatics. Besides, as you say, whatever his failings, the lad had more than his fair share of courage. And so it is far from speculation to suggest that they forced it out of him, the information that would betray his companions, and lead the enemy down on them by night. But we must not blame him. As you said, Sister, he was barely sixteen years old. He wanted to be a man. But when it came to the point, the fiber was too weak.”

I found, suddenly, that I was extremely angry, and before I could stop myself I made a gesture with my hands that said clearly, No. You speak lies. And suddenly, every pair of eyes in the room was turned sharply on me.