“I know not where to go,” she had answered. “If it would please my lord, I could stay here at Whitting.” She could bide here through days and nights without number, just as he had asked her. She could haunt the place, useless and silent and solitary.

But Lord Robert knew her well enough to say, “It would please me to give you a task that I would trust to no other.”

He told her that the wine was arrived from his lands in France and would be delivered to the buyers, who were in many places throughout England. In Lincoln, the carts would be emptied of casks and filled with wool to be taken to Burgundy. They would also carry Elias ben Joseph and his family, did they choose to come. Lord Robert trusted his men with wine and wool, but to guard and care for a family was different. “I know you will see them safe out of Lincoln,” he said.

Could he know how she dreaded that place? Had he sent here there deliberately, to force her out of her listlessness? She would never know.  Her only certainty was that she could not refuse him any request, no matter how difficult, so she agreed to it. He said she could even accompany the party all the way to Basel, if she wished. It was not necessary, but perhaps she would like to see more of the world.

As she turned to go and prepare herself for the journey, he said, “With time it will fade, Nan. The heartache. It will become more bearable.”

She stared at his profile, her breath short. “My heart does not ache,” she lied, because he had no right to speak of it. Because he could not know what it was like.

“Your pardon,” he murmured. She had not thought it was possible to feel worse, but his kindness made her wretched. “When I was young I loved a lady who was far above me. My heart did ache to lose her. I have thought it is much the same for you.”

She looked at the lines around his eyes, evidence of a thousand smiles, and tried to imagine him heartbroken for any woman who was not Lady Eluned. It seemed impossible. Yet he had married her only six years ago, which meant he must have spent many years in heartbreak.

“Was there no comfort for you?” she asked him.

“Only the knowledge that if she had abandoned all to be with me, many more were like to have suffered.” He had looked at her then, kind eyes and a sad smile. “In truth, I cared naught for any suffering but my own, for that is the nature of heartbreak. Yet did it comfort me to know it was not lack of love that kept us apart.”