Servants edged closer to whisper and stare. There was Cook, looking thinner and older, and an astounded Master Rodlin with a pair of sleek whippets at his heel. The whippets lowered their heads, whining, and cowered behind the stable master, but Sorrow and Rage sat peaceably with their faithful gazes turned on Alain, waiting to see what he wanted them to do.

“Those are big dogs,” added the captain, and in his look and in the suppressed hiss of murmured voices there was a tense air as of a storm brewing.

Alain fixed his gaze on Cook and, taking Blanche’s hand, led the girl over to the old woman.

“My lord,” Cook murmured, with a glance toward the suspicious captain. Her hands were chapped and dappled with age marks, and her left hand had a kind of palsy, but her eye was still keen.

“I pray you, Cook,” he said quietly, “do not call me by a title that does not belong to me. I have a favor to ask of you.”

She nodded, dumbstruck. The captain coughed and looked around to mark the position of his soldiers, but only five or six were in view, loitering by the stables or at the corner of the hall.

“Keep watch on this child for me, if you will. She is the daughter of a man I called brother.”

Cook regarded him, nodded, and extended a hand.

“Go on, Blanche. Do as I say.”

She bit her lip, she looked up at him with a frown, but she placed her grimy hand in Cook’s aged one without protest.

“I pray you, Lord Alain,” said Dhuoda, coming up behind him. “We must not stand here in the courtyard like supplicants, else he’ll take action.” She indicated the restless captain.

“I’ll wait in the church.”

“Nay, my lord! You’ll wait in the lord’s audience chamber. It would be fitting!”

“I pray you, Mistress Dhuoda,” he said in a softer voice. “Make no trouble for the innocent souls standing here around. I prefer to wait in the church, if you don’t mind it. I wish to pray beside the count’s bier.”

“Of course!” She flushed red. “Of course, my lord!”

“Who is this man?” demanded the captain, stepping off the porch that fronted the hall. “He’s not welcome here!”

Somehow or other the servants got moving right away and impeded his path, leaving Alain and Dhuoda to walk in solitude out to the stone church set apart from the other buildings beyond the palisade.

“What does Lord Geoffrey fear?” asked Alain, indicating the new earthworks.

“He fears justice, my lord. He fears Lady Sabella.”

“Why should he fear her? Is she not in the custody of Biscop Constance in Autun?”

“Not for many years, my lord. Lady Sabella usurped her old seat. She holds Biscop Constance prisoner and rules Arconia again. Lord Geoffrey offered his allegiance to Biscop Constance, but it’s likely the noble biscop cannot help us. There are bandits roaming the lands. Have you not heard of our troubles?”