‘He is inspiring,’ Brother Peter conceded. ‘Perhaps a visionary indeed. Certainly he has the gift of tongues – did you see how they listened to him?’

Luca made his way through the praying crowd to Isolde and found her on her knees with Ishraq standing over her. When she crossed herself, and looked up, he gave her his hand and helped her to her feet.

‘I thought he was speaking of me,’ he said tersely. ‘And of the loss of my father.’

‘I am sure he was speaking of me,’ she agreed. ‘Speaking to me. He said things that only one who had been at the castle, or who had been advised by God could know. He was inspired.’

‘You believe him?’

She nodded. ‘I do. I have to believe him. He could not have guessed at the things he said. He was too specific, it was too vivid a vision.’

He offered her his arm, and she put her hand in the crook of his elbow and they walked together down the narrow steps to the quayside inn. Freize and Ishraq followed them in sceptical silence, the little ginger kitten skipped along behind them, following Freize.

‘I don’t see you weeping?’ Freize remarked to the young woman at his side.

‘I don’t cry easily,’ she said.

‘I cry like a baby,’ Freize confessed. ‘He was inspiring. But I don’t know what to think.’

‘He could have said that stuff anywhere,’ Ishraq said roundly. ‘Every port on the coast will have women who have lost a father. Most villages will have someone cheated of their inheritance.’

‘You don’t believe he is inspired by God?’

She gave a short laugh and risked the confession: ‘I’m not even sure about God.’

He smiled. ‘Are you a pagan indeed?’

‘I was raised by my mother as a Muslim, but I have lived all my life in a Christian household,’ she explained. ‘I was educated by Isolde’s father the Lord of Lucretili to be a scholar and to question everything. I don’t know what I believe for sure.’

Ahead of them Luca and Isolde were talking quietly together.

‘I have missed my father more than I would have believed,’ Luca confided. ‘And my mother . . .’ He broke off. ‘It was not knowing that has been so dreadful. I didn’t know what happened when they were kidnapped and I still don’t know if they are alive or dead.’

‘They sent you to the monastery?’ she asked.

‘They were convinced that I was a boy of extraordinary abilities and that I had to be given a chance to be something more than a farmer. They had their own farm, and it gave us a good living, but if I had inherited it after them and stayed there, then I would have known nothing more than the hills around my home and the weather. I would have done nothing but keep the farm after their death and handed it on to my son. They wanted me to be able to study. They wanted me to rise in the Church. My mother was convinced that I was gifted by God. My father just saw that I could understand numbers quicker than the merchants, speak languages almost at the first hearing. He said that I must be educated. He said that they owed it to themselves to give me a chance.’