‘Why do you say that you failed him?’ he asked very quietly.

‘When my father was dying my brother told me that he didn’t want me to see him in pain and despair. I believed him, and I prayed in the chapel while my father died alone. When I discovered that my brother had lied to me and stolen my inheritance, I feared that he had lied to my father about me too. What if my father died asking for me, but my brother told him that I would not come? I cannot bear to think of that.’

Her voice was choked with tears. She cleared her throat.

‘Why did you trust your brother?’ Luca asked Isolde gently. ‘Why did you not defy him at once?’

Her beautiful mouth twisted. ‘I was raised to be a lady,’ she said bitterly. ‘A lady should be above lies and deceit, she is honourable and trustworthy. A lady plays her part in the world with honour, and trusts a man to play his. I believed my brother to be an honourable man, the son of a great lord, raised to be as good a man as my father. It has taken me a long long time to see him as a thief. It took me long enough to understand that I had to choose my own life, find my own road. I could not trust his honour. I could not wait to be rescued.’

They resumed their slow walk towards the inn, Isolde’s hand tucked in the crook of Luca’s arm, their steps matched. ‘D’you really think your father will rise from the grave?’ he asked her, curiously.

‘I don’t know how such a thing could be; but now I can’t help but think it. How could Johann look at me, and describe my father? How could he speak of a cold bier in a chapel if he was not seeing, with the eyes of God, my own father’s bier in our cold chapel? He must know the unknown things, see things that we are blind to.’

They paused before the open door of the inn, unable to prolong their walk any longer, and Luca took both of her hands in his. ‘Odd that we should both be orphans,’ he said.

Isolde looked up at him, her face warm. ‘‘It makes me want to comfort you,’ she whispered.

He took a breath. ‘And I, you.’

They stood handclasped. Ishraq and Freize hesitated on the quayside behind them, watching the young couple.

‘Would you think of me as your friend?’ Luca said very quietly to Isolde.

She did not hesitate for a moment. ‘We’re both alone in the world,’ she said. ‘I would like to have a friend who could be constant as my father was, patient as he was, faithful as he was.’

‘I’d want a friend that I could be proud of,’ Luca said quietly. ‘Perhaps I’ll never be able to take you to meet my mother. Perhaps my mother has been dead for many years. But I would like to think that I could have taken you to meet my mother and she would have liked you . . .’