‘It occurred these six summers past,’ began the knight. ‘The poet tarried with us all winter and spring, he played his lute, sang romances and declaimed poetry. Duke Raymund was actually staying in Cintra, at a council. He didn’t hurry home, it was no secret he had a paramour in Cintra. And the Duchess and Lord Dandelion… Ha, Beauclair is strange indeed and spellbinding, full of amatory enchantment… You shall see for yourselves. As the Duchess and Lord Dandelion learned then. They noticed not, from verse to verse, from word to word, from compliment to compliment, posies, glances, sighs… To put it briefly: both came to an intimate understanding.’

‘How intimate?’ chortled Angoulême.

‘One was not an eye witness,’ said the knight coolly. ‘And it is not seemly to repeat rumours. Besides, as my good lady undoubtedly knows, love has many faces, and it is a most relative thing how intimate was the understanding.’

Cahir snorted softly. Angoulême had nothing to add.

‘The Duchess and Lord Dandelion,’ continued Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, ‘trysted in secret some two months from Belleteyn to the summer Solstice. But they disregarded caution. News got out, evil rumours began to spread. Lord Dandelion, without hesitating, mounted his horse and rode away. He acted prudently, as it turned out. For as soon as Duke Raymund returned from Cintra, an accommodating serving lad informed him of everything. As soon as the duke found out what an insult he had suffered and how he had been cuckolded, he was seized by yellow bile, as you may imagine. He overturned a tureen of broth on the table, cleft the informer lad with a hatchet, and uttered scabrous words. He then punched the marshal’s face and smashed a great Koviran looking glass before witnesses. Then he imprisoned the duchess in her chambers and, having threatened her with torture, extracted everything from her. At which point he sent after Lord Dandelion, ordered him put to death without clemency and his heart torn from his breast. For, having read something similar in an ancient ballad, he meant to fry his heart and force Duchess Anarietta to eat it in front of the entire court. Uurgh, what an abomination! Luckily, Lord Dandelion managed to flee.’

‘Indeed. And the duke died?’

‘He did. The incident, as I said, caused him great ill humour. His blood became so heated from it that apoplexy and palsy seized him. He lay like a plank for nigh on a year. But recovered. Even began to walk. Only he winked one eye, ceaselessly, like this.’

The knight turned around in the saddle, squinted his eye and screwed up his face like a monkey.