“Theudo! Prince Theudo! Theudovald! Come back! Your grandmother has guests, and you know you are to stay with me!”

She saw the queen, and her voice trailed away. She halted, dropping a curtsey as the boy, paying her no heed, ran laughing towards the queen, then, seeing Alice and the duke, paused and, with a composure a little breathless, made his bows.

The woman, his nurse presumably, bobbed again, muttered something, and scuttled away. Neither the queen nor the boy took any notice of her. It seemed that the Merwings were not accustomed, thought Alice, to paying much attention to their inferiors.

“My grandson.” There was pride in the queen’s voice, and also quite a new note; it seemed she was fond of the boy. He was younger than Alice, some six or seven years old, but well grown for his age. His hair was fair, like that of the other menfolk, but he wore it very long, hanging almost to his waist. That, with the clear skin and blue eyes, and full-lipped childish mouth, might have made him look girlish, but for a lift of the head that spoke of arrogance, and a touch of stubbornness in the set of the jaw. He went confidently to his grandmother’s side. One of her hands touched his shoulder lightly, and she ran a tress of the long hair through her fingers.

“This is your son’s, King Chlodomer’s, eldest, I take it?” said Duke Ansirus, smiling at the boy. “He’s a fine, well-grown boy. You must be proud of him. And there’s a brother, I believe, a few years younger? Are they both here with you now?”

“Yes. Whenever I am here in Tours, the boys come to me. Their father is abroad, as often as not, and Queen Guntheuc goes with him. There are three of them now; another boy was born last spring. The second boy, Gunthar, and the baby Chlodovald stay with the nursemaids, but Theudovald is of an age when he would rather be with the men –” her lips thinned in what might have been meant for a smile – “or with me. He knows that I count him already a man grown.”

Duke Ansirus made some reply, and soon the queen and he were deep in talk about the recent settlements of the Frankish kingdoms, and what they might mean. The same old talk, thought Alice, sitting on her stool with hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed rather wistfully on the sunny prospect of treetops beyond the courtyard roof, though here her father was unlikely to give his views on the subject of land-partition that inevitably brought with it quarrels and fighting, with all the dreadful consequences of war, not least the temporary ruin of the very land that was fought over … Ah, they were safely past that subject, and starting to talk about the holy shrine, and the plans the queen had for its embellishment. And that, too, could go on for a very long time …