“Oh, anything. I’m always guarded, but even with the guards, you never know who to trust. My grandmother’s spies keep watch, but one can’t always know one’s enemies.”

“What enemies? You’re not at war now, are you?”

“Not fighting, no. My uncles are both in Paris, so my father says that the three of us – my brothers and I – are safe enough, but when he’s away my grandmother comes here from Paris with her people, and she looks after us.”

“But – did you say your uncles?”

He nodded, obviously misunderstanding the force of the question. He was quite matter-of-fact. “My uncle Childebert, and King Lothar. Especially my uncle Lothar – these are far better lands than his. Of course they would like to seize them from my father. My uncle Theuderic is the eldest, but he’s base-born.” Pursed lips and another nod. “For all that, my grandmother says, if they promised him enough, he would help them. Of course, they would not keep their promises afterwards.”

Brother murders brother, and father, son, Duke Ansirus had said. Alice, looking at the boy, the smooth childish brow, the royal hair now in a sad tangle, the torn tunic and dirt-stained knees and hands, was silenced by a sharp stab of compassion, mixed with unbelief. Still a child herself, she had never known distrust or betrayal, faces of evil that this boy, even younger, found familiar.

“But –” she began, then stopped as Mariamne, red-faced and breathless, toiled up the last few paces to stand, panting, in front of them.

“Madam – my lady –” She paused for breath, with an uncertain look at the boy. Clothes torn, dirty and blood-stained, Theudovald was by no means Mariamne’s idea of a prince. But she managed a bob of a curtsey, aimed somewhere between the two children. “I thought you were still with your father, madam. They were showing me the stillrooms, and – oh, mercy on us! Your slippers! And that dress! On that dirty wall! It’ll never come clean again! What were you thinking about? You’d best come straight along with me now, and let me try –” The look of amazement on the boy’s face stopped her short, and a hand went to her mouth. “I’m sorry, my lady –”

“It’s all right, Mariamne. The prince was showing me the view over the valley. We were talking. Now, if you will wait with the men?”

Mariamne dropped another curtsey, this time calculated to restore her mistress’s dignity, and withdrew to the waiting group of soldiers.

But Theudovald had already slid down from his perch on the wall. “It’s no good. We’ll have to go back. There’s my grandmother’s steward coming now. It must be dinner-time. And anyway, I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

“Come to think of it, yes,” said Alice. She stood up and started to shake the dust from her skirts. There was a good deal of it. “If we are to wash our hands before meat –”

“What’s the point of that? Wash them afterwards, when they’re greasy,” said the prince cheerfully, and ran off down the hill. The guards made haste to follow him, but the steward, with a word to Mariamne, came on to meet Alice.