“So what has happened?” she asked. “You say there has already been fighting?”

“There has. Marius – the officer – told me of it. It’s a long tale and a sad one, but I’ll be brief. The Frankish kings joined to attack Sigismund and Godomar, and defeated them. Godomar fled, but King Sigismund was taken prisoner. It was Chlodomer who took him.”

“Prince Theudovald’s father?”

“The same. He held Sigismund for a while, with his wife and family, somewhere near Orleans.”

‘“For a while’?”

At her quick look he nodded. His look was grim. “Yes. You might guess at it. He had them all murdered, horribly, the children too. Marius told me the whole. I shall not burden you with it, but with its consequences I must, and they are evil enough.”

She listened in silence as he told her the rest. It seemed that as soon as the victorious Frankish kings had left the field of battle and gone home each to his own kingdom, the surviving Burgundian ruler, Godomar, had rallied what troops he had left, and marched to reclaim his lands, and to take, in his turn, revenge for his brother’s murder. It was not yet clear what had happened; there were tales of treachery, and it was even rumoured that the eldest of the Frankish kings, the bastard Theuderic, had allied himself with Godomar against his brothers. Whatever the truth, in the ensuing battle Chlodomer was killed, and his head stuck up on a spear’s point for all to see. In spite of this, or possibly because of it, the Franks rallied, and after fierce fighting put Godomar utterly to rout, and drove him once again to flight.

“So it is to be hoped that things will soon be settled,” finished the duke. “According to Marius all is well in Tours, though of course since the news of King Chlodomer’s death the folk in Orleans have been anxious, and some have travelled to Tours for refuge, and the town is crowded and full of rumour.”

“Theudovald?” asked Alice, who had hardly heard the last part of this. “What about Theudovald? He’ll be king now, I suppose? Or is he – was he in the fighting?”

“No, he’s safe. He’s in Paris. Queen Clotilda took the three boys north as soon as the news came of Chlodomer’s death. King Childebert will support his nephews. He is planning to declare Theudovald king.”

The islands had sunk out of sight in the ship’s wake. The river had widened again. To either side was the same rich, calm prospect of trees in their spring green, of orderly vines, of water-meadows with their grazing cattle. But this time Alice, leaning with elbows on the ship’s rail, saw none of it. She was remembering the child Theudovald, who was heir to all this, and with it the legacy of violence and treachery that was the inheritance of the long-haired kings.

“So if Queen Clotilda is to stay in Paris till the crowning, we won’t see her or the boys?”