“She was, but one gathers that she was powerless to help them. Ommatius’ courier had no details, just the facts, some garbled tale from a frightened servant. All he knows is that King Lothar somehow persuaded King Childebert that he must get rid of the boys; possibly with some sort of promise that the three surviving brothers would share out Chlodomer’s kingdom between them. Lothar has married Chlodomer’s widow, Queen Guntheuc – yes, the boys’ mother – so the boys were a threat to him whatever happened. Or so these folk would see it.” He sounded weary, too weary for bitterness or condemnation. “One might have expected something like this, but it’s hard to credit, even here.”

“But Queen Clotilda?” insisted Alice. The tale, told like this, in the silent dark lit only by the guttering pair of candles, was not believable. “She controlled the family, or seemed to? Lothar and Childebert – they obeyed her before. So why this, now?”

“When she called them to war, yes, they obeyed her then. But this … We cannot know how it happened, but it seems that Clotilda was tricked into letting Lothar get his hands on the boys. All that the servant – the informant – knew was that the princes were taken to the king’s palace on the excuse of being prepared for the crowning, and there stabbed to death. Ommatius’ courier left straight away, before the news got out and the gates were locked. That’s all we know; the rest is guesswork; but it’s true the boys are dead. The man saw it.”

He fell silent, and Alice did not speak. What was there to say? The distress she felt was not so much for Theudovald, whom she had known so briefly, but somehow for the evil that is there in the world, so close even to the innocent and the good. Who, at ten years old, could deserve to die? And at the hands of those he trusted? And the other two were younger still …

She shivered, and reached again for her father’s hand. “You should go to bed, Father. I’ll wake Berin and he can heat a bedstone for your feet. And in the morning –”

“In the morning we go,” said the duke. “It would be foolish to delay longer. We must go while the Merwing is still at our disposal. I have sent to the master to tell him to make ready to sail tomorrow. Now, my dear, try to get some sleep, and tell your women in the morning to pack your things and be ready to embark before noon. We will go while we may.”

They embarked shortly before noon next day and, from the deck of the little ship, watched without regret as the roofs and blossoming trees and the turrets of Tours sank back and out of sight.

21

All afternoon the breeze blew, light but steady, and the Merwing held on her way. Alice stayed on deck with her father, watching the countryside slip by, and looking to see, in the little settlements they passed, any signs of disturbance. But all seemed peaceful. Twice they were hailed from one of the small wharves, but only, it seemed, as a gesture of greeting: someone, perhaps, who knew the ship’s master; they saw the latter lift an arm in response.