“It feels so strange,” he said uncertainly. “Cold.”

“Dear boy,” said the duke gently, “I think you have done well this day. Later you shall talk with us, but now be welcome, rest and eat.”

Alice merely smiled again, and began to serve the food. When the duke once more would have ushered the boy into the master chair, the latter shook his head, and pulled out a stool. “I am a prince no longer, my lord. That place is for you.”

He was certainly very hungry, and over an excellent meal the constraints slackened. Neither the duke nor Alice would have mentioned the tragic doings in Paris, but Chlodovald, perhaps in reaction to the recent time of fear, seemed eager to talk.

“Jeshua told me what happened. My uncles knew that the people loved my grandmother, and they needed her support, or the pretence of it, if they were to seize our lands. Of course they knew she would never give it willingly, so they sent that rat, that – that thing of my uncle’s – Arcadius of Clermont, to trick her or force her into it. But perhaps you know this already?”

“No matter. Go on.”

He set down the capon leg he had been gnawing, and wiped his fingers. “He came early in the morning. My grandmother had been at vigil all the day before, and through the night, praying for my father’s soul, and she had not yet broken her fast. That was the time he chose to force his way into her presence to tell her that my brothers were prisoners, and in danger of death unless they renounced their claim to my father’s lands. He showed her a dagger and a pair of shears, and told her it was the only choice. He shouted at her. At my grandmother! And no one dared lay a hand to him. His men were at the gate, and besides, she didn’t know where my brothers were being held.”

He reached for his goblet and drank, then pushed his platter aside. Neither Alice nor the duke spoke, but waited for the boy to finish his story.

Though the duke had heard it already from Jeshua, the tale came more movingly, told in that childish voice, with details perhaps gleaned from some other servant who had been present. They heard how the old queen, exhausted by her vigil, terrified for the boys, and furiously angry at her sons’ treachery, had reacted violently and with instinctive arrogance. “I would sooner see them dead than with their hair cut short! They are of Clovis’s blood! They are kings!” Beside herself, she had almost screamed her answer, but when, minutes later, after a brief but passionate burst of weeping, she would have called the words back, Arcadius was already beyond her gates, heading at full speed for his master’s court.

Chlodovald told it almost without emotion, like someone still numb from the shock of disaster.