‘Better let them lie. That’s what people say. Let sleeping dogs lie. Your inquiry is completed, everyone is happy. We’re off on some other damn fool mission. And the two women who were wrongly accused are free as little birds of the air. Why make trouble?’

Luca was about to argue, but then he paused. He turned towards Isolde. After one powerful blue gaze that she had shot at Freize when he had confessed to releasing them, she had returned to studying her hands held in her lap.

‘Is it true that Freize released you? He let you go? As he says?’

She nodded.

‘Why did you not say so at once?’

‘I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’

Luca sighed. It was unlikely, but if Freize was holding to his confession and Isolde would offer no other explanation, then he could not see what more he should do. ‘Who is going to believe this?’

‘Better this, than you trying to tell everyone that we melted through leg-cuffs and handcuffs,’ she pointed out. ‘Who would believe that?’

Luca glanced at Brother Peter. ‘Will you write that we are satisfied that our servant released them, exceeding his duties but believing that he was doing the right thing? And that now we are clear that there was no witchcraft? And they are free to go?’

Brother Peter was wearing his most dour look. ‘If you instruct me so to do,’ he said pedantically. ‘I think there is more to it than your servant stepping out of his place. But since he always steps out of his place and since you always allow it, and since you seem determined that these women shall go free, I can write this.’

‘You will clear my name?’ Isolde pressed.

‘I will not accuse you of escaping by witchcraft,’ Brother Peter specified. ‘That’s all I am prepared to do. I don’t know that you are innocent of everything; but as no woman is innocent since the sin of Eve, I am prepared to agree that there is no evidence and no charge to set against you for now.’

‘It’s good enough,’ Luca ruled. ‘Anyway,’ he turned to Isolde, ‘what are you going to do now?’

She sighed. ‘I have been puzzled as to what I should do. But I think I will go to the son of my father’s friend, a man who was his constant companion on crusade, my godfather, I can trust him and he has a reputation for being a tenacious fighter. I will ask him to clear my name, and to ride with me against my brother. It seems he did all of this to steal my inheritance from me, to kill me. So I will take his inheritance from him. I shall take back what is mine.’

‘There is more than you know,’ Luca told her. ‘It is worse than you know. He had commanded the Lady Almoner to set the nuns to pan for gold in the stream in your woods.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Gold?’

‘It’s probably why your brother was determined to drive you out of the abbey. There may be a fortune in gold in the hills, draining out into the stream in dust.’

‘They were panning for gold?’

He nodded. ‘He was using the Lady Almoner to steal gold from your abbey lands. Now she is dead and you have run away, the abbey and the lands and the gold are all his.’

He saw her jaw harden. ‘He has won my home, my inheritance, and a fortune as well?’

Luca nodded. ‘He left the Lady Almoner to her death and rode away.’

She turned on Brother Peter. ‘But you didn’t charge him! You didn’t pursue him for all the sins since Adam! Though I am responsible for everything done by Eve?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘He committed no crime that we saw at the time. Now he pans for his own gold on his own land.’

‘I will hold him to account. I will return and take back my lands. I am no longer bound by obedience to my father’s will when my brother is such a bad guardian of our family honour. I will drive him out as he drove me away. I will go to my godfather’s son and get help.’

‘Was your godfather a man of substance? Your brother has his own castle and a small army to command.’

‘He was Count Wladislaw of Wallachia,’ she said proudly. ‘His son is the new count. I will go to him.’

Brother Peter’s head jerked up. ‘You are the goddaughter of Count Wladislaw?’ he asked curiously.

‘Yes, my father always said to go to him in time of trouble.’

Brother Peter lowered his eyes and shook his head in wonderment. ‘She has a powerful friend in him,’ he said quietly to Luca. ‘He could crush her brother in a moment.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘It’s a long journey,’ she admitted. ‘To the east. He is at the court of Hungary.’

‘That would be beyond Bosnia?’ Freize abandoned any attempt at standing in silence by the door and came into the room.

‘Yes.’

‘Further east than that?’

She nodded.

‘How are two pretty girls like you and the slave going to make that journey without someone stealing from you . . . or worse?’ Freize asked bluntly. ‘They will skin you alive.’

She looked at Freize and smiled at him. ‘Do you not think that God will protect us?’

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘My experience is that He rarely attends to the obvious.’

‘Then we will travel with companions, with their guards, wherever we can. And take our chances when we cannot. Because I have to go. I have no-one else to turn to. And I will have my revenge on my brother, I will regain my inheritance.’

Freize nodded cheerfully at Luca. ‘Might as well have burned them when you got the chance,’ he observed. ‘For you are sending them out to die anyway.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Luca said impatiently. ‘We will protect them.’

‘We have our mission!’ Brother Peter objected.

Luca turned to Isolde. ‘You may travel with us under our protection until our ways diverge. We are on a mission of inquiry, appointed by the Holy Father himself. We don’t yet know our route but you may travel with us until our ways part.’

‘Very important,’ Freize supplemented, with a nod to the young woman. ‘We are very important.’

‘You can accompany us and when you find safe and reputable travellers on the road you can transfer to them, and travel with them.’

She bowed her head. ‘I thank you. I thank you for myself and for Ishraq. And we will not delay nor distract you.’

‘It is absolutely certain that they will do both,’ Brother Peter remarked sourly.

‘We can help them on their way at least,’ Luca ruled.

‘I should give you my name,’ the young woman said. ‘I am Lady Abbess no longer.’

‘Of course,’ Luca said.

‘I am Lady Isolde of Lucretili.’

Luca bowed his head to her, but Freize stepped forwards, bowed low, his head almost to his knees, straightened up and thumped his clenched fist against his heart. ‘Lady Isolde, you may command me,’ he said grandly.

She was surprised, and giggled for a moment. Freize looked at her reproachfully. ‘I would have thought you would have been brought up to understand a knight’s service when it is offered?’

‘He is a knight now?’ Brother Peter asked Luca.

‘Seems so,’ came the amused response.

‘Say a squire then,’ Freize amended. ‘I will be your squire.’

Lady Isolde rose to her feet and extended her hand to Freize. ‘You do right to remind me to respond graciously to an honourable offer of service. I accept your service and I am glad of it, Freize. Thank you.’

With a triumphant glance at Luca, Freize bowed and touched her fingers with his lips. ‘I am yours to command,’ he said.

‘I take it you will house and clothe and feed him?’ Luca demanded. ‘He eats like ten horses.’

‘My service, as the lady well understood, is that of the heart,’ Freize said with dignity. ‘I am hers to command if there is a knightly quest or a bold venture. The rest of the time I carry on as your manservant, of course.’

‘I am very grateful,’ Isolde murmured. ‘And as soon as I have a bold venture or knightly quest I will let you know.’

When Isolde entered the bedroom, Ishraq was sleeping, but as soon as she heard the soft footsteps, she opened her eyes and said, ‘How was dinner? Are we arrested?’