Innocence Unveiled. Blythe Gifford

him towards the watered wine set out for the main meal.

      Her aunt scurried to help as the squire unbuckled the Baron’s sword belt. Impatient at Matilda’s slow fingers worrying the knot holding his cloak, he jerked it, breaking the tie for her to sew again, and let the garment drop on to the floor. Matilda stooped to pick it up.

      ‘We leave for Gravere today,’ he said, sitting at the table. ‘The castle must be in readiness should the English actually have the stomach for a fight.’

      Katrine’s appetite fled. ‘I thought they came to speak of peace.’

      ‘Pah! This English Edward acts like a merchant, not a king.’ Her uncle drained his goblet and slammed it down on the table for his wife to fill. The Baron’s wine was never watered. ‘He thinks the Count will break his God-given oath of fealty to King Philip for English gold.’

      If the Count’s belly were as empty as those of his subjects, he certainly would. She had heard her uncle admire the Count’s loyalty to the French fleur-de-lys too often. The man cared more for fealty than his people’s stomachs.

      A king was necessary, of course. You gave allegiance; he gave protection. Such loyalty was a luxury of the nobility and, she was beginning to think, a foolish one. While the lords battled, the burghers suffered. What did it matter to the dyers who claimed France’s crown? Why should the weavers care whether the throne passed through the daughter or the son? Cold winters grew thick wool all the same.

      Her uncle waved his goblet. ‘Here’s to Philip of Valois. Now and for ever King of France.’

      The men at arms, mouths full, echoed ‘Valois’ without looking up.

      Katrine rested her head on cold hands. Deeds of arms, the English promised. Flanders’s soil would be soaked with blood as red as their eyepatches.

      And she might never see her father again.

      ‘Is there word of my father? Do they want a ransom?’

      ‘No one cares about him now,’ he said.

      Least of all you. ‘Then what about my wool? Can the Count get some from France?’ It would be poor stuff, but she could weave it.

      He filled his spoon with fish and vegetables. ‘I didn’t ask.’

      ‘You promised!’ Her words exploded. The men at the closest table looked up. She lowered her voice. ‘I cannot make cloth without wool,’ Katrine said, angry at the Count, at the French, at the English, at all of them who cared for affairs of state instead of people’s lives. ‘The Count is bad for business.’

      ‘Catherine, hush. If anyone heard you, you might be imprisoned.’ Aunt Matilda peered anxiously at the knights breaking bread over their trenchers. ‘We all might be imprisoned.’

      ‘No one cares what she thinks,’ her uncle said with a shrug. ‘Her hair bears the mark of the Devil. She speaks French with a Flemish accent and has calluses on her fingers. No man of noble blood will soil himself with her.’

      She winced at his words. He made her ashamed to be alive.

      She pushed the pain away. ‘All the more reason for me to tend to my weaving.’ There, at least, she could do something of value.

      ‘Bad enough that my brother violated the God-given order of things, wielding scissors instead of the sword he was born to.’ At first, the family had tolerated her father’s dabbling in the cloth trade. He was a younger son and gold was always welcome. But with the gold and her father gone, her uncle unleashed his true feelings. ‘He let you grow up like the spawn of that weaver instead of a noblewoman.’

      ‘That weaver had a name.’ Giles de Vos, her father’s partner, had died childless two years ago and left his share to her. She missed him almost as much as she missed her father. ‘You welcomed Uncle Giles into your house as long as our looms turned wool into gold.’

      Her uncle’s temper flared like a poked fire, lifting him out of his seat. ‘Don’t call him that! He was a common burgher. I am your uncle.’

      She stood to face him, no longer caring who heard. ‘I wish I shared his blood instead of yours.’

      ‘Enough!’ He raised his fist.

      Her aunt’s hand blocked it. ‘Mind your tongue, Catherine. Apologise.’

      His hand wavered. No mealtime noises drifted up from the retainers’ table.

      ‘I’m sorry I offended,’ she said, to buy time. If only she could be like the smuggler, who let no word pass his lips before considering it. ‘I did not think before speaking.’

      ‘Now gather your things,’ her aunt said. ‘You heard your uncle. We leave this afternoon.’

      Ducking her head, she held her tongue, glad to escape the room. She must leave the house unseen and return to the shop and the secretive stranger who was her last hope.

      She sent up a prayer to the saint that he was still there.

      Chapter Two

      Renard hurried along the towpath, easily passing an uncomplaining ass pulling a boat with lowered mast beneath one of the city’s innumerable bridges. It was different, this city of weavers, with its stairstep rooflines and endless waterways. He missed the air of England.

      The goldsmith who opened the door of the stone house facing the canal looked both ways before letting him in. ‘You leave today?’ he asked.

      ‘Tomorrow,’ Renard replied, as he mounted the stairs to the goldsmith’s private solar.

      He sympathised with the man’s nervousness. It took courage to harbour an English merchant in disguise.

      It would have taken more had he known he was hosting a king.

      But as Renard looked at King Edward, standing at the window, he was amazed the goldsmith had not guessed. Touched by sunlight, his hair glowed like a golden halo painted on a saint. Edward Plantagenet had never needed to seek his place in the sun. The sun had sought him out. Straight, strong, vigorous—surely no man had ever looked more like a king.

      Many whispered that Edward and Renard could pass for brothers, both tall, blue-eyed, energetic young warriors. But Edward’s blond good looks and restless, expansive energy blazed like noonday while Renard’s chestnut-brown hair, self-contained air and mysterious past suggested the shadows of sunset.

      Renard inclined his neck, a pale imitation of a bow. ‘Your Grace.’

      ‘Ah, there you are. What have you found?’ Edward looked as if he needed good news.

      With the King’s permission, Renard poured some wine for himself. ‘There is no wool in the city, your Grace. Every weaver listened to my offer. I could empty our warehouse in Brussels.’ Or could if he had taken any coin for his promises. ‘The people support you. Only the nobles resist.’

      Renard had opposed Edward’s wild trip from the start, but the King had insisted on sneaking ashore with the official embassy to assess the situation personally. Renard had come in advance and in disguise to put his rusty Flemish to work on behalf of his king.

      Edward tightened his grip on his goblet. ‘Perhaps I should meet with the Count.’

      Renard shook his head. ‘Better if no one knows you are here.’

      ‘Surely the Bishop can persuade him. He has brought three others to my side already. Only Brabant and Flanders remain.’

      Renard wagered that the other duchies supported the King because they were related to Queen Philippa, not because of the Bishop’s persuasive powers, but he held his tongue.

      ‘I leave for Brabant tomorrow.’ Renard had requested that assignment. It would force him to face his past.

      Edward