Authors: Carol Townend
The Stone Rose
The Herevi Sagas
Book One
Carol Townend
(First Edition published in 1992 by Headline Book Publishing)
All rights reserved
Published by Carol Townend 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78301-292-3
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Part One – The Concubine’s Daughter
Part Two – Champions and Heroes
Part Three – Demons and Devils
THE FIRST BOOK IN A PASSIONATE AND POIGNANT ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY FEUD IN TWELFTH CENTURY BRITTANY. LOVE AND INNOCENCE TRIUMPH OVER HATRED AND CYNICISM.
Young Gwenn Herevi, the illegitimate daughter of a knight and his concubine, is innocence itself. Then she finds herself caught up in a bitter and bloody feud. Her father, Sir Jean St Clair, and her uncle, Count François de Roncier, have been fighting over the family lands for years.
When de Roncier attacks Gwenn’s house in Vannes, hoping to drive the Herevis out, Gwenn is forced to grow up quickly. She finds herself beholden to two most unlikely heroes – mercenaries sworn to her uncle. Captain Alan le Bret and his cousin Ned Fletcher have come to Brittany from England to make their fortunes, but they cannot stomach de Roncier’s methods and from that moment Gwenn’s life is bound to both men.
A lovingly detailed picture of life in the twelfth century.
Part One
The Concubine’s Daughter
A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse;
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Song of Solomon 4:12
Lady Day, Spring 1183. The Port of Vannes, South Brittany.
T
he nightmare began on the day thirteen-year old Gwenn Herevi disobeyed her grandmother. It was the first day of the New Year and she was going out unaccompanied to listen to the preaching of the Black Monk at the Cathedral.
The moment Gwenn stepped over the threshold, a dirty bundle of rags hunched against the weathered boarding of another wooden dwelling opposite, shifted and took on the solid shape of a man. The man’s name was Conan, and he was a pedlar when nothing more lucrative offered itself. Today, although he carried his huckster’s tray, he was
not
peddling. He was spying on the Herevi household on behalf of no less a person than Count François de Roncier. He had been paid to inform the Count’s mercenary captain when one of the Herevi women next went out on their own, and his wares were his cover.
Conan adjusted the leather strap which held his tray of goods in place, small eyes peering past bushy brows. Conan was not usually a man to be troubled by conscience, but the girl’s appearance had caught him off-guard. Seen across the narrow street, at such close quarters, she looked fresh and innocent – too fresh and innocent to be a concubine’s daughter. She was tiny, a dainty creature with delicate bones. Her long gown matched Conan’s expectations; it was of a rich blue fabric and girdled with a plaited silk belt, both in mint condition. But her face was all wrong. It did not match the sumptuous, decadent clothes.
The girl was not wearing a veil and a glossy, nut-brown rope of hair hung over one shoulder as far as her waist. She had a veil with her, but she had scrunched the blue cloth up with scant regard for its delicate quality and had stuffed it into her belt. Conan watched as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. He crept furtively out of the shadows cast by the noonday sun, and into the narrow street. So St Clair’s bastard was abroad without that watchdog of a grandmother, was she? That was most unusual.
The spring sunlight made the girl blink. Conan saw her glance back at the closed shutters and, for a moment or two, the clear light played over dusky, childish features which were as easy to read as the finest illuminated manuscript. The girl’s brown eyes were warm and alive, shining with a mixture of excitement and anticipation. The pedlar watched her closely. Captain le Bret must be told the girl was out and about, though Conan would rather it had been her grandmother...
‘Hell,’ Conan muttered. His tray was heavy, the straps were cutting through to his bones. With a grimace he flexed his shoulder muscles. She had no right to look so young. How odd that the daughter of Yolande Herevi, the town’s most notorious concubine, and Sir Jean St Clair should have the face of a babe. Surprised to recognise the stirring inside him as pity, Conan squashed it ruthlessly. Pity would not give him his fee. He should leave thinking to the clerics. Pain stabbed in his guts. All he ever gained from thinking was indigestion.
Letting out a belch, Conan slid a grimy hand behind his tray and massaged his belly. The ache persisted. Perhaps he had drunk a drop too much last eve – that new wine must have unsettled him. He lifted his thick brows and his sharp huckster’s eyes gleamed. At least he could do something about that, Mikael’s imported burgundy cured most ailments. He would reward himself with a liberal dose.
Firmly resolved to wash all thoughts from his head, and bad wine from his system, Conan straightened his shoulders and trailed after her. Best to obey orders, however indigestible. It was not for him to judge. He was being paid to keep the mercenary captain informed when the next woman left that house on her own, nothing more. How Captain le Bret and his lord chose to use that information was no business of his.
***
Inside the Herevi house, in the simply furnished bedchamber that Gwenn shared with her grandmother, that elderly lady had woken from her mid-morning nap. Izabel Herevi was wide awake and spoiling for an argument with her daughter, Yolande. Neither women realised that Gwenn had slipped out and was currently scurrying to St Peter’s with a dark shadow at her heels.
‘Have you no shame, Yolande?’ the older woman demanded, in the fluent French which betrayed her noble Breton blood. She flung her hairbrush onto her polished oak coffer with a clatter, and sank onto the stool in front of the mirror. Yolande was standing directly behind her. Izabel sent a look of calculated entreaty at her daughter’s reflection which hung beside hers in the silvered glass. A treasured wedding gift from her long-dead husband, the costly leaded mirror with its scrolled and gilded frame was worthy of a princess; and it sat oddly in this plain cell of a bedchamber. ‘Keep it from your girl. Gwenn has no need to know – knowing what respectable people think of you can only hurt her. Keep it from her as long as you can. Have you no sense?’
Her daughter’s green eyes were very cool. Like Gwenn, Yolande Herevi was small in stature. Everything about her was composed and in its place. Since she was at home, Yolande wore no veil, but she was no slattern, Izabel would grant her that. Her brown hair had been loosely wound into soft, elegant coils which on any other woman would have unravelled into a disorderly mess, but not on Yolande. After the birth of each of her three children, Yolande had wrestled to keep plumpness at bay, and she had won. She had kept her high cheekbones and her waist was trim. Though she was over thirty, the skin on Yolande’s cheeks was as fresh and clear as a fifteen-year old’s, which was remarkable in an age where hunger or disease or overwork carried most people off before they saw forty. She used a charcoal pencil to darken her eyelashes and eyelids, and was not above using lip-balm to moisten her lips; but she looked well enough to scorn the pastes and other cosmetics which some women used. As far as looks went, Izabel was proud of her daughter. She had a direct gaze, an honest gaze which gave the lie to her notoriety.
‘I did what I had to,’ Yolande spoke coldly. ‘It ensured our survival.’
The two women glared at each other in the cloudy glass.
In the street below, a hawker with a trumpet of a voice was selling fish. The densely packed houses channelled the man’s patter through the window and projected it into the centre of the bedchamber. Izabel listened, hauled in a deep breath and tried another line. ‘Raymond had to know. I see that. He hears the townsfolk tattling. You can’t conceal anything from a lad his age. But not Gwenn. I pray you, Yolande,
don’t tell Gwenn
. Please, listen to me. She’s only thirteen.’
‘
Only
thirteen,’ Yolande murmured.
There was profound bitterness in her daughter’s voice, and Izabel knew what Yolande was alluding to. Yolande had been thirteen when she first met Jean, but then, many were married at twelve. Out of the corner of her eye, Izabel glimpsed her own reflection and with something akin to surprise, saw that her features seemed to have collapsed. She was showing every one of her fifty years. Her eyes had been as bright a brown as Gwenn’s when she had first stared into this mirror. Now they were faded and circled with a white rim of age. The black widow’s homespun that she had worn for years was a washed-out grey. Drab it looked against the fresh green of Yolande’s silken gown with its fashionable pendant sleeves. Izabel clutched at the silver cross which hung at her breast with fingers bent like crabs’ claws. She looked more like an ancient nun than a widow. On one thin claw a wedding ring gleamed, but the golden band was scratched and worn, and it shone feebly. ‘I wonder which of us will wear out first?’ Izabel muttered, staring at her ring. She had not meant to speak aloud.
‘
Maman
!’ Her daughter’s green eyes flew wide. ‘What a dreadful thing to say!’
‘I was referring to my ring, not to you!’ Izabel laughed. ‘Look, there’s naught but a thread of it left. I was wondering if it would wear out before me.’
‘It won’t work,
Maman
,’ Yolande said flatly.
‘Work? What won’t work?’ Izabel raised a sparse brow.
‘You won’t deflect me from my decision by distracting me with black thoughts. I know your tactics after all these years.’
‘Black thoughts?’ Izabel snorted, and waved at her image in the mirror. ‘Look at me, Yolande. I’m being realistic. I can’t have much time left.’
‘
Maman
, don’t–’
‘How did the girl called Izabel Herevi turn into that faded fool we see in the glass?’ Izabel put her hands to her head and smoothed a wisp of grey hair into place, noting that Yolande had caught her lower lip between her teeth. Hiding a triumphant smile, Izabel fumbled down the side of the coffer. ‘Have you seen my wimple, Yolande? I seem to have mislaid it. I’m glad they’re in fashion. They hide grey hairs so well.’ And in another tone. ‘Jean loves you, and it’s my belief he always has. Why did he never marry you?’
Yolande set her jaw, took hold of her mother’s shoulders and shook them gently. ‘
Maman
, look at me. You know he cannot, because of your land.’
Izabel’s head sagged. ‘My land. Land I never had possession of, and never will, not while my nephew has breath in his body.’
‘De Roncier. Oh, how I hate that name. Jean hopes to secure it for you,
Maman
. But he cannot declare his interests openly, and if he marries me that would be tantamount to a declaration of war.’
Izabel gave a weary sigh. ‘You said that before.’
‘Aye, and obviously it bears repeating, for you will harp on about my being an outcast, and marriage–’