The Stone Rose Read Free Page A

after the concubine’s daughter, guilt gnawing at his innards. Why did the wench have to be so young? She could not possibly have hurt anyone. The mongrel was back, its optimistic whine a triumph of hope over experience. ‘Damn you, le Bret,’ Conan muttered. ‘And damn your paymaster.’ The freshness of the girl seemed to cling to Conan’s fingers, but he was too old to start nurturing a tender conscience. His face contorted. Wiping his fingers on breeches that had not seen water since the previous spring, Conan lashed out at the mongrel. This time his boot connected with the dog’s rump, and with a whimper it hopped out of range. Conan spat into the dirt, counted to ten, and then, keeping the girl’s back in sight, he followed at a discreet distance.
    Walking quickly, and happily oblivious of her shadow, Gwenn noticed the house martins were back. Last years’ nests had waited out the winter, strung out under the eaves along the whole length of her route, like clumsy grey beads on a string. The birds even nested on St Peter’s Cathedral – known as St Per’s to the local Bretons. The nests faced west, so that the martins’ young, when they hatched, could bask in the glow of the evening sun. The birds’ high-pitched twitterings overrode the hum of human voices below them in the street, a sure sign that more clement weather was on the way.
    Ahead of her, St Peter’s bell tower loomed over the untidy rows of houses. The martins were there too, high in the sky, tiny black and white arrows diving and darting over Vannes. They would be able to see the whole of the port from up there.
    Once, before the stiffness had crept into her bones, Izabel had taken Gwenn to the top of the wooden bell tower. The view it gave out over the town was extraordinary, and Gwenn would never forget it. To the south, the shadow of the tower pointed towards the port. She had seen the harbour, a long, dark finger of water which shone in the sunlight and teemed with boats reduced by the distance to a child’s toy flotilla. And beyond the harbour was the more distant glimmer of the Small Sea. Nearer to hand – to north, and west, and east – Gwenn had looked down on line after wiggly line of ramshackle wooden houses hugging the Cathedral Close. Vannes was a beehive of a town. From the vantage point of the tower, it looked as though a giant hand had reached down from heaven and squashed everything together, but the hand had done its work badly, for there was not a straight line or angle in the whole town. Many dwellings were little more than decaying hovels. Many needed rethatching. Doors swung at improbable angles, and the sea breeze rattled shutters dangling precariously on rust-eaten hinges. All the buildings, shabby and otherwise, buzzed with activity. Most of the streets were narrow, cramped and crooked, an unplanned cluster of alleys reeking with the stench of fish, but a few were marginally broader and grander; and these radiated out from the cathedral. La Rue de la Monnaie, on which Gwenn lived, was one of these more prosperous streets. She did not have far to go to reach St Peter’s, there to await the preaching of Father Jerome, the Black Monk.

Chapter Two
    D uke’s Tavern sat across the square from St Peter’s Cathedral. Trade was so brisk that the innkeeper, Mikael Brasher, was beginning to worry. His inn was bursting at the seams with unruly strangers, wine was being quaffed as though it were water and violence of some sort seemed inevitable.
    Uneasy, he scratched the back of his neck and blinked through the smoke haze which spiralled out from the cooking fire. Over the years, Mikael had developed an instinct for trouble, and he recognised that itch as a warning signal. A bench crashed to the ground. It was not the first that morning. Someone let out a bellow worthy of a prize bull.
    ‘More wine!’ Mikael cried, grabbing a flagon and donning his most genial smile. In spite of his broad girth, the innkeeper could be nimble