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defeated!’
    ‘What is that?’ Eustachie turns to me. ‘Is he dead? Will my husband be freed?’
    I know the ritual. I read the Roman books of war with my grandfather but before I can reply the messenger continues cheerfully with his eyewitness account.
    ‘The Count’s son had to carry his own saddle on his back for several miles, and then he had to kneel at his father’s feet and the Count placed his foot on his son’s back and declared, “You are finally conquered”’.
    Eustachie puts her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh humiliating!’
    My first thought is for the humiliation of Agnes. How she would bridle and ache at that: her husband in the dust in defeat; but then I think of Geoffrey, first compelled to watch his father burn his mother, and now this. How would such things twist and turn a good man into a bad one?
    The messenger allowed Eustachie some moments of exclamation and then tells her the bad news. ‘The ransom for your husband still stands the same my Lady. Fulk is in agreement on that with his son at least. And Lady, I urge you to release him soon. I could not get to see him but there are rumours that he is very sick. I believe there is truth to the rumours.’
    Eustachie hangs her head in distress and I put my arms around her shoulders. ‘We nearly have the ransom now, Aunt, and wewill treat with Count Fulk for Uncle Guillaume’s release and he will be more just with our negotiations than Geoffrey and Agnes have been.’ I try to sound as confident as my words, but in truth, we are a vulnerable woman and a girl. Fulk could easily take Aquitaine for his son and his wife now if he chooses.

4
Easter 1037
    I rein my horse at the top of the rise to wait for my companions and to look down on the walled city of Toulouse in the valley below. I bounce impatiently in my saddle, feeling that I am on the brink of life as well as on the brink of the steep incline. It is a beautiful crystal-clear morning with tiny wisps of cloud high up in an azure sky. I look back at the rest of the party. We have been riding for many days to arrive in time for the Easter Assembly and most of the group look bedraggled and exhausted. My Aunt Eustachie was forced to hand over the massive ransom to get her husband back. He more than earns his nickname: Guillaume ‘The Fat’. His fine clothes strain over his stomach and thighs. Four years in a dungeon has ruined his health and now he lacks the arrogant confidence that a Duke of Aquitaine needs.
    I regard my uncle with candour. Guillaume, the sixth Duke of Aquitaine and third Count of Poitou, looks like an overstuffed cushion. He is at home on a sumptuous bed, and not on his muscled and massive horse. His black hair stands up on top of his head in lush waves and one curl hangs down his forehead. His mouth and eyes look tiny in their bed of lavish flesh and hanging chins. Eustachie, riding next to him, is as thin as he is fat. Her eyes and mouth are edged with a network of deep lines. Since Guillaume had been kept so long in captivity by Agnes and Geoffrey there has been no chance for Eustachie to conceive, and now perhaps with Guillaume ill and prematurely old, she neverwill. Guillaume’s half-brother, Eudes, is the heir to Aquitaine and likely to remain so.
    My gaze sweeps over the group of servants and focuses on my own two, Bernadette and Piers, riding side by side. Five years Bernadette has been with me and she is still having difficulty adjusting to our different southern ways. As usual, she is looking cross and complaining about something. Piers has a semblance of attentiveness fixed on his face as he leans towards her. Now that I am nearly of age perhaps I must get a new, more contented, maid. Bernadette is good at her work but I cannot abide her whining. Piers, my horse marshal and falconer, looks handsome with his brown hair and beard glinting in the early morning sunshine. He smiles, meeting my glance, sharing my pleasure in the ride.
    I turn to look down again on the walled