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all six of them loaned by the Count of Labrouillade, had persuaded him. ‘We’re not going to hurt them,’ Jacques Sollière, the leader of the count’s six men, had persuaded Roland, ‘just make use of them.’
    The capture had been simple. The consuls of Montpellier had lent him even more men, and Genevieve and her son had been taken as they tried to leave the city with two men-at-arms and a servant as their only protection. Those three attendants were now in Montpellier’s citadel, but they were none of Roland’s business. His duty was to reach Labrouillade and exchange his captives for the count’s wayward wife, and then his quest would be done.
    Yet somehow it did not feel chivalric. Roland insisted that Genevieve and her child be treated with courtesy, yet she returned that favour with defiant scorn, and her words hurt him. If Roland had been a more perceptive man he would have seen the terror beneath the scorn, but he felt only the lash and he tried to deflect it by telling tales to young Hugh. He told the boy the story of the golden fleece, then how the great hero Ipomadon had disguised himself to win a tournament, and then how Lancelot had done the same, and Hugh listened in fascination while his mother appeared to despise the tales. ‘So why did they fight?’ she asked.
    ‘To win, my lady,’ Roland said.
    ‘No, they fought for their lovers,’ Genevieve said. ‘Ipomadon fought for Queen Proud, and Lancelot for Guinevere who, like the Countess of Labrouillade, was married to another man.’
    Roland coloured at that. ‘I would not call them lovers,’ he said stiffly.
    ‘What else?’ she asked with reeking scorn. ‘And Guinevere was a prisoner, as I am.’
    ‘Madame!’
    ‘If I’m not a prisoner,’ she demanded, ‘let me go.’
    ‘You are a hostage, madame, and under my protection.’
    Genevieve laughed at that. ‘Your protection?’
    ‘Until you are exchanged, madame,’ Roland said stiffly, ‘I swear no harm will come to you if it is in my power to prevent it.’
    ‘Oh stop your witless blathering and tell my son another tale of adultery,’ she spat.
    So Roland told what he thought was a much safer story, the glorious tale of his namesake, the great Roland de Roncesvalles. ‘He marched against the Moors in Spain,’ he told Hugh. ‘Do you know who the Moors are?’
    ‘Pagans,’ Hugh said.
    ‘That’s right! They are heathens and pagans, followers of a false god, and when the French army came back across the Pyrenees they were treacherously ambushed by the pagans! Roland commanded the rearguard and he was outnumbered twenty to one, some say fifty to one! Yet he possessed a great sword, Durandal, that had once belonged to Hector of Troy, and that great blade slew his enemies. They died in their scores, but not even Durandal could hold back that pagan horde and the poor Christians were in danger of being overwhelmed. But Roland also possessed a magic horn, Olifant, and he blew the horn, he blew it so hard that the effort killed him, but the sound of Olifant brought King Charlemagne and his magnificent knights to slaughter the impudent enemy!’
    ‘They may have been impudent,’ Genevieve said, ‘but they were never Moors. They were Christians.’
    ‘My lady!’ Roland protested.
    ‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said. ‘Have you ever been to Roncesvalles?’
    ‘No, madame.’
    ‘I have! My father was a juggler and fire-eater. We went from town to town collecting pennies and we listened to the stories, always the stories, and in Roncesvalles they know it was the Basques, Christians to a man, who ambushed Roland. They killed him too. You just pretend it was the Moors because you can’t abide thinking that your hero was killed by peasant rebels. And how glorious a death is it? To blow a horn and fall down?’
    ‘Roland is a hero as great as Arthur!’
    ‘Who had more sense than to kill himself by blowing a horn. And speaking of horns, why do you serve the Count of Labrouillade?’
    ‘To do right, lady.’
    ‘Right! By returning that poor girl to her pig of a husband?’
    ‘To her lawful husband.’
    ‘Who rapes his tenants’ wives and daughters,’ she said, ‘so why aren’t you punishing him for adultery?’ Roland had no answer except to frown at Hugh, distressed that such a subject should be aired in front of a small boy. Genevieve laughed. ‘Oh, Hugh can listen,’ she said. ‘I want him to be a decent man like his father, so I’m educating him. I don’t want