Elisabeth Hobbes - Uncovering The Merchant's Secret

She decided against looking in case he was awake and saw her.

‘Put a guard on his door,’ she told Andrey. ‘Someone loyal to you.’

She straightened her sleeves and thought back to the way Jack had seized her by the wrist. He had moved so quickly, but there had been no panic in her. The abhorrence she usually felt at being touched without permission had been mild and she had snapped at him as a matter of course. When the impulse had clearly filled him to try to touch her for a second time he had stayed his hand and that had endeared him to her even more.

‘A pity he has no memory,’ she mused to Andrey. ‘I would like to know who he is and what he is doing.’

She crossed the courtyard from the building where Jack was being housed and climbed the outside stairs to the main tower of the fort. She paused as she always did and pressed her palm against the door. Compared to the grand home that she had shared with her second husband, Yann, it was small, but it belonged to her and no one else. Jack had believed the house belonged to a man, naturally, and the knowledge rankled. But why would he not?

She lifted her head, proud to have done something so few women would dare to try or succeed in doing. There had been times after Yann’s death when her courage to continue down the path she had chosen had wavered. But she had continued, and Bleiz Mor lived and fought, her name a tribute to the wolf pelts that had decorated their walls.

‘Brittany will triumph,’ she whispered to Yann’s ghost. ‘You did not die in vain.’

She climbed the stairs to her private room on the top floor of the tower and sat in the high-backed chair at the window, shivering a little in the breeze that crept round the threadbare screens. Winter had not fully loosened its grasp, but each time she considered spending some of her plunder on her own comfort she thought of the widowed women who struggled in bare cottages to feed fatherless children, or the men toiling to grow crops in fields turned to battlefields. She did not need it as much as they did.

She turned her attention to the cross that lay on the table. Keeping this was an indulgence. She had examined it over and over in the days before Jack regained consciousness and could picture it with her eyes closed. It was engraved on the back with the initials J and M on either side. She had been right to suspect his name might begin with that letter. She wondered who M was and a little jealous flame flickered in her breast. She hoped it was his family name and not that of a wife or lover. Perhaps he would remember if she showed him the cross. She would wait until he was well rather than risk agitating him now.

She held the cross tightly and pursed her lips. That was not the only reason for delaying. If his memory returned and he was proved to be a supporter of Charles de Blois, there were matters she would have to face. Taking a man’s life in combat or on the seas was one thing, but callously executing him in her own home after giving him care and shelter was entirely another. She worried she was allowing her sense of sympathy for his injuries and pity for his circumstances to cloud her judgement. Perhaps he thought a woman would be more easily tricked or cajoled into believing his lies, or that her opinions were of no consequence. He would not be the first man who had tried to dismiss her in such a way.

She walked behind the tapestry screen and into the shallow alcove of the window and glanced out over the sea, deep in thought. She occupied the whole of the top floor of the tower as her bedchamber and private solar. From her window, and hers alone, high on the highest floor of the tower, it was possible to see that the coast with its shallow inlets and jutting rocks dipped in more deeply and curved round behind the cliff in a loop.

It was in this concealed cove, safe from the tides and from passing eyes, where her two ships rested at anchor. She inhaled deeply, tasting the salt air in the back of her mouth and feeling the wind enfolding her. She had not sailed since the night before Jack’s shipwreck.

Although she was still furious at the way the villagers had defied her and lit the church lights, she knew they were growing restless with the continued assaults on houses loyal to the de Montfort cause. She had sworn vengeance on the French, yet had kept her ships at harbour since the night of the shipwreck, the thought of more death turning her stomach in a way that was new and unpleasant. News had come to her earlier in the day through the network of men in her pay of a French ship making its way along the coast. It would not be allowed to pass further up the coast.

She summoned Marie—the only person Blanche permitted inside her private sanctuary—and sent orders down to Andrey to ready her two ships, White Wolf and White Hawk, by dusk.

She descended to the large room on the ground floor where her household ate and joined them, passing around the tables to speak with each man and woman. Like her, everyone here had lost someone dear to the French after the siege of Quimper or in other battles. Like her, they had sworn to wreak revenge on those who had taken arms against the rightful claimant to the dukedom of Brittany, but only Blanche had the determination and courage to do what she had done and rebuild her life stronger than she had been before. They loved her for it and were fiercely loyal. She had no fears that her identity would be revealed by anyone within the walls of the castle.

She could not help but feel proud of what she had accomplished as she looked round the room. Lamps burned brightly on every table, richly coloured tapestries hung along each wall and they drank from ornate goblets. Anyone who visited would be awestruck by the riches on display and understand that Blanche Tanet’s spirit had not died when her husband Yann had been executed.

She stood on the raised dais before the fire, knowing that her silhouette before the flames was dramatic, and waited for silence.

‘Luring the ship on to the rocks was cowardly and short-sighted. We could harm our allies as much as our enemies. That must not happen again.’ She waited while the inevitable muttering subsided. Jagu Ronec was sitting beside Andrey, his face thunderous. Blanche smiled at him warmly, despite the stirrings of anxiety inside her, and addressed her next words of flattery to him.

‘You are all brave men, strong and determined, and have no need of such tricks. Tonight, my friends, we attack the French ship that is sailing down the coast from Concarneau. I wish you success. We will win and Brittany will triumph.’

She held her goblet aloft, fingers closing round the jewelled stem, and led the toast. The wine they had salvaged from the wreck was excellent quality. She stepped down and spoke to Ronec.

‘I’ll sail with you tonight. White Hawk leads the advance.’

Ronec’s eyes gleamed. Blanche hid her revulsion as his lips brushed the back of her hand. If she had been more far-sighted, she would never have thrown her lot in with him, but it had seemed a good idea given that he was her closest neighbour and a friend of her first husband. He was fiercely passionate about the cause, but lacked the acumen to come up with such a bold venture himself. A week of nights in his bed had been a price she had reluctantly accepted in return for the money she had needed and the provision of a crew, but he clearly expected the transaction to continue even after he had paid her what she needed for White Hawk . That she had staved him off for over a year was a source of amazement to everyone, most of all to Blanche, and it was a constant worry that she could not hope to do so for ever.

The assault was a success. White Hawk lay in wait for the French cog while White Wolf came from behind. When the sail was hoisted it caught the wind, the square billowing out, proudly displaying the symbol of the wolf pelt. She saw White Hawk do the same. Blanche’s mood lifted, as it never failed to once she felt the waves lifting and breaking. The symbol of Yann’s favourite quarry now struck fear into the hearts of the foe who had taken him.