grasped the iron ring on the door of the bedchamber and was just about to turn it, when she froze. Voices were coming from behind the wooden partition that separated the Lady Anne's bedchamber from the solar. Frustration and something bordering on panic welled up in her. She'd been so sure the little room would be empty.
Lady Anne and Hilda were both occupied in the Great Hall. Lord Osborn had returned from visiting a neighbouring estate, together with his brother and a dozen men. Not that Elena had yet seen any of them. As soon as the messenger had arrived to warn the manor to make preparations for his immediate arrival, Lady Anne had sent all the young girls to the kitchens or on errands to the village to keep them out of the way of Osborn's men. And it was just as well, judging by the shouts and gales of laughter coming from the hall below. The men were in such a boisterous mood that their voices almost drowned out the clatter of dishes, swords and spurs and even the barking of their favourite hounds which fought and snarled around their masters' feet. The men were settling themselves in for a night of eating and hard drinking by the roaring fire.
So who could be in the bedchamber at this time? She knew Hilda would never leave her mistress alone in the Great Hall. She'd be flapping around Lady Anne like a mother partridge protecting its brood, despite her own fear of the raucous men. In any case it was a man's voice she could hear behind the partition. Servants trying to avoid waiting on Osborn and his men? Elena pressed her ear to the wood.
'And this Faramond will be aboard?'
'He will,' a second man replied. 'He's best, so they say. None more experienced nor skilful in the service of France. He can take a city with his tongue, even before a single sword's been raised.'
Elena didn't recognize either of the voices, but she knew they weren't servants. No one from Gastmere spoke like that.
'And you're sure of the place they will land?'
'Land, no,' the second voice said. 'But it will be an easy matter to arrange for you to meet with Faramond. Once the Santa Katarina sails up the channel from the North Sea and around the island of Yarmouth into Breydon Water there're a hundred little inlets cutting in across the marsh, all of them hidden from the view of a man standing even a few feet away. The marsh-dwellers know them like the faces of their own children. As soon as those Frenchmen are off the ship and in the coracles, they'll be able to get clean away. They can go to ground anywhere.
'No,' he continued, 'the only danger for our friends lies in sailing through the channel between Yarmouth and Gorleston, but come spring those waters will be thick with ships bringing in cargoes and men too. What's one among so many? If you want to hide a bone, put it in a charnel house.'
'Why not land at Yarmouth? Now that it is a free port, King John no longer has a garrison there.'
'But he does have spies in the town. More so now that it's no longer under his rule. He wouldn't trust the Virgin Mary herself if she came from Yarmouth.' He gave a snort of mirthless laughter. 'The ship will moor in the town eventually, pay its tolls and let the Yarmouth men examine its trade cargo, but it will have discharged its real cargo long before it sails into harbour.'
'We can trust this informant, you're sure?' the first voice asked anxiously.
'He fought in the Holy Land with us. He's more than a brother to me and we believe in the same cause, with good reason, as you well know. He hates the whole Devil's brood of the Angevins even more than you do and won't rest till he sees that bastard John's murderous head on a pike. Besides, you cannot know a man for so many years without becoming privy to a few secrets that he would not want spread abroad. It never hurts to remind one's friends of that from time to time, don't you find?'
'Are you threatening me? Because if you are I swear I'll cut your treacherous tongue from your mouth!' There was a loud crash as if a chair had been violently kicked over on to the wooden floor. The noise startled Elena and she jerked back, hitting