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fear.
                  ‘I will watch and report to you once I know the pattern of their days,’ the man said.  ‘You can rely on me, my lord.’
                  ‘I know that Sebastien.’ Robert’s mouth thinned into a grim line.  ‘Next time we come, we come in force.’
     

 
     
     
     
    5
     
    Anne sat with her needlework in her lap.  Three days had passed since the visit from the peddlers and she was still troubled in her mind.  She had been embroidering a cloth for her bedchamber. It was complicated work and the thread was bright, a rich tapestry of red gold and blue not unlike one she had made once before.
                  Frowning, she tried to picture the room where the tapestry had covered a board and trestle.  She could see articles of gold and silver set out on the cloth, things of value similar to those the peddler had brought with him that day.  Trinkets had pleased her once she recalled for she had been pleased with a scent bottle fashioned of gold and set with rubies…not that ruby but others…
                  Her mind was surely playing tricks on her, because she could see herself wearing a gown and tunic of cloth of gold and around her neck there was a chain from which was suspended a fine ruby…the ruby the peddler had shown her that day.  She was almost certain that she had once owned it – but how could she have done so?
                  Anne shivered, feeling ice trickle down her spine.  Something was terribly wrong.  Why had the peddler looked at her that way?  Why did she seem to remember living somewhere else?  The rooms were much larger than those here in her present home; they were cold and at times the walls seemed damp.  She had covered them with tapestry to make them warmer and brighter, but the castle was old…
                  The castle was old!
                  Had she lived in a castle before she came here?  Anne’s thoughts were swirling in confusion.  The feeling that she knew the jewel and the peddler was growing in her mind and the fear was mounting.  She had a premonition that something bad was about to happen.
                  Looking up as Nicholas entered her chamber, she narrowed her gaze.  ‘You must tell me,’ she said.  ‘When did we marry – and how did we meet?  Did you come to the castle?’
                  ‘You have remembered a castle?’
                  ‘Yes, I think so, though it is very vague.’  Anne stood up.  ‘Please, Nicholas.  I am afraid that something is happening – something that may destroy us.  You must tell me the truth.  I love you and I shall not hate you even though you have not told me all…there is something you are hiding from me, isn’t there?’
                  Nicholas looked at her for a long moment, then, ‘I have wronged you by not telling you before, Anne.  I was afraid to lose you but now I think I must risk all and tell you.  Please do not hate me.’
                  ‘I love you, Nicholas.  You must know that?’
                  ‘I know that I adore both you and the child…’  He looked at her and his eyes were dark with anguish.  ‘You came to me one night when the snow was thick on the ground.  I found you at my gates and carried you inside.  Your time was very near.  You gave birth to the first child soon after we put you to bed.  Marta took the child to the wet-nurse in the village, because we thought you were dead…but you did not die.  There was another child and I had to cut you to get the babe out.  I loved Iolanthe from the moment I saw her…’
                  ‘Oh, Nicholas…’ Anne stared at him, tears running down her cheeks as the words echoed in her mind.  She was not his wife.  She was not Nicholas’s wife.  The earth seemed to shift beneath her feet and her temples pounded.  It was all a