CHAPTER NINETEEN Love Tokens Everything changed for Elinor with Huguet’s arrival. Up until then, she had been able to feel that – apart from some anxious hours before they left Saint-Jacques and the shock of seeing Iseut fire her own castle – the war in the south had not really touched her. But seeing Huguet so diminished from the merry boy she had known when they were joglars together and hearing Gui’s news had stripped all comfort away. Her father was dead, had died horribly, and Aimeric had died too, defending their home. She felt a wretched traitor for deserting them just because she hadn’t wanted her parents’ choice of husband. ‘And now I will never be able to tell him how sorry I am,’ she sobbed to Iseut the night that the party from Termes had arrived and the two women were alone in their chamber. Iseut held her friend and let her cry as much as she needed to. At last, exhausted, Elinor sat up and brushed the hair from her face.
