Melisende’s husband, Simon, was the village blacksmith. King Phillippe of France demanded his services on the Third Crusade. Lord Charles returns from the Crusade ready to take the place of his slain father, in charge of the village in France. But Simon does not return, killed on the battlefield, though somehow Charles is riding Simon’s fine warhorse. THE LODE STONE looks at the situation as it develops for Melisende, a still-young mother and widow.

What’s a warhorse worth, one that could save a lord’s life? Was a dirty deed done, was a bargain struck, or a promise made? Melisende doesn’t have much option but to take what Charles offers her in compensation, because she has two children to feed, the laundry work is drying up, and she can’t pay the rent on the smithy cottage. She likes Roland, the younger brother of Charles, but he’s not going to stoop to wedding a peasant.

Anyone who has read The Sorrow Stone by this author Jane Ann McLachlan will know that she recreates medieval Europe excellently. The sights, sounds, smells and superstitions fill her pages; religions and tensions decide actions, while people depend on beasts of burden. In The Sorrow Stone we met a pedlar selling spices on the pilgrim trail and a woman trying to free herself of grief. THE LODE STONE brings together the story of a man called Isaac, severely injured from the battle at Acre as he strove to save religious items from a temple, and doomed to wander; with the woman who might as well have been widowed when her husband first went Crusading, there was so little chance of any man returning.

Of course, some men did return, and brought with them anything from Arab horses to illnesses, from medical knowledge to plunder. Isaac introduces to us the unscrupulous, the greedy, the kind. Few authors write so finely and well-balanced a tale as Jane Ann McLachlan. I stand in awe of her research and deft weaving in the ‘Medieval Stones’ series. This instalment is wonderful not just for lovers of historical romance but for horse owners.