A group of highway robbers had dared to set themselves up near the border of his jurisdiction (unofficial though it was), just as the travel season was ending in October. The track they haunted was not particularly well-traveled, so they began preying upon the little village of Crosston, which could ill-afford to see its winter stores carried off by criminals. The sheriff appealed to Stephen for help, and because his destrier needed some real action, Stephen accepted.

For several days he had shadowed the thieves without detection. He knew where they slept, what they ate, how they moved their ill-gotten goods out of the region, and where they hid after their crimes. He’d watched them long enough to learn their pecking order and discern each man’s personal mannerisms. Even their vicious cur of a dog had never smelled trouble from Stephen’s prowling—after all, his horse wasn’t the only member of the St. Clair team who needed to keep his skills sharp.

Ordinarily Stephen would isolate one of the four outlaws and murder him quietly, being sure to leave the mutilated carcass where the others would find it. This was usually an effective way of keeping the peace and had been quite successful in rendering Lord Gilbert Perviance’s holdings among the safest in the kingdom. But when these particular outlaws had sneered and spat when warned about the Templar sorcerer nearby, Stephen had decided to make an example of them. Humility was necessary in the politicized atmosphere of the London Temple. Here in Kent, Stephen was the law.

The action would serve another purpose as well. One of this year’s Templar hopefuls had arrived early; a conceited younger son of one of Suffolk’s minor families. The lad bragged about his soldiering experience and—worse, in Stephen’s estimation—was callous about his religious duties. In ten years, Stephen had seen a number of boys of this ilk; it was a waste of time and money to attempt to train them. If a Crusade were in the offing, Stephen would try to make a soldier of this one, but for years no one had talked of the Holy Land in anything but a vague way. So the boy would have to be sent packing, preferably of his own volition.

On a rainy October night Stephen had invited the boy, Philippe, to rise, arm, and accompany him. They had left Temple Perviance on foot, leading their horses silently along the path to Crosston by the inadequate light of the smallest lantern Stephen could find. Now they were waiting for a sulky gray dawn to rise over the woodland where the robbers were sleeping in a lean-to made of thatch.

Stephen had not spent a single night under his castle’s roof since taking up this challenge. Soldiering was not about comfort; he felt it unlucky when warming his bones by a fire and eating rich food. He was aware, therefore, that the robbers had been making merry with a barrel of ale he’d purposely left for them at the inn in Crosston. He also knew that on such a cold, rainy morning they would all be sleeping in a pile, bundled together and relying upon one another for warmth.

With the first light, their dog wandered onto the road to lift his leg. Stephen’s armored destrier caught the scent of the mutt and snorted. That grabbed the dog’s attention, but before he could bark a warning, Stephen dropped him with a well-placed arrow from a Welsh longbow.

The fantastic precision of the shot drew a murmur of approval from Philippe. Stephen whirled and silenced the boy with a black scowl. For a moment nothing moved. Then Stephen laid his bow aside and whispered: “Do you know how to count to one hundred?”

“Aye,” Philippe whispered.

“Do it silently. Then ride in and join me. Have your axe ready.”

The boy grinned, eyes gleaming, and commenced his count.

Stephen mounted and spurred his destrier to a gallop. The horse charged fearlessly into the woods, right on track for the lean-to, and came crashing into the flimsy construction like an avalanche. Stephen pulled the reins so that the destrier reared and then stomped viciously on the suddenly-squirming nest of sleepers. The horse had been trained for this; it knew how to sense movement underfoot and quench it. All Stephen had to do was keep in the saddle.

The sound of crunching bones and screaming filtered from the woods. Philippe, who had struggled to 35 in his count, perked his ears and skipped to 70.

The horse’s assault immediately incapacitated two of the robbers. Stephen felled a third with an axe blow that severed the man’s left arm and left the weapon deep inside his chest. The fourth managed to gain his legs and try to run, but apparently the horse had done its damage, because after a few strides the man—a young, beardless fellow Philippe’s age—stumbled and crawled instead. Stephen and the horse were upon him in an instant, mace at the ready.

“Have mercy . . .” gasped the boy. He saw the small rosy cross on Stephen’s black tunic, the polished armor, the arsenal of weapons, most of them still in their sheaths. The boy clasped his hands and begged. “Merrrrrcy.”

“Right,” Stephen answered. He brought the mace down hard, splitting open the boy’s head, spewing blood and gray-white brains.

Silence descended. Stephen’s eyes scanned the scene for any motion. Seeing none, he dropped his gory mace on the corpse at his feet and waited for Philippe.

The boy came charging in just as Stephen had, but his horse pulled up short, spooked by the trees, and skittered to a crawl. No reaction came from the outlaws.

Stephen dismounted and grabbed the dead boy by the hair. With a practiced motion he slit the fellow’s throat from ear to ear with his dagger.

The man who’d been axed was still breathing but in shock. Stephen slit his throat in the same manner, wiping his dagger on the man’s clothing when he was through. Then came the delicate task of uncovering the other two bodies. They might be feigning death in hopes of escaping the real thing.

“Cover me, Philippe,” Stephen said. He glanced at his companion and, as anticipated, found the boy’s excitement replaced by terror.

Stephen wore his sword on his back. He disengaged it in an eyeblink and began stabbing the already blood-smeared mass of blankets and thatch. After two dozen jabs he pulled away the blankets, revealing two thoroughly mangled men. Slitting their throats would be redundant.

“Philippe,” Stephen said pleasantly, “come help me cut off these heads, will you?”

Philippe dismounted but moved no closer. His face the color of the sky overhead, his eyes moved restlessly from corpse to corpse.

Humming, Stephen disengaged his axe from its victim, kicked the body onto its back, and brought the axe down sharply on the neck. With a great gush of blood, the head disengaged. Still humming, Stephen moved to the stomped pair and aimed a blow at one of them. This time he missed the neck but chopped off the head through the jaw. “Mmmm mmmm mmmmmph,” he said. He picked up the dripping head by its hair and held it aloft, grinning at Philippe. “This’ll liven up All Hallow’s Eve, what do you think?”

Philippe vomited loudly.

Stephen ignored him and went back about his work. As he dredged through the blood and bones to find the other man’s head, he heard Philippe mount and gallop away toward the road. He sighed with relief and stepped out of the bloodbath. Wet work. That was what they called it, and rightly so. Blood slimed his arms to the elbow, even seeped inside his armor. His boots made squishing sounds as he passed through the quagmire. His good wool tunic was probably ruined, but that, he thought was of small consequence. The Templar Order overflowed with supplies of the finest quality; he would soon have another.

The job was done, and done well. Philippe would slink back to Suffolk and pay more attention to his prayers. The outlaws’ heads would be posted in Crosston just in time for All Hallow’s Eve. Likely there’d be no more trouble along this stretch of road.

Weary and nauseous himself, Stephen made a cursory inspection of the surroundings to see if the men had hidden anything truly valuable. Finding nothing, he bagged the heads, tied them to his saddle, and headed toward Crosston to alert the sheriff.

As he returned to the road he was startled by a sudden jolt from the destrier. Unbidden, the horse reared and charged up the path toward a solitary figure, standing like a ghost in the mist. It was all Stephen could do to rein in the animal before it struck the strange vision. Miraculously—or rather mysteriously—the figure didn’t even budge as the huge horse made its charge.

At the last moment, the horse lunged and the sprite leapt aside. Stephen drew his sword and made ready to strike, but he pulled back. Before his eyes the apparition slowly became a soaking wet and visibly wretched girl, mud up to her knees, carrying a pair of sodden sandals.

The next moments were expended subduing the horse, whose blood was still up. To Stephen’s astonishment, the girl barked battlefield commands at the animal without making any attempt to find shelter from its fury. The tired horse, too, seemed confused, so it finally stilled itself. Both man and beast gaped at the skinny thing at their feet.

“If you please,” she said, “how far is it to Temple Perviance?”

She looked familiar. Stephen searched his memory—good for faces—and then everything made sense. She was the daughter of the horse trainer at the coast! The man who had sold the Order the very horse Stephen was riding. Stephen remembered seeing her, perhaps two years earlier, galloping across the proving grounds on an Arabian mare of elegant proportions. He could still visualize her skirts flapping above her knees, her hair streaming behind her uncaught by any braid. The sight had given him a momentary release from the heavy weight of his soul, and he hadn’t forgotten it.

Now here she was again, skirt hitched in a rope belt, knees shaking with cold. Great bleeding blisters covered her heels and toes. Apparently she had walked some distance in the sandals before the blisters became unbearable. It was certainly no morning to be walking barefoot. On closer inspection, Stephen could see that her lips were blue, a telltale sign of the onset of exposure. If the rain resumed she might never get to Temple Perviance, which was a half-day’s walk in fine weather. More than likely the exposure would rob her of reason, and she would wander off to die in some field or fen.

“What is your business in Temple Perviance?” he asked her.

Now she was staring at him, and small wonder.

“I would rather not say,” she answered warily. “How far is it? Do you know?”

“The better part of a day, on foot . . . in good weather with strong shoes.”

“I thank you,” she said, and without further ado, set off in the direction he’d indicated.

Stephen watched her limp away and contemplated what might have happened to her had he not chosen this morning to rout out the robbers. It was indeed a miracle that she had walked—how far was the coast?—30?—35 miles?—without meeting violence along the way. Clearly she was in flight from a convent; that was common enough among young girls. But she must know someone in Temple Perviance who would take her in with no questions. Who could that be? The only noble family in Temple Perviance was the Perviances themselves.

Better she should die out here in the elements than present herself at the Perviance manor just now, Stephen thought. He clucked to his horse and started slowly in the same direction she’d gone.

The girl was standing at the spot where he had dropped his longbow. She handed it to him. “Was there trouble?” she asked.

“Trouble? Aye, trouble. And if you’d happened this way a day earlier, you’d have been right in the midst of it.” A vision went through Stephen’s head of the thatch and the blankets, of uncovering an oozing pile of flesh and bones that included this youngster within it. “I think I had better take you to Temple Perviance. Although I must tell you, it was a bit thick back in the woods . . . as you can see, I’m bloody. You shall be, too, if you accept.”

The girl stared at him with wide, grateful eyes and held out her arm for a lift. He pulled her up in front of him, which was awkward and—considering that he was a monk—scandalous. She was a lightweight thing, all bone and sinew, and he could see the marks of a scourge on her shoulder where her grimy habit was torn.

“I will see to it that your Order is rewarded for this,” she said, settling onto the back of the destrier as if she had been born there.

Stephen’s gesture was in flagrant violation of the rules of his Order. Not only was he forbidden to touch a woman, he was enjoined against even conversing with one. This had never been a hardship for the Templar. Having grown up in a man’s world from the age of four, his knowledge of women was restricted primarily to those he saw ill-used on the battlefield. Otherwise, his ignorance of the opposite sex was complete, and he knew instinctively that he was a better soldier for it.

This, then, was a first—holding a woman in his arms. For a moment, his head, buzzing with fatigue, filled with a kind of wonder, but an appreciation of the situation’s irony quickly replaced the feeling. He was riding home from a grisly killing; she was engaged in an escape of needless bravado; and both of them were now saturated with blood, rainwater, and mud. Hardly appealing to the balladeers, this little rural escapade, he thought.

The girl went slack in his grasp. She was sleeping, on the back of a destrier festooned with human heads, no less! Oh, to be young again, and afraid of nothing, he thought. Again he remembered the way she’d once ridden pell-mell, waving brazenly to her father as half a dozen slack-jawed Templars watched in disbelief. This child was clearly not prepared for what the world had to offer a woman.

At the same age Stephen had already begun to harden. It was inevitable, like nuts on a tree. Even here in this peaceable kingdom, this England that exported its wars to France and Scotland, a woman such as this would not be so free of restraint for long.

Stephen stopped in Crosston only long enough to drop the heads in the commons. Then he headed straight for Temple Perviance. Shortly after noon, the decrepit towers of its castle showed themselves along the river, an embarrassment of crumbling stone that served as the Temple’s training ground for crusader knights. The day’s drizzle began to intensify, making Stephen shiver. He stopped and nudged the girl. “Temple Perviance,” he said.

The girl blinked and stretched, jumped nimbly down and quickly moved clear of the destrier. “I am obliged to you,” she said seriously.

Stephen cleared his throat, ready to deliver a lecture on the dangers of walking alone across country. Something in the girl’s eyes stopped him. Awake and aware, there was nothing particularly innocent or carefree about her. Her gaunt face radiated a determination that was achingly familiar to the Templar—the simple, inescapable will to live.

“Do you need further assistance?” he inquired, surprised at the catch in his voice.

“No one would look at the two of us and think I was the one in need of help, brother. Godspeed.”

She limped off in the direction of Perviance Manor.

Guy Perviance, oldest son and heir to the Perviance estate, had been warned by the servants that his cousin had arrived in a pitiful state. He and his friends were lolling on embroidered cushions by the fire, and all of them—male and female—seemed eager for a new diversion.

“Father is quite angry at you, Eleanor, for giving your inheritance to the Church,” Guy said. For his part, the loss of a family asset seemed to warrant no more than a shrug and a grin.

Eleanor assumed the polite and submissive posture expected of ladies in the presence of important lords. “I have been wronged, cousin. I asked the bishop to help me with my estate, not take it from me.”

“Oh! Well! Father will be glad to hear that! He is not here, my dearest. The recent death of his latest lady wife has sent him on pilgrimage to the shrines. Leaving me here to see to his interests. It’s dreadfully boring.” Guy’s eyes shamelessly perused Eleanor. “Getting pretty, you are. Even under all that dirt . . . . Jake! Bring this lady a hot repast and a crock of water for bathing! Cousin, have your horses and servants been seen to?”

“There are none of either,” she replied. “I walked here from Dover.

“How can that be? It’s halfway across forever!” Guy disentangled himself from the woman he was stroking and rose to embrace Eleanor. “Oh, you poor dear thing,” he crooned as his hands made a liberal exploration of her body. “Look what we have here, boys! My precious cousin has come to visit from Rising Sun on the Sea. It appears that convent life does not suit her. Oooooo, no it doesn’t, indeed! They’ve beaten her bloody!”

Eleanor stiffened. “Yes. Look what they’ve done to me. Please don’t send me back to the convent, Guy! I’ll do anything you wish . . . perform any household service . . . please . . .”

“Any service I can think of, Eleanor cherie?” Guy seemed to be teasing, but his soft question held a note of seriousness.

“Anything you ask of me, cousin.”

A great deal of half-stifled mirth erupted from the cushions behind them, amongst the men especially. Guy joined in, winking at his mates. “An obliging lass, this cousin of mine. As it happens, Eleanor, I need someone to help me with the baby twins my lady stepmother left behind. These lovely girls you see before you have been performing that function, and they will help you, but an extra hand is just what we need.”

The girls snickered at Eleanor and remained seated on their pillows. Though all three were well-dressed, their rude behavior advertised them as peasants, recruited from the village to amuse Guy and his friends. Had they been ladies, they would have discreetly hustled Eleanor outside the gentlemen’s sight and helped her to restore herself.

None of this mattered, though. The warmth of the fire was intoxicating after so much time out in the elements. A sideboard display of sweet breads and apples beckoned. This was the worldly atmosphere that the bishop had warned Eleanor against, and she knew full well that expectations would be placed upon her beyond the tasks of child care. Anything, she had promised. And she was completely prepared to live up to the bargain.

“Where are the babies?” she asked.

“They cried so loudly they disturbed the whole household,” Guy said. “They’re in a storeroom downstairs. One of the servants will show you. But, come! Sit with us first, let us look at you! Put some food in that skinny body. Lizzy, fetch a gown for Eleanor, and see if you can find some soft shoes. Those feet of yours need attention, Eleanor.”

After eating, washing, and dressing in a bedroom that looked as if it hadn’t seen a chambermaid’s hand in weeks, Eleanor fell on the nearest nest of cushions and slept soundly. When she woke some hours later, the men were playing dice by the fire and a group of players were setting up a stage in the hall. Eleanor crept out to find the infants.

Below stairs, an inadequate staff was bustling to prepare and serve a nighttime feast of elaborate proportions. A red-faced old woman pointed to the room where the babies lay. It was pitch-dark inside, and all Eleanor could hear was a steady thump-thump-thump. When she held up a lantern, she spied two cradles, side by side, with the tiny babies tied tight inside them. The thumping came from one of the cradles; the child was rhythmically hitting her head against the boards. On closer inspection, both of the infants reeked of filth, and the smaller of the two was whimpering in pain. But it was the eldest who provoked Eleanor’s horror. Never had she witnessed more a bizarre sight than this wide-eyed little animal beating its own head against solid wood.

“For the love of God!” Eleanor shrieked. “Someone come and give me a hand with these babies! Who has thought it prudent to bury them alive?”

“Apologies to you, Lady Eleanor, but we haven’t enow hours in the day to do right by those babes,” the servant woman explained. “There’s two upstairs taking good wages for the task; I’ve seen neither of them down here all day.”

“Have the babies no wet nurse?”

“No, my lady. One was engaged, but she left soon after the mistress died. I suppose I needn’t tell you why.”

“How do we feed them, then?”

“Oh, they’re old enough to eat porridge and drink from a child’s cup. They’re just puny. One’s got twisted limbs. She was born last and has suffered for it since.”

Many weeks in a convent had robbed Eleanor of her strength—but not her willpower. She hefted a baby in either arm and brought them into the kitchen proper, where the light from the oven fires illuminated their misery. None of the staff moved to help her; they were all in a frenzy to complete the massive meal for Guy and his company.

“He eats nothing that has already been served once,” the servant woman explained as she kneaded bread. “Nothing cold, no stale bread. Mind you, even the trenchers have to be fresh!” She shook her head, said nothing more, mindful that her complaints could earn a beating.

“I should change their linens,” Eleanor said. She fought a reluctance to come face-to-face with whatever might be causing the odors inside the babies’ swaddles.

“If you do you’ll soil your clothes,” the woman advised. “Just hold them for a nonce while we fetch them some porridge and apple butter and milk. I declare they won’t be so particular about their vittles.” The woman looked at Eleanor with a trace of fondness. “I be Kate Aylesworth. I cried when I heard about your father.”

Eleanor felt tears rise in her own eyes. “So did I.”

With an animal greed, the babies ate everything they were offered. Drinking was hard for them, especially the smaller one, and they choked and gasped for breath—but kept reaching for more. Eleanor’s heart went out to them. Unwanted extra offspring of a mighty lord, it appeared, fared little better than those of the rudest churls, who dropped theirs on strangers’ doorsteps.

Better to starve out in the elements than to be tied and left in the dark, Eleanor thought. For a moment, an image of the convent she’d just escaped filled her senses, and she recoiled from it with an audible moan.

“Are you sick, my lady?” Kate asked.

“She’s not sick, you old crone! She just needs a little more meat on her bones.” Guy had appeared in the kitchen, causing a great flurry of bowing and hair tugging amongst his struggling staff. “Come upstairs, Eleanor. Someone here will bed the babies. We’re feasting . . . and drinking . . . and dancing! Come, it will be jolly! Cook, get those foodstuffs up the stairs now! If I have to send down here again, I’ll have the lot of you flogged. And put no water in the wine.”

Eleanor followed Guy up the stairs to the great hall. “Cousin, it can hardly be your intention to let those babes die,” she began gently. “They need light . . . air . . . clean linens . . .”

“Cherie, we have three more brats under the age of ten to house upstairs, as well as the steward and all of my guests. The babies? They’re just . . . well . . . babies. They don’t care where they are!” He paused. “But if you please, you can take them for walks outside. Then they’ll have the light and air you think they need.”

At the top of the staircase, Guy stopped and caught Eleanor in his arms. “Cousin. I have an impression that you rather disliked that convent.”

She nodded.

“And you came here because you knew I would take you in with no regard to the fury of the Church.”

“I thought to find Uncle Gilbert here. He needs to help me regain my property.”

“He is not here, Eleanor,” Guy whispered. “I am. I have a favor to ask of you.”

Eleanor’s heart sank, but she kept a stiff upper lip. “Name it, cousin.”

“You see that portly gentleman sitting yonder? That’s Sir Clyde d’Alban. I owe him an immense sum from our gaming, and he grows restive.” Guy’s voice fell to a minimum. “Sir Clyde has a fancy for young virgins, the younger the better. No, don’t pull away, cousin! You do me this favor, you stay under this roof. I call that a bargain. What say you?”

“I know nothing of what passes between a man and a woman.”

“Well, cherie, there you’re in luck. Our little group of players here tonight perform the most interesting pranks while we watch. Women with men. Men with men. Women with women. You will learn a great deal from watching them.”

Eleanor became confused.

“They perform the love arts, Eleanor.”

She gasped. “Men with men? How can that be?”

Guy laughed and wrapped her in an indecent hug. “Oh, my little cousin. Sir Clyde will just love you. Come, now. Put on your prettiest smile and join our band!”

His grip tight on her arm, she let him lead her into the hall.

After about a half-mile, Eleanor paused to rest, not having found the shallows she wanted. She left the wide-eyed babies in a cluster of wild grapevine that still held some yellow leaves, and made haste to ease herself down into the water, at least to waist level, but preferably higher. Its bitter coldness pushed her back for a moment, but she gritted her teeth and started in again, sliding awkwardly and dredging up foul-smelling mud.

“Come back from there. The water is deep.”

Eleanor nearly jumped out of her skin. Turning, she saw the Templar, Stephen St. Clair, looking down at her from the top of the bank. He was no longer encased in his war gear but was wearing a simple robe over leather body armor. His hair and beard were wet—dripping, in fact.

Eleanor dropped her skirts and frantically scrambled up the bank. “You are trespassing, sir. This is manor property.”

“Who has harmed you? Guy, or one of his friends?”

“If I want to confess, I’ll see a priest. Good day.”

The Templar made no move to leave. Instead he sat down on the bank, produced a nit comb, and began slowly and methodically combing his beard, which stretched well onto his chest. He sighed. “I can keep this country safe for miles around, but I can’t do anything to curb the excesses of Guy Perviance.”

Eleanor’s first impulse had been to retrieve the babies and run, but instead she stayed. The Templar was at least a familiar sort of person to her, the rough and earnest variety of man who had frequently dined at her father’s table and strolled with him through the grounds discussing the Scottish Wars and the need for well-trained horseflesh. Though clearly not English by birth, he was far less foreign to her than the fat and slovenly wastrel back at the manor who’d spent the night grinding her to a pulp.

Stephen looked up at her, then quickly turned his head. “I will provide you an escort anywhere you want to go . . . all the way to London, if necessary. Today.”

“Thank you, brother. But all roads lead back to the convent, and I cannot go back to a convent.”

“You are safe there.”

Eleanor knelt, wrapped her arms around her knees. She felt bruised all over, beaten and wasted, and invested with the dread knowledge that she would never forget Sir Clyde, would never be free of his taint. “Brother knight,” she said, “I tried. I tried. They put me in a cell, asked no more of me than any other supplicant . . . but I just . . . began to . . . fall to pieces. I couldn’t breathe . . . nor eat . . . the walls just seemed to fall inward upon me. I couldn’t bear the tightness of it. My heart panicked inside me; I longed for sleep but couldn’t; prayer made me worse, not better! I begged them to scourge me—I thought the pain would divert my frenzy. And it did, for a while, but they refused to beat me as much as I wanted them to. They said I was going mad . . . but still they would not let me out of that cell.”

Eleanor paused, rocked backwards on her blistered heels. “Compared to the convent, last night was . . . an improvement. I knew when I powered my way out of Dover that I’d probably face such treatment in Temple Perviance. I came here anyway. I chose to live, even if the living is painful and difficult. Had I stayed with the Poor Claires, I would have died.”

The Templar stopped working on his beard and dropped the comb in his lap. In some inexplicable way he seemed transfixed by what she had just said.

“I am aware that my soul will go to eternal damnation,” Eleanor added quickly, feeling her throat constrict. “It cannot be much worse than that cell.” She began to cry.

He unearthed a thick wad of linen from a bag on his belt. He unrolled a section, cut it expertly with his dagger, and handed it to Eleanor.

“A lust for life is the worst curse we mortals face, youngster,” he observed. “If Hell is just a continuation of that longing through eternity, it is well to avoid it at all costs.” He stroked his beard self-consciously. “I know something of this . . . choosing . . . when both options are bitter. But you have enough pain to carry right now. Anxiety for your soul need not be among it. A minimal indulgence to our preceptory will absolve you of whatever happened last night. A larger grant—say, several horses to the Master in London—and you’ll not only have free flight to heaven, you’ll have a hallowed plot in the Temple churchyard of your choice.”

“My father always said indulgences are cheating.”

“If you are truly penitent, you could give your inheritance to the Temple. No one there would force you into a convent if you would rather live in a fine villa and go riding every day.”

Eleanor fixed him with a hardened gaze. “Oh, so you know who I am? And that’s your solution, is it? Why does it not surprise me? My father always said, ‘Templars have gold behind their eyeballs.&146;” She stood up in contempt. “Brother Templar, your sympathy for my welfare is very touching. It will no doubt interest you to know that I will mull your proposal very seriously. Just now I have two sick children to attend to, and we all need to bathe.”

She hurried back to the babies and began gathering them into her arms. Suddenly, he was behind her.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You misunderstood me. I want to do something—anything—to . . . em . . . provide you with other choices. I did not make the suggestion out of ambition for my own gains, believe me.”

Eleanor looked up at him and remembered how she’d felt when she first saw him yesterday. He had looked like some demon, face streaked with blood, dripping bloody sacks hanging from his beast’s saddle, eyes hard as stone. Now, here stood the same man, admittedly still rough-looking, but so ill at ease that he fumbled with his goods and actively avoided the simple act of looking her in the face—like a guilty altar boy about to trip over his own feet. A woman facing the attentions of Guy Perviance and his ilk could do worse than ally herself with a man such as this.

“I’m sorry, too,” she told him. “You must understand, I’m not feeling well today, or I would have been more polite. In truth, you have made a good suggestion about my inheritance. A very good suggestion. But I also think that God might have brought me here to see to these infants. You would not believe their condition if I were to describe it to you.”

He knelt by her side, boldly unwrapped the wool, and exposed the babies’ limbs to the bright morning light. Eleanor had already seen the bleeding ulcers and festering blisters covering almost every inch of the little torsos, so she turned away as the damage was revealed. The Templar gasped and began babbling in the strangest foreign language she’d ever heard. With a quick motion, he rolled the babies back into the blanket and lifted them himself.

“You must come with me to the castle immediately,” he told Eleanor. “Plan to stay there for some time.”

“But brother—”

“These children aren’t sick, lady. They are dying. Do you hear me? Dying. You will have to nurse them back to health. It won’t be easy. We must start right away.”

“My cousin will not allow me to—”

The embarrassment was gone in a flash, and the Templar looked every inch the implacable soldier. “Your cousin be damned. Come with me this instant.”

Most of the outbuildings had been torn down to make room for martial exercises, but a small chapel remained, behind which—in a grove of apple trees—stood a few indecipherable grave markers belonging to Perviances past. Had the chapel been bigger the Templars might have used it for their services; instead, the Order had built a small parish church outside the castle walls that was used (and tithed to) by the whole community. The original Perviance chapel was now serving as a storehouse for garden tools, extra-large cooking pots, and other accoutrements of a busy preceptory, but with a few cursory commands Stephen put an end to that. Within an hour of her arrival on the castle grounds, Eleanor found herself staring at an accommodating little space, warmed by a brazier of seasoned logs and softened by large swatches of sheepskin.

Soon, Stephen appeared at the doorway, carrying a large cauldron that emitted clouds of steam. He placed it inside the room and returned shortly with a large corked jug.

“Until I say, the babies are not to have any cloth against their skins,” he began, pouring a liberal amount of vinegar from the jug into the cauldron.

“But, brother, they’ll take a chill.”

Stephen looked at her. “You must understand something, youngster. I make the rules here. There is no room for argument. You will follow my orders to the letter. If you do, these children have a chance. If you do not, they’ll follow their mother to the crypt.”

The room grew warm and smoky. The vapors from the cauldron smelled familiar—could the water possibly be an herbal bath of the same sort her father used on sore horses?

“Bathe each baby in this water to a count of three-hundred,” Stephen said. “Gently rub the soil from them with clean linen and vigorously swirl them so the water reaches all the sores. You will do this every morning and every night. Then you will pour vinegar over the sores and let the children air-dry.”

This was too much. “Sir knight, I mean you no disrespect, but what you propose will kill these children from shock. First immersed in boiling water and then brined like pickles? It’s madness!”

“Do as I say. I will know you have obeyed me by the way the babies react. In the meantime, I’ll have my servants boil another cauldron for your use. Your dinner will be left outside on the step.” He dropped the jug of vinegar on the floor with a decisive thud and left the chapel.

What’s good for horses is good for people—it’s Father all over again, Eleanor thought. Gritting her teeth, she lifted the healthier of the two infants—Alice—and plunged her into the steaming pot. The baby howled and cried until her face turned purple. When the vinegar hit her open sores, she almost failed to breathe. But at the last moment before she began to turn blue, she sucked a huge mouthful of air into her lungs and wailed loud enough to be heard at the manor.

Still another yet to bathe, a feebler, more helpless creature. Crying herself, Eleanor followed Stephen’s directions again, wringing from this poor little wraith a keening crackle, pathetic in its pale imitation of the bigger child.

When her duties were finished and the two infants lay kicking and sobbing on the lambskin, Eleanor sat and stared at the uneven masonry in the chapel wall. Like a vile wave, the memories of her convent cell—and the more recent abuse by Sir Clyde—came rushing into the void in her mind that had been momentarily filled by the babies.

She began to shake. A great swell of fury churned inside her and erupted in a loud wail of protest. She sounded like a bear caught in a trap—a bear just barely caught, whose rage just might rip him free.

She’d hardly begun to howl when the chapel door burst open and Stephen crossed the threshold with his dagger drawn, backed up by three wide-eyed serving brothers. When Stephen saw she was safe, he waved away his helpers.

Eleanor looked at him and kept screaming. By now she couldn’t help it—the poison inside her, the fear and fury and disappointment, all came pouring out in a bitter, lung-piercing lament.

Stephen sheathed his dagger without taking his eyes off her. He patted his lower stomach with both hands. “From here,” he said. To demonstrate, he began roaring himself, effectively drowning out Eleanor and every noise on the castle grounds.

“BEAU—SAY—AAAAAAAAAAAAAANT! HUH! HUH! HUH! BEAU—SAY—AAAAAAAAAAANT! Say it, girl. Say it, Eleanor! From here!”

She took a breath. “BEAU—SAY—-AAAAAAAAAANT! Aaaaaaaaaagh!”

“Again!”

“BEAU—SAY—AAAAAAANT! HUH! HUH! HUH! BEAU—-SAY—AAAAANT!”

They screamed together until their voices failed, and at the end Eleanor was empty of fury. In its place came a strange sensation of power, of invincibility and potential she had never felt before. Her body was so tense and strong she felt capable of knocking down a wall.

Slowly she became aware of the babies crying. And of the Templar staring at her with the most curious light in his eyes. A wave of pure healing washed over her, just from the way he was looking into her face. She was certain that if he touched her even with a fingertip it would be as if Sir Clyde had never happened. She got up, walked to him, took his hand and placed it on her shoulder.

There was no thunder or lightning, no earthquake. But the moment she felt his hand, Eleanor became infused with a sense of health, strength . . . belonging. To him, to the Temple, to . . . a crusade for perfection in this life. She knew at that moment that, if he asked, she would follow him to the ends of the earth.

“Teach me,” she said.

He backed away, almost stumbling over the doorstep. “I could not do that. You don’t understand. I . . . ahem . . . .” He paused, looked at his hand as if it puzzled him. “Feeling better now?”

“Yes. I feel . . . new.”

“I will get you some warm water and a pilgrim’s smock. We have many here for sale. If the babies soil you, you can quickly request another.”

“Please don’t lock me in this chapel.”

He looked at her one last time. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”