Now Guido’s bowstring twanged beside him, and Roland lit another. One after another the flaming missiles arched to the cabin in the ruins. It had been a dry summer, and the highwaymen’s shack appeared to be built of old wood. Almost at once a flickering glow turned the marble columns orange. Women screamed and terrified horses neighed. Moments later, Roland and Guido heard men shouting and cursing and bodies crashing through the woods on the other side of the hill.

“That has flushed them out,” said Guido. They crept closer to the fire, using a broken wall for cover.

In the lurid light Roland saw shadowy bodies, the women naked just as they had been roused from sleep, the men struggling with frightened horses.

“Look sharp, that knight has done this!” one of the men called.

There they were. The ones who had crippled Perrin. With only the fire and the moonlight to see by, he could not make them out clearly, but hatred welled up in his chest, burning in his throat. He wanted to charge at them with his sword.

As if he could read Roland’s mind, Guido seized his arm in a restraining grip.

The black figures ran about before the blazing shack, searching for their attackers.

Roland pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it. From his kneeling position behind the ruined wall he aimed at a man holding two horses. He let the arrow fly. The man fell, screaming.

Roland cursed himself for merely hitting the man’s side. The freed horses galloped off into the woods. Guido’s bowstring thrummed again, and the fallen man jerked violently and lay still. The remaining highwaymen quickly crouched in the shrubbery around the shack.

“Now we must go in after them,” said Guido softly, and Roland was glad. He wanted to meet them, man to man.

Roland and Guido stood up. Roland slid his sword from his scabbard and heard the hiss as Guido drew his. The great weight of Roland’s sword, balanced by the iron ball at the base of the hilt, felt good in his hands. He held it out before him and brandished it a little to warm up his arms and shoulders. “Now may you drink blood,” he said to the sword.

“There!” one of the highwaymen called. “Two of them!” He pointed as Roland and Guido stepped out from behind the fallen stones. A woman screamed.

“Out of the way, you sluts.” another highwayman’s voice growled. “Go hide in the woods.” The pale, naked forms disappeared into the trees.

The highwaymen called out to each other and pointed at Roland and Guido. Despite the strength his anger had given him, Roland felt a quivering in his guts. Five against two. They could butcher us.

Roland and Guido automatically advanced in unison, Guido’s sword pointing slightly to the right, Roland’s a bit to the left. The point of Roland’s sword drew small circles in the air as he moved forward.

The five highwaymen spread out in a line, raising their own weapons. Two had long, gleaming daggers. They stepped slowly to either side, flanking the knights. Again Roland felt naked without his hauberk. Another man came forward slowly, gripping in both hands a huge club. The moonlight glinted on the three tines of the fourth man’s pitchfork, sharpened to needle points. In the center stood a highwayman taller than the rest, brandishing a woodsman’s ax as big as any battle-ax Roland had ever seen.

Roland paused to size them up, and Guido stopped with him. They were big, strong-looking young men with hard, determined, confident faces.

“Brought a helper with you, did you, Messire Lute-player?” the man with the ax called. “Good. There will be two less knights in the world before dawn.”

Roland did not answer, but he thought, You bastards will wish to God you had never laid a hand on Perrin before I am through with you.

He resumed his slow advance, Guido beside him. They stepped carefully. There were broken stones that could easily trip them scattered all over the grassy summit of the hill.

As Roland moved closer he saw that the tall man’s cheeks were pitted with old pox scars, his cheekbones and the ridge of bone over his eyes prominent and thick. Bruchesi had described him: Didier Longarm.

The fire inside Roland flared up until his very brain seemed ablaze.

Easy! he commanded himself. I must keep my head until I have made them talk.

Purposefully, Roland advanced on Didier.

“Come on, Messire Lute-player, come on,” Didier mocked him, shaking the ax. “You will lose even more than your man did.”

Suddenly a man with a dagger darted at Roland from his left, thrusting to get inside his guard while his attention was on Didier.

Dodging, Roland felt the point slash through his tunic and slice along his ribs.

Roland stepped back, planted his feet, and swung the sword two-handed, putting all the weight of his body behind the forty-pound blade.

The man with the dagger tried to duck away, but Roland leaped forward as he swung; and the edge of the sword caught the man at the joining of neck and shoulder, slicing away his head, shoulder, and arm. So sharp and heavy was the longsword that Roland barely felt resistance as it cut through flesh and bone.

He heard a distant wail of anguish from the women peering from the trees.

Then he took a stunning blow high on his back, near his right shoulder. The pain was so great he cried out and nearly dropped his sword.

“Good hit, Jean!” Didier called. “Now finish him. Smash his head!”

Roland’s right arm went numb. He thought his shoulder must be broken. But he was still filled more with fury than with despair.

Staggering, holding his sword in his left hand, he turned to face his attacker, struggling to raise the sword with one hand in time to parry a second blow of the man’s club. He could hear the clatter of Guido dueling with the pitchfork-wielding man.

The club knocked his blade downward. The steel’s ring was like a cry of anguish, and he thought for a moment the blade might be broken. The sword’s point struck the ground, burying itself in the tall grass.

Pain shot like lightning up Roland’s left arm. But he still managed to keep a weak grip on the hilt.

The highwayman rushed forward, swinging his club up with both hands. Roland knew no helmet would protect his skull against the blow. His head would be crushed like an eggshell.

He tried desperately to lift his sword to protect himself.

Just then the highwayman uttered a sick, squealing noise and dropped the club.

A gleaming steel point protruded from the man’s belly. The highwayman moaned again, pitched forward, and fell at Roland’s feet as Guido jerked his sword out of the man’s back.

They passed through the city wall at the Louvre tower and rode along the Right Bank. In the winding streets of the city they met only an occasional patrol of sergeants of the watch, armed with halberds, who let them pass when they identified themselves as knights. Roland, full of foreboding for himself, for Perrin, for Diane, and for Nicolette, paid little attention to the landmarks of Paris as he crossed the Grand-Pont and the Ile de la Cite.

He tried to draw Guido out. “Why do you mix yourself in this quarrel? Why does a Templar write troubadour poetry and seek dangerous company in a bookseller’s wineshop?”

“I may say only that my order has wider interests than most people realize, Sire Orlando.”

Roland tried to fathom his meaning. Guido seemed to be saying that the Templars were not in the same camp as Amalric and his inquisitor brother. For all their power, Roland recalled — and their castles stretched from England and Spain all the way to the Orient — the order had never fought in Languedoc or persecuted the Cathars. Great barons like Amalric hated them because they recognized no boundaries and acknowledged no overlord. They claimed to serve the Pope, but in fact they seemed to do pretty much as they pleased. They might indeed have interests in common with Roland’s. Which meant, perhaps, that Roland could count on Guido. Still, he doubted that he would learn much from the fair-spoken but evasive man who rode beside him.

They rode across the Petit-Pont, through the Latin Quarter, and out through the city’s wall. They followed the Rue Saint-Jacques, the old Roman road that led up to Paris from the south.

Now they were coming close. They passed the abbey of Saint-Germain-in-the-Fields, and Roland stared over the moonlit expanse of hay and rye cultivated by the monks, out into the dark forest beyond. Somewhere in there they were waiting. Perhaps even now arrows were aimed at his chest.

Why did I not wear my hauberk? Why did Bruchesi not suggest it? He realized that Guido was not wearing any armor either. For such an experienced warrior, that could hardly be an oversight. He must think they’d be better off without the encumbrance, Roland decided. And, remembering what a burden his hauberk had been when he was trying to rescue Diane, he decided leaving it behind was for the best.

Guido raised his hand where the road entered the forest, and Roland reined up Alezan. They dismounted and tethered their horses. At Guido’s gesture Roland untied the flask of oil and the rags. He put on his helmet and laced it under his chin. It weighed heavily on his head despite its soft leather lining.

“They think because you are a knight you will gallop straight down the road,” Guido said, donning his own battle helm. “It has been my unhappy duty to fight many men like this. I am certain they will be waiting farther along to ambush you. See that hill on the horizon? That is where Didier and his men have their ‘chateau.’”

Roland found himself liking Guido, his humor, his intelligence, his competence. I have let him take command of this little expedition, he thought, without even realizing I was doing it. He carries himself with authority. I only hope my feelings about him are right.

Treading softly, carrying their bows in their hands rather than on their shoulders so they would not get caught on branches, they made their way through underbrush beneath old oaks with broad trunks.

If this is a trap, this would be the place to spring it. The skin crawled on the back of Roland’s neck. The air was still and oppressive, even this late at night, and sweat plastered his tunic to his body.

After what seemed an hour they were climbing the hill Guido had pointed out. Through the trees he could see that the crown of the hill was bare.

Behind him the bells of Saint-Germain chimed a silvery nocturne. Three hours after midnight. Before those monks got out of their beds to sing lauds he might be dead.

But with luck he would have gotten his hands on those dogs. As they climbed higher, still screened by the wood, Roland looked up and saw that the moon was directly overhead. At the top of the hill he could discern a cluster of stone columns, broken but still graceful, pale as the moonlight itself, rising out of a heap of tumbled stones. In ancient times, Roland knew, the Romans had built their villas here. He saw a low wooden shack huddled in the midst of the marble pillars.

“They will have left their women unguarded in that hut, and their horses tied beside it,” Guido said softly. “We will attack in an unknightly fashion.”

Crouching at the edge of the woods, they poured oil on the rags and bound them to the heads of their arrows. Guido struck a spark to tinder and lit a candle, which he pressed into the soft ground.

In the sudden glow, Roland saw a face in the grass. It was a fragment of a statue, the nose and smiling lips of a boy. It gave him an eerie feeling, as if they were being watched by people long dead.

From the candle they each lit an arrow. At any moment Roland expected the highwaymen to leap at them out of the trees. He nocked an arrow and took aim at the cabin, holding his breath until he let go the bowstring. He blinked, and when he looked again the ball of fire was falling upon the roof of the shack. I cannot believe my aim was that good. It has been so long since I have touched a bow. He felt a bright upsurge of glee.

Now Guido’s bowstring twanged beside him, and Roland lit another. One after another the flaming missiles arched to the cabin in the ruins. It had been a dry summer, and the highwaymen’s shack appeared to be built of old wood. Almost at once a flickering glow turned the marble columns orange. Women screamed and terrified horses neighed. Moments later, Roland and Guido heard men shouting and cursing and bodies crashing through the woods on the other side of the hill.

Diane threw her arms around him and held him against her breast. Her calm broken at last, she joined her weeping to his screams.

Lucien, standing beside Diane, shut his eyes and put his hands over his ears. He, too, was crying.

Each of Perrin’s screams struck Roland like the blow of a scourge. He suffers this for my sake, the troubadour told himself.

Perrin’s screams gradually subsided to a broken whimper.

Diane after much coaxing got him to drink more wine.

“There is nothing to be done?” he groaned. “I am… no longer a man?”

“You are still a man, Perrin,” she whispered. “You will always be a man. But your body cannot be made whole.”

“You people know how to put a stop to a man’s misery,” Perrin said fiercely. “You end the lives of those who cannot be cured. Well, do it for me. I cannot be healed either.”

Saint Michel! Roland thought, his heart a lump of ice. In front of the Templar! Perrin might as well have called Diane a Cathar outright.

“The wine has gotten to him,” Diane said. “He does not even know who I am.” Would the Templar, Roland wondered, accept her explanation?

Guido stepped forward, and Roland’s heart froze.

“I am a monk, my son. “

Roland tensed himself for action. If Guido learned the truth about Diane, Roland would have to kill him. And the Templar looked as if he would be a very hard man to kill.

How can I get to my sword?

“You are hurt most cruelly,” Guido went on. “But you must try not to wish for death. Despair is a great sin. God is testing you. He must love you very much to test you so harshly.”

Roland caught the scornful look Diane turned upon Guido. In his mind he pleaded, Please, please, do not argue with him.

Perrin stared at Guido in horror. Now he realizes he has said too much, Roland thought.

Overcome with pain and fear, the young man shut his eyes and, in Diane’s arms, fainted again.

“Lucien,” Diane said, “the knife.”

Diane seemed serene again. Roland could not tell whether he admired her for it or thought her inhuman.

Frantically, he tried to think what to do. Kill the Templar, bind up Perrin as best he could, and flee Paris tonight? Lucien and Adrienne will not betray us, I know.

No, a murder would weigh too heavily on their consciences. They could never keep silent.

Lucien gingerly drew out of the brazier a long, broad-bladed knife, its edges glowing red, and handed it to Diane. Without hesitation she pressed it between Perrin’s legs.

The hissing sound made Roland’s stomach heave.

The unconscious jongleur let out a long, eerie moan.

Roland’s hand ached to hold his sword. Find those men. Before all else, that one thing he must do.

“Go out and get Alezan ready for me to ride,” Roland said to the boy, who was being sick again. Martin ran to the door, choking, his hand over his mouth.

“The wound is sealed,” said Diane as she began to anoint and bandage the burned flesh. Without looking up she said, “The men who did this will be waiting for you.”

“Quite right, Madame,” said Guido. “Everyone knows that this unfortunate jongleur is Sire Orlando’s man. And the highwaymen can be sure they were recognized. Will you permit me to go with you, Messire? The rule of my order requires us to accept battle whenever the odds are three to one or better. There are, I believe, six of them, so two of us would not be one too many.”

“I want no help,” Roland said. “This is not your quarrel.” But even as he spoke he felt a frustrated fury. He was in chains, fettered by his own ignorance. He had heard of this Didier Longarm, but he did not know where to find him. Though a moment ago he had wanted to kill the Templar, he had to have help.

“Since we met at the Queen’s song contest I have come to like and admire you, Sire Orlando, and we are, after all, fellow countrymen.” There was both warmth and irony in Guido’s brown eyes. He seemed to be hinting the opposite of what he said, that he knew Roland was not Italian, and that he did not care. “Had I thought and acted more quickly, I might have saved this young man. Let me make amends for my lapse by helping you punish the swine who castrated him.”

Roland wanted, needed, the help. But Guido Bruchesi was a member of the fighting arm of the Church. How could Roland possibly trust him?

“How do you know about these highwaymen?” he asked, still paralyzed with indecision and suspicion.

“As you may know, our first mission is to keep the roads open,” said Guido. “We have been intending to clean out this lot for some time. Another month and we would have gotten to them.”

How can I find and kill a band of highwaymen hiding in country I do not even know? Roland asked himself. Expecting me to come after them. I have no chance at all.

“Come with me then, if you want to,” he said, speaking the words with reluctance as he searched Guido’s eyes. “But you take a risk, going into combat with a man whom you do not really know.”

“Can you bring a longbow, or better still, two, Sire Orlando?” Guido said as if he had not heard the warning. “The bow is not considered a fit weapon for a knight, but I have learned from the Turks to respect it.”

“I scorn no weapon,” said Roland. He sent Lucien for the bows, as well as for his belt, longsword, and dagger.

“A leather pot of oil and some rags, as well,” Guido called after the cook.

Ready to leave, Roland looked into Diane’s large green eyes, now openly grief-stricken and frightened. They spoke no farewells, but a new anguish pierced his breast as he wondered what would become of Diane if he were killed tonight. Would she survive without him to protect her?

And what of Nicolette, cut off from him since the beginning of the summer, far away to the east at Chateau Gobignon? She might never know what happened to him, should he fall to the brigands, or to a treacherous sword in Guido’s hands.

Except that Amalric will see to it that she finds out, if I die. To punish her.

Roland had plenty of time, too much time, to let his fears eat at him as he rode across Paris with Guido. He had taken his best war-horse, the chestnut Alezan, who covered the miles at an easy amble. His helmet and the leather flask of oil Lucien had tied to the saddle thumped monotonously as they rode along. Guido’s dark brown mare was not as big or strong-looking as Alezan but kept up easily with him.

They passed through the city wall at the Louvre tower and rode along the Right Bank. In the winding streets of the city they met only an occasional patrol of sergeants of the watch, armed with halberds, who let them pass when they identified themselves as knights. Roland, full of foreboding for himself, for Perrin, for Diane, and for Nicolette, paid little attention to the landmarks of Paris as he crossed the Grand-Pont and the Ile de la Cite.

“Where the Devil have you been?” Roland had asked with mock severity.

Perrin’s face was alight with pure bliss. “Nowhere near the Devil, master. All last night I was playing in the fields of Heaven. I think God’s creation can hold no joy equal to helping a young woman discover for the first time all the pleasure her body — and mine — can give her.”

Out of his own loneliness at the time Roland had made some sour remark about seducing virgins, but within, he remembered now, he had been touched by Perrin’s simple happiness.

A happiness Perrin would never know again.

Perrin, Perrin, what have they done to you? Why such cruelty?

“A widow,” Guido said thoughtfully. “That is why she wears black.”

A chill of fear rippled up Roland’s spine. There could be only one reason why Guido would express curiosity about Diane’s black gown. The perfecti wore black.

The enemy, here in my own home. Was that the real reason he came here, to spy on us? Have Diane’s meetings with other Cathars at last been noticed by the Church?

Roland tenderly put his hand on Perrin’s cold, wet forehead. It would have been kinder to kill him, he thought. Who could have done this?

De Gobignon. The answer, waiting in the shadows of his mind, sprang out. It must be de Gobignon. Sooner or later he would strike at me, I knew. But the coward, to attack me through Perrin!

Diane came back with a brass-bound cedar box. She unlocked the box and drew out bottles, jars, and white cloths that smelled of aromatics.

He watched her wash her hands in a brass basin of hot water till they were scarlet. Unable to stop her, he felt terror for her alternating with anguish for Perrin.

“You seem to know what you are about, Madame,” said Guido with interest and admiration.

Suddenly it came to Roland that he might have to kill the Templar. His legs trembled and his heartbeat quickened. The Templar had a longsword and a dagger belted at his waist. He himself was weaponless. His sword was upstairs.

And yet he felt no threat emanating from this man. The Templar appeared to regard Diane with the intelligent interest of one who shared her art. And he had saved Perrin’s life by bringing him here. Roland wanted to feel gratitude toward him, though he dared not.

“There is no mystery to tending wounds, Sire Guido,” Diane said, “as I am sure you know. If you keep them closed and clean, God heals them at His pleasure.”

Roland was amazed at her calm. He knew she cared for Perrin almost as much as he did, yet she went about her work with brisk efficiency, and she spoke as calmly as if she were delivering a lecture on medicine at the university.

“Quite so, Madame,” said the Templar.

At least she was careful to bring God into it, thought Roland with some small relief.

Diane covered Perrin with the blanket and then put her hand under his head to raise it up so he could drink from the wine cup she held to his lips. When he emptied the cup she filled it again and gave him more.

“God’s bones, the pain,” Perrin gasped. “What did they do, stab me in the belly?”

He does not know, Diane mouthed to Roland.

Roland felt a dull ache in his heart. The tears kept running freely down his cheeks.

He gripped Perrin’s shoulder and stared into his pain-glazed eyes. “Who attacked you, Perrin?”

“They must have followed me out of Guillaume’s. I had sung that song about the Pope. There was a girl with me. Their leader was tall, stooped over. Ugly face, pitted with pox. He said I insulted the Pope. They knocked me down. I do not remember any more than that, master. How bad is it? Will it kill me?”

“No, it will not kill you,” said Diane. “Drink as much wine as you can. It will ease the pain.”

Guido drew Roland to a corner of the room and said in a low voice, “I was in the bookseller’s, too. I recognized your jongleur. I also recognized the men who left when he did. A bad lot. I followed, but by the time I got out to the street the girl was screaming and your man was lying on the ground and they were running away. Some of the Mad Dogs chased them, but they had horses hidden in an alley.”

His account had the brevity of a good battlefield report. He was a knight passing information to another knight. But how, Roland asked himself, did he come first to be at the song contest, then at Guillaume’s, and now here? The bookseller’s, that haunt of folk of dubious opinions, was a particularly odd place for a Templar.

“Who were they?”

“The pockmarked man is called Didier Longarm. A highwayman. His face is well known in the Latin Quarter. He often preys upon students. His den is said to be in the ruins south of the abbey of Saint-Germain.”

A movement on the table caught Roland’s eye. He saw Perrin’s hand sliding down his body, seeking the place where the pain was coming from.

“No, Perrin,” Diane said, and reached out to take his hand. But it was too late. Perrin’s hand was on his groin, touching it gingerly at first, then clutching at himself in terrified spasms. Perrin screamed. He pounded his head on the table, and he howled again and again.

Diane threw her arms around him and held him against her breast. Her calm broken at last, she joined her weeping to his screams.

Lucien, standing beside Diane, shut his eyes and put his hands over his ears. He, too, was crying.

Each of Perrin’s screams struck Roland like the blow of a scourge. He suffers this for my sake, the troubadour told himself.

Perrin’s screams gradually subsided to a broken whimper.

Diane after much coaxing got him to drink more wine.

“There is nothing to be done?” he groaned. “I am… no longer a man?”

“You are still a man, Perrin,” she whispered. “You will always be a man. But your body cannot be made whole.”

“You people know how to put a stop to a man’s misery,” Perrin said fiercely. “You end the lives of those who cannot be cured. Well, do it for me. I cannot be healed either.”

Ah, I chose a sharp-pointed lance by mistake. How could I have made such a terrible error? May God forgive me!

He almost laughed aloud.

And Nicolette, then she will know how much I feel for her. I cannot give her a song, but I can give her a man’s life.

Many a woman grows hungry for love at the sight of spilled blood.

He imagined Nicolette, eyes heavy-lidded with lust, reaching for him.

God grant it may fall out so, he thought, sighing with pleasure and reaching again for the golden goblet.

IX

Even though the sun had set many hours before, the heat of August lingered in the house, and Roland had gone out into his garden. A half-finished phrase of melody was circling about in his mind, and with the help of his lute he was trying to capture it. Diane sat beside him, home this evening for once, listening quietly as he picked at the strings.

The rear door of his house burst open, and Roland saw there the silhouette of Lucien, his cook.

“Master! Perrin is hurt!”

The shock in Lucien’s voice struck more dread into Roland than his words.

How badly was Perrin hurt? Roland put his lute down on the bench and followed Lucien through the kitchen and into the candle-lit front room where he saw Perrin lying on the big trestle table, a blanket covering him from the waist down. As Roland entered, Perrin gave a shivering groan and turned his head toward him. Beads of sweat dotted Perrin’s forehead. Roland had seen that look of agony and appeal before, in the eyes of men dying of painful wounds. God, let it not be.

After looking at Roland, Perrin closed his eyes and seemed to lose consciousness.

Adrienne, Lucien’s wife, and Martin, their son, stood in their nightshirts beside the table. In the flickering shadows, Roland saw horror frozen on their faces.

At Perrin’s head stood a tall man with strong, aquiline features and a long black beard. He wore a rose-colored tunic, and it took Roland a moment to recognize him. When he did, he warned himself to be on his guard. It was Guido Bruchesi, the Templar. At Queen Marguerite’s singing contest he had been wearing a white mantle adorned with a red cross.

Saint Michel! What is this Templar doing here?

Bruchesi bowed his head to Roland, and Roland saw sympathy in his eyes.

“What happened? How bad is it?” Roland asked without preliminary.

Guido pulled back the blanket without speaking.

“Ah, Jesus!” Adrienne screamed and covered her face with her hands.

Perrin was naked below the waist and his belly and thighs were smeared with blood, the hair around his privates matted with it. A strip of blood-soaked cloth was tied tightly around the base of Perrin’s member. Dark red blood puddled on the table between his partly opened legs.

Roland’s stomach felt as if someone had driven a knife into it and twisted. He would kill whoever had done this. He had to.

Young Martin staggered out of the room, choking and retching.

“We must loosen the tourniquet soon,” said Guido. “I gave him such battlefield aid as I know.”

Roland turned to the Templar. His hands, as if they had a will of their own, grasped at the man’s tunic, crumpling the clean linen. “Who did this?” Roland choked out.

“Time to speak of that later, Messire,” responded the Templar. “Let me take him to the Paris Temple. We Templars know as well the healing of wounds as the giving. I would have brought him with me at once, but he insisted I take him to you.”

Perrin, even in his agony, tries to protect me, Roland sobbed to himself. He knows that unconscious he might let slip some secret of mine. God, I love this man. And this happened to him in my service, because of me, I know it. How can I ever repay him?

Guilt clawed at Roland’s heart.

Diane’s voice suddenly broke in, low but firm. “We can care for him ourselves.”

Roland swung around. In his anguish he had forgotten that she was here.

A new terror seized him: a fugitive heretic, confronted by a Catholic monk whose order was the most powerful in Christendom. She must not stay. The danger was too great. He tried to signal her with his eyes, but she wasn’t looking at him.

“Diane,” he said sharply. “Allow me to present the Sire Guido Bruchesi. Sire Guido is a member of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon. Sire Guido, my sister, Diane.”

“Madame.” Guido bowed. “I am honored to meet you.”

“And I you, Sire Guido,” said Diane. “Now you will excuse me if I get on with helping this poor man.” She turned to the cook. “Lucien, light a fire and heat water. Fill a brazier with hot coals and put a big carving knife in it until the blade is red hot. Adrienne, get clean cloths, and have your son bring wine — three full pitchers.”

She turned back to Roland, ignoring his pleading look. “This is a cruel wound, but it need not be mortal. I need some things from my room.” She hurried out.

Cold sweat formed beads under Roland’s tunic. She was giving herself away. Her skill in medicine would immediately reveal her as a Cathar perfecta.

“Does the lady’s husband live with you as well, Sire Orlando?” Guido asked casually.

“Sadly, she was widowed some years ago,” said Roland. “She came here from Perugia to help me manage my household.”

Tears had begun to burn Roland’s eyes as he looked at Perrin. He knew the Templar was watching him, but he was not ashamed.

He was remembering another time, two years ago, when Perrin had come back to this house. But that time it had been early in the morning, and Perrin had been singing.

“Where the Devil have you been?” Roland had asked with mock severity.

Perrin’s face was alight with pure bliss. “Nowhere near the Devil, master. All last night I was playing in the fields of Heaven. I think God’s creation can hold no joy equal to helping a young woman discover for the first time all the pleasure her body — and mine — can give her.”