“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.”

Amalric seethed. By Saint Dominic! He dashes all my hopes, and not content with that, he wants to drag me off to the East with him.

“Give me time to think, sire,” said Amalric. “My family has been scattered far and wide for years, in your service and the service of the Church. Nicolette and I will go to join our kinfolk at Chateau Gobignon. There I will discuss this with my family. With your permission.”

Nicolette, he noticed, had picked up the wine cup she shared with him and spilled some wine on the tablecloth. She was staring at the pink spot.

“Of course you have my permission,” said Louis. “What of your position as my seneschal for Beziers?”

“I left good men in command there, sire.” I know very well how to run a city or a province. Or a kingdom, for that matter.

“I will miss Nicolette,” said Marguerite. “I cannot be selfish, for you have let her stay with me a long time, Count Amalric. But I charge you to restore her to me at the end of the summer.”

Amalric felt a trickle of acid in his throat. To have Marguerite tell him when he could have his wife’s company and when not infuriated him.

Marguerite, of course, was the one responsible for that accursed song contest. A decent king would be spending his time in more manly pursuits than song contests.

Marguerite and Louis, he couldn’t help but see, were in love with each other. There is a marriage of north and south that is happy. Why not Nicolette and I?

The thought of manly pursuits reminded Amalric that he had another aim for tonight’s dinner with the King — the tournament.

Louis broke in on his thoughts. “When will you return to us and let us know your decision, cousin?”

A good opening, thought Amalric. “Sire, I hear that Madame the Queen entertained your court recently with a song contest. Song contests are all very well, but your vassals should be offered a more, may I say, robust way of earning honor. Perhaps a royal tournament here in Paris in the fall? I, for one, would be happy to ride a passage at arms before you.”

Louis frowned. “I hate to disappoint you again, cousin Amalric, but I have never approved of tournaments.”

Amalric felt his jaw muscles trembling. Never in his life had he felt this much rage and had so little freedom to express it.

He downed the rest of the wine before continuing. A servant hurried to refill the goblet.

“I have heard that said of you, sire, but I have never understood why. Next to a battle, what any knight worthy of his spurs enjoys most is a tournament.”

Louis shook his head. “Too many men are killed in tournaments, and even more are crippled. And the hatred aroused in tournaments, I am sure, deeply offends God.”

Robert d’Artois spoke, thumping his wine cup onto the table. “Brother, I think Amalric’s idea is magnificent. I am pining for excitement, and I know many of your knights who feel the same way. The crusade is still years off. Peace may be good for the kingdom, but it is not good for the kingdom’s fighting men.”

Ah, thought Amalric, feeling new hope.

But Louis shook his head. “To risk life and limb in a just war is a necessary thing, but for mere vanity, is that not a sin?”

“But it is not just vanity, sire,” Amalric cut in. “A knight needs constant practice to stay in fighting trim. When there is no war on, there is no reason to practice. Unless we have tournaments. Yes, some men do get hurt. But think how many more will be injured — and killed — in a real war, if they are out of practice. If you are to take French knights to Outremer and liberate Jerusalem, you will surely want them ready for battle.”

“But one tournament,” Louis said slowly, thoughtfully, “would not make that much of a difference.”

“One royal tournament will inspire dozens of others to spring up all over the kingdom. It will be almost as good as a war for producing the sort of seasoned warriors you need.”

Louis shook his head. “Yes, I would be setting an example. A bad example.”

Amalric’s heart fell once more, and he could hardly breathe.

“Brother,” Robert d’Artois said, “you put too fine a point on things.”

“My son,” Blanche spoke up, “a royal tournament would do far more for the strength of the kingdom than a song contest. I am sure if you asked any reverend father, he would tell you such a trial of arms would be good for your knights.”

Louis was silent.

Amalric held his breath. He glanced at Nicolette and saw that she was studying him, puzzled. She wonders why I want this so. She will soon understand.

If only Louis decides as he should. As he must.

“The best fighting men, knights and barons, from all over the country, all over Christendom perhaps, would come, would they not?” said Louis. “And I could talk to them about the crusade.”

“Yes, brother, yes,” said Robert, half affectionately, half impatiently. “They will be all on fire for battle, and you can preach to them and they will all take the cross on the spot.”

Louis nodded. “It could happen that way.” He smiled happily at Amalric. “Very well, then, let there be a tournament. I am glad I can take your advice in this, cousin. I look forward to seeing you display your skill at arms before us in the fall.”

“No more than I look forward to it, sire,” said Amalric, bowing his head.

A wave of fierce exultation swept through him. He would get his revenge.

Now to make sure this Orlando of Perugia enters and seeks combat with me. I shall have to throw down an unmistakable challenge.

He took a long swallow of wine, this time with satisfaction. He leaned against the high back of his chair and imagined the scene — the great war-horse pounding under him, the troubadour in the flimsy armor of a poor knight, the lance point smashing into the skinny chest, blood gushing.

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.

Pious hypocrite! Louis’s father wasn’t murdered by heretics.

“The more devious heretics have survived and have hidden themselves. They are more dangerous than ever, sire. The preachers cannot prevail without the help of your knights.”

“What are you suggesting, Amalric?” Louis asked softly.

“If you want me to crusade for you, I will , most gladly. Here in France. Give me the authority, I beg you, sire, to discover and destroy the enemies of the Church and the kingdom, wherever they may be found.”

Louis sat looking thoughtfully at Amalric. Equerries brought platters of venison and rabbit from the serving window and began to carve and distribute the pieces at each table.

Amalric, knowing this could be the turning point of his life, had lost his appetite. But his throat was dry, and he reached for the gold goblet set on the table between himself and Nicolette.

At last the King said, “You are asking for the power to make war on our own people.”

He does not understand, thought Amalric. He’s too monkish for me to talk to. Hugues might be better with him.

“Not our own people, sire. I am talking about the heretic leaders. Many remain in hiding. When you pull a weed, you must get all the roots or it will grow back. The roots of heresy, the hidden leaders, are still there. In league with others who are spreading corrupting ideas throughout the kingdom. University students, guildsmen, troubadours.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nicolette turn to stare at him, but he plunged on. “And I think they are all working for Emperor Frederic, who is the creature of Satan himself.”

If he could get Louis to listen, there would be inquisitorial courts everywhere, not just in Languedoc. Working together, he and Hugues would terrorize the evildoers and cleanse the kingdom. No one would be beyond his reach. Everyone would beg for his favor. Add that to the lands he could gain in a war with Germany, and there would be no limit to what he might achieve. Indeed, one day a member of the house of Gobignon might wear a crown, as his ancestors had.

“All who live in France are my people,” Louis said. “I want to shape this kingdom so that it will be easy for every French man and woman to live as a good Christian.”

“The kingdom must be thoroughly cleansed if you are to reach that goal,” said Amalric.

He was exasperated. He had made his point, and yet Louis’s thoughts seemed to keep wandering off into the realm of the supernatural. Yes, Hugues should be here. A priest can talk to him better than I.

“Indeed there is much to correct,” said Louis. “Before I go on crusade, I intend to undo every injustice I can discover in the land. Not only those committed by the kings who reigned before me, but those committed by me and my officers as well.”

He’s mad, thought Amalric. All those hours of praying have addled his brain.

“Justice also means that more heretics must burn, sire.”

Louis looked pained. “Is my reign to be remembered for nothing but horrors like Mont Segur?”

Amalric felt a pulse pounding in his forehead.

I spent an agonizing year capturing those Bougres, and was almost killed at the end of it by that troubadour, and he dismisses it all as a “horror.” How dare he!

“Not horrors, holy work, my son,” said Blanche.

Amalric’s rage abated a little as he saw the fervent glow in her thin face.

Blanche went on, “I have been told that no bones were found in the field at Mont Segur after the Albigensians were burned. More proof of their ties to the Evil One. The Devil carried off his minions, body and soul.”

“The Cathar credentes probably took the bones as relics,” said Marguerite. “To them those people were holy martyrs.”

Amalric saw loathing in Marguerite’s face as she stared at him, and he felt the heat of anger rising within him again. She, like Louis, thought the mass burning horrible.

“Perhaps the believers did take the bones, Madame,” he said, making his voice sound matter-of-fact to outrage the young queen even more. “We broke camp immediately after our work was done, without bothering to look for bones. I was clearly remiss in not posting a guard. That would have given us a chance to capture more heretics — and their sympathizers.”

Amalric hoped his meaning was clear. Marguerite might be Queen of France, but when she spoke as she just had, she, too, could be suspect. Not that there was any possibility she herself could be a heretic. But these Languedoc people all were tainted with a tolerance for heresy.

“But, in a way, I sympathize with the heretics,” Louis said. “We must feel for them, pray for them. Amalric, I must say no to you. I know you care deeply about the welfare of the kingdom. But I want to put an end to discord, not create more of it.”

“When you sail off to Outremer, sire,” said Amalric, no longer able to keep the anger out of his voice, “you will be offering your unprotected back to your enemies. The enemies of France. The enemies of the Church.”

“I told you I do not think that heresy is any longer a danger,” said Louis. “I will not inflict more misery on my own people. I permit the Inquisition to do its work in France. That is enough.”

“Sire, the Inquisition needs a secular military arm to investigate, arrest, and punish heretics and their sympathizers. I ask you to consider creating such an institution.”

He held his breath. Would this last attempt to reach Louis succeed?

“No,” said Louis with finality. “No, Amalric. Even if I liked the idea, it would divert men from Jerusalem. Forgive me for disappointing you.”

Amalric’s muscles contracted. The effort of controlling himself was like trying to stop a charging war-horse. But he managed it.

“I thank you, sire, for at least hearing my advice.” His voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

“Both of us want what is God’s will for France,” said Louis. “And what of Jerusalem, dear Amalric? You are my sworn vassal, but I would never order you to join the crusade. You must come of your own free will, for the good of your soul.”

Amalric seethed. By Saint Dominic! He dashes all my hopes, and not content with that, he wants to drag me off to the East with him.

“Give me time to think, sire,” said Amalric. “My family has been scattered far and wide for years, in your service and the service of the Church. Nicolette and I will go to join our kinfolk at Chateau Gobignon. There I will discuss this with my family. With your permission.”

The King’s servants put platters of lobsters and new beans boiled in milk on the serving window of the solar, and equerries carried them to the tables and began to break the lobsters up for the diners. The guests fell silent as they began to eat. The royal cook, Isambert, was generally acknowledged the best in France.

Amalric felt Blanche, Marguerite, Nicolette, and the others at the high table waiting for him to speak. How could he convince Louis that the war against heresy in Europe was more important than his so-called pilgrimage to Outremer?

He reviewed the plan he and Hugues had worked out. If he could turn Louis to a war against the Emperor Frederic, the Pope’s enemy, the need for unity within France would mean a wide campaign against heretics. And he, as the leader who had destroyed Mont Segur, could ask for the power to seek out and destroy heresy everywhere in the kingdom. Working with the Inquisition, he would be the most powerful seigneur in France.

“Amalric,” said Blanche, “tell my son why this crusade of his is a mistake.”

Amalric turned to Louis. “Have I leave to speak freely, sire?”

“Always,” said Louis.

“Sire, there is another holy city much closer to us that also is in the grip of infidels — Rome. Is it not a scandal to us that Emperor Frederic has driven our Pope out of Rome and forced him into exile at Lyons?”

Louis nodded soberly. “It is a scandal. But equally great a scandal is that the Pope is not satisfied with being Holy Father. He wants to be King of Italy as well. That is what he and the Emperor are fighting about. I say let popes be popes and kings kings.”

“But, sire,” said Amalric, “His Holiness has preached a crusade against Emperor Frederic. It is our duty to answer the call.”

A war in Outremer would bring the Gobignons nothing. Just a huge waste of treasure and perhaps even death. But if Louis made war on Frederic, Amalric could take enough land in Germany to be almost a monarch in his own right.

“Frederic has not attacked me,” said Louis shortly.

“Neither have the Turks attacked you,” said Blanche.

“Mother,” Louis sighed, “Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom for a hundred years and more, ever since the first crusaders captured it. It has been our holy city since the time of the Seigneur Jesus.” He bowed his head reverently. “When Baibars the Panther took Jerusalem last year, he was attacking all Christendom.”

“When the Emperor attacks the Holy Father, he makes war on all Christendom,” said Amalric.

“The Pope may call his war with Frederic a crusade if he chooses,” said Louis, “but really it is only a clash between two Christian monarchs.”

“The Emperor is not a Christian,” said Blanche.

“Absolutely true,” said Amalric, grateful to his aunt. “Sire, surely you have heard about the testimony at the Pope’s council at Lyons. They are calling him the Antichrist, and I believe they are right. Frederic may pretend to be a Catholic, but he consorts with heretics and Muslims. He has a whole army of Saracens. He even made a treaty with the Sultan of Cairo.”

“That treaty restored Jerusalem to Christian hands for sixteen years,” said Louis.

“Yes, but then the Egyptians took it back,” the King’s brother Robert put in. “It was a bad treaty. You cannot trust the Saracens.” Robert was almost as tall as his brother, but much broader in the shoulders and chest. He was a simple soul who enjoyed war, and Amalric rather liked him.

Queen Marguerite spoke up. “I thought it was the Turks who captured Jerusalem.”

Why does she not keep her ignorance to herself? Amalric detested Marguerite almost as much as he disliked Louis.

“They are one and the same, my dear,” said Louis patiently. “Turks are Saracens, and the Turks have ruled in Egypt for hundreds of years. At any rate, Frederic had nothing to do with the breaking of that treaty. No, I do not think he is an enemy of religion. He is just unwilling to let the Pope have the territories in Italy that he wants.”

Louis’s serene stubbornness infuriated Amalric.

“The Emperor not an enemy of religion?” Amalric cried, and heads turned and bent forward at the lower tables as people strained to hear what he was saying. “He harbors heretics and rebels, and the disease spreads. They sneak into France and infect our people. Frederic has agents all over this kingdom sowing dissension.”

He noticed that Nicolette, beside him, was twisting her hands nervously in her lap.

“In Beziers,” Amalric went on, “I have found evidence of a network of heretics that spreads across all of Europe, like a spider’s web.”

Blanche of Castile gasped.

Amalric hoped he would not be asked to produce his evidence. It had convinced him, but Louis, in his present frame of mind, would dismiss it as mere conjecture. Yet there was a pattern to it: the Cathars and other heresies; the troubadours and their courtly love, which had infected Nicolette; the similar ideas advocated by Frederic; the attack on the Pope; the unruliness of students and the rebelliousness of commoners against their seigneurs. Something was gnawing at the foundations of the world. It all fit. There had to be a single plot behind it all.

And, he thought, with the cold hatred he had felt as far back as he could remember, they killed my father. I will not rest until every heretic in Christendom has been consigned to the flames.

“Amalric, Amalric,” said Louis, resting his long-fingered hand on Amalric’s arm. “It is possible to be too zealous, believe me. Did not you yourself overcome the last armed heretic resistance at Mont Segur? Heresy in the future will be dealt with by the Dominicans. Good preaching friars like your brother Hugues.”

Pious hypocrite! Louis’s father wasn’t murdered by heretics.

“The more devious heretics have survived and have hidden themselves. They are more dangerous than ever, sire. The preachers cannot prevail without the help of your knights.”

“What are you suggesting, Amalric?” Louis asked softly.

“If you want me to crusade for you, I will , most gladly. Here in France. Give me the authority, I beg you, sire, to discover and destroy the enemies of the Church and the kingdom, wherever they may be found.”