PROLOGUE
Oxfordshire, 1228
MORE THAN ANYTHING, THE BOY wanted to go home. There he knew every rock and path. There he could breathe the fresh salt air blowing in from the sea, feel sand and pebbles beneath his bare feet and the rivulets of water running between his toes. There he was happy. There he was safe.
Here, riding through this strange country, he was afraid.
He was afraid of the soldiers who surrounded him, with their terrible scars and big, calloused hands. Of their weapons. The long, heavy broadswords. The maces. The daggers they tucked in their belts and hid in their boots.
He hated the smell of them—sweat and ale and leather. He hated the way they cursed in their foreign tongue.
The nobleman leading the cortege was even more frightening than the soldiers. With his hawklike beak of a nose and narrow, dark, fault-seeking eyes, Sir Egbertbore no scars or other marks of battle. He didn’t smell like the soldiers, and he usually didn’t raise his voice—yet he could make the boy quiver with just a look.
He wanted to go home!
They came to a fork in the muddy, rutted road. One way led to a dark wood of oak and ash, elm and thick underbrush; the other veered away from the forest, although still heading north.
Sir Egbert raised his hand, bringing the column to a halt, and gestured for the leader of the soldiers, who had a horrible red welt of a scar marring his already ugly face, to join him.
The boy sat motionless and silent, wondering, worrying about why they had stopped. His hands trembled as he did his best to control his prancing pony. The tall grass bordering the road swayed and whispered in the breeze, sounding a little like the sea. The soldier nearest him hawked and spit, then said something under his breath that made the others sneer and laugh.
What was wrong? Was Sir Egbert unsure of the way?
Sir Egbert gestured down the rutted road that led toward the dark wood. The leader of the soldiers frowned, muttered something and pointed the other way.
Please, God, not into the wood, the boy prayed. The close-standing trees, the dense bushes, the shadows…it was like something from stories told ’round the hearth, the dwelling place of ghosts and evil spirits.
Please, God, not into the dark wood.
Please, Jesus, let me go home!
Sir Egbert’s voice rose to an angry, insistent shout, including what had to be curses, and he made angry gestures. The leader of the soldiers nodded and, frowning, turned his horse back toward his men.
Sir Egbert raised his hand and pointed to the wood—the murky, scary woods full of terrible things. The scarred man barked an order, and his men drew out their swords.
The boy prayed harder as he nudged his pony forward. Please God, keep me safe. Please, Jesus, let me go home. Mary, Mother of God, I want to go home!
WITHIN AN HOUR THE ATTACK WAS over. All in the cortege lay dead or dying in the wood.
Save one.
CHAPTER ONE
April, 1243
THE BOAR’S HEAD TAVERN boasted the prettiest, cleanest serving wenches for miles around. The young women were all eager to please their customers in a variety of ways, too, especially the boisterous knights and squires currently making merry in the taproom. Carrying pitchers of wine and mugs of ale, the wenches moved deftly between the tables, laughing and joking with the men, and sizing them up as to their worth. They could easily earn a month’s worth of income in a single night from drunken revelers like these.
Only one man sitting silently at a table in the corner seemed uninterested in the women, or celebrating. He had his back to the wall and stared down into his goblet, completely oblivious to the merry mayhem around him.
Two other knights, equally young and muscular, shared his table. The handsomest of the pair, brown haired and with a smile that held a host of promises, delighted in having the women compete for his attention and hurry to fetch his wine. The second knight, moresober, with shrewd hazel eyes, a straight, narrow nose and reddish brown hair, seemed more inclined to view the women and listen to their banter with a jaundiced eye, well aware that they were calculating how much they could charge for their services between the sheets.
“Here, m’dear, where do you think you’re going with that jug of wine?” the comely Sir Henry demanded as he reached out and drew the most buxom of the wenches onto his lap.
She set the jug of wine on the scarred table beside him and, laughing, wound her arms around his neck. It was a miracle her bodice didn’t slip farther down and reveal more of her breasts, but then, she wouldn’t have cared if it had. “Over to that table there, where they pay,” she said pertly, and with unmistakable significance.
“Egad, wench, will you besmirch our honor?” Henry cried with mock indignation. “Of course we’ll pay. Didn’t my friends and I win several ransoms at the tournament? Aren’t there many young men who had to pay us for their horses and armor after we triumphed on the field and forced them to cry mercy? Why, we’re rich, I tell you. Rich!”
The silent knight in the corner glanced up a moment, then returned to staring into his goblet as if he was expecting it to speak.
