Timeline

He was surprised to find the shoulder of his tunic stiff with dried blood. Apparently, the arrow the night before had cut him enough to cause bleeding. Chris moved his arm experimentally, sucking in his breath with pain, but he decided that he was all right.

He shivered in the morning damp. What he wanted now was a warm fire and something to eat. His stomach was growling. He hadn’t eaten for more than twenty-four hours. And he was thirsty. Where were they going to find water? Could you drink water from the Dordogne? Or did they need to find a spring? And where were they going to find food?

He turned to ask Marek, but Marek wasn’t there. He twisted to look around the farmhouse  –  sharp pain, lots of pain  –  but Marek was gone.

He had just begun to get to his feet when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Marek? No, he decided: he was hearing the footsteps of more than one person. And he heard the soft clink of chain mail.

The footsteps came close, then stopped. He held his breath. To the right, barely three feet from his head, a chain-mail gauntlet appeared through the open window and rested on the windowsill. The sleeve above the gauntlet was green, trimmed in black.

Arnaut’s men.

"Hic nemo habitavit nuper," a male voice said.

A reply came from the doorway. "Et intellego quare. Specta, porta habet signum rubrum. Estne pestilentiae?"

"Pestilentia? Certo scisne? Abeamus!"

The hand hastily withdrew, and the footsteps hurried away. His earpiece had translated none of it, because it was turned off. He had to rely on his Latin. What was pestilentia? Probably "plague." The soldiers had seen the mark on the door and had quickly moved away.

Jesus, he thought, was this a plague house? Is that why it had been burned down? Could you still catch the plague? He was wondering about this when to his horror a black rat scuttled out of the deep grass, and away through the door. Chris shivered. Kate awoke, and yawned. "What time is – "

He pressed his finger to her lips and shook his head.

He heard the men still moving away, their voices faint in the gray morning. Chris slid out from under the lean-to, crept to the window, and looked out cautiously.

He saw at least a dozen soldiers, all around them, wearing the green and black colors of Arnaut. The soldiers were methodically checking all the thatched cottages near the monastery walls. As Chris watched, he saw Marek walking toward the soldiers. Marek was hunched over, dragging one leg. He carried some greens in his hands. The soldiers stopped him. Marek bowed obsequiously. His whole body seemed small, weak-looking. He showed the soldiers what was in his hand. The soldiers laughed and shoved him aside. Marek walked on, still hunched and deferential.

Kate watched Marek walk past their burned-out farmhouse and disappear behind the monastery wall. He obviously wasn’t going to come to them while the troops were still there.

Chris had crawled back under the lean-to, wincing. His shoulder seemed to be hurt; there was dried blood on the fabric. She helped him unbutton his doublet, and he screwed up his face and bit his lip. Gently, she pulled aside his loose-necked linen undershirt, and she saw that the entire left side of his chest was an ugly purple, with a yellowish black tinge at the edges. That must be where he had been hit by the lance.

Seeing the look on her face, he whispered, "Is it bad?"

"I think it’s just a bruise. Maybe some cracked ribs."

"Hurts like hell."

She slid the shirt over his shoulder, exposing the arrow cut. It was a slanting two-inch tear across the skin surface, caked with dried blood.

"How is it?" he said, watching her face.

"Just a cut."

"Infected?"

"No, it looks clean."

She pulled the doublet down farther, saw more purple bruising on his back and his side, beneath his arm. His whole body was one big bruise. It must be incredibly painful. She was amazed that he wasn’t complaining more. After all, this was the same guy who threw fits if he was served dried cèpe mushrooms instead of fresh ones in his morning omelette. Who could pout if he didn’t like the choice of wine.

She started to button up his doublet for him. He said, "I can do that."

"I’ll help you. . . ."

"I said, I can do it."

She pulled away, held her palms up. "Okay. Okay."

"I have to get these arms moving, anyway," he said, wincing with each button. He did them all up by himself. But afterward, he sat back against the wall, eyes closed, sweating from the exertion and the pain.

"Chris. . . ."

He opened his eyes. "I’m fine. Really, don’t worry about me. I’m perfectly fine."

And he meant it.

She almost felt as if she were sitting next to a stranger.

When Chris had seen his shoulder and chest  –  it was the purple color of dead meat  –  his own reaction had surprised him. The injury was severe. He expected to feel horrified, or frightened. But instead, he felt suddenly light, almost carefree. The pain might be making him gasp for breath, but the pain didn’t matter. He just felt glad to be alive, and facing another day. His familiar complaints, his cavils and his uncertainties seemed suddenly irrelevant. In their place, he discovered that he had some source of boundless energy  –  an almost aggressive vitality that he could not recall ever experiencing before. He felt it flowing through his body, a kind of heat. The world around him seemed more vivid, more sensuous than he could remember before.

To Chris, the gray dawn took on a pristine beauty. The cool, damp air bore a fragrance of wet grass and damp earth. The stones against his back supported him. Even his pain was useful because it burned away all unnecessary feeling. He felt stripped down, alert and ready for anything. This was a different world, with different rules.