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one ever has.” The man spoke the words like someone who knew why it ought to be impossible.
    Phillipe raised his eyebrows, considering the possibility that he had actually done something remarkable. But he only shrugged, too much of a gentleman to brag about his exploits.
    Navarre leaned forward across his saddlebow, studying Phillipe thoughtfully. Then all at once he looked up again, away toward the west, where the sun was disappearing behind the hills. His face turned grim and tight. Prodding his mount with his spurs, Navarre started on across the bridge, passing Phillipe silently, as if he had ceased to exist.
    Startled, Phillipe reached up, not quite daring to put a hand on the other man. “Sir? Wait . . .” Navarre did not even glance down. Phillipe trotted after him, calling out, “You see, the truth is I’ve been thinking of taking on a traveling companion . . .” Still no response. More desperately, he shouted, “There are more guards out there! You’ll need a good man to watch your flank!” He was running.
    The stranger rode away into the darkness without looking back.
    Phillipe stopped running, letting his hands drop. He glanced down at himself. “Oh, shut up, Mouse,” he muttered. He turned around and walked back to the bridge, trying to ignore the nameless ache that was suddenly filling his chest. He peered down past the edge of the wooden planks, seeing the body of the dead guard drifting in the reeds. He shook his head ruefully. “You were severely outclassed, my friend. You never had a chance.” He glanced back in the direction the stranger had gone, with a brief smile of gratitude and regret. And then he went on across the bridge to the guard’s waiting horse, to unhook the purse from its saddle. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” He glanced back at the body. “Don’t mention it,” he called, as he started on his way again.

C H A P T E R

Four
    D uring the midnight hours the rain returned with a vengeance. Phillipe wondered dismally whether two years of drought had really come to an end just to make his life miserable. He spent another wretched night in a tree, startled awake out of dreams of a magnificent warrior in black by flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. Once he would even have sworn that it was a horse’s scream which woke him; that he saw the mighty black rear up on a distant hilltop—riderless—and disappear into the storm.
    But by dawn none of it was more than the fading memory of a nightmare. Phillipe dropped to the ground and set out again, moving upslope. He was in the foothills now, where he hoped he could safely elude the Bishop’s pursuit at last. He scrambled up and down the muddy hills of the roughening terrain, picking his way through russet-colored brush and the slippery yellow leaves of the oak forest. Even here he kept one part of his mind always alert for any sign of horsemen. The fact that he now knew why the Bishop’s guards were so determined to recapture him did not make him any more willing to give them the chance. But in spite of his caution, he never saw the rider in black reappear on a ridge behind him shortly after dawn; never realized that the stranger followed him all through the morning.
    At last Phillipe reached a small village nestled in a narrow mountain valley. The farming here was even poorer than in the drought-stricken plain around Aquila. The dismal warren of mudbrick-and-plaster houses that squatted inside a crumbling stone wall was proof enough of the poverty of the villagers’ lives. But Phillipe, crouched shivering behind a ramshackle shed just inside the walls, observed that they were still better off than he was. It was shortly after noon, and few of the villagers seemed to be in sight. He supposed they must be in their homes, warm and dry, eating their midday meals . . . The thought of food made his throat ache. If no one else was outside,