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them completely, and though Gianavel prayed each day for peace, peace had never come, and he had no illusions.
    When Gianavel was only fifteen years old, Rome had executed the sentence of death on all the Waldenses because of their faith. The army of the Catholic king invaded and massacred the inhabitants of the valley from end to end, leaving forests of crucified skeletons in the trees and pyramids of skulls to witness their glory. Over half the population—sixteen thousand men, women, and children—were burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, hanged, crushed by stones, disemboweled, decapitated, thrown onto pitchforks, or fed to hungry dogs. They were set afire and extinguished only to be set afire again or hideously tortured in ways Gianavel still saw with bright red horror even when he shut his eyes in the dark.
    His father had been among the first to fall, fighting bravely but futilely to save his family. And although his mother and brothers and sisters had died, Gianavel managed to escape into the mountains, where he evaded the troops who scoured the snow-covered trails for those who had escaped the sword. And through the first frostbitten months, he learned quickly how to move without being seen or heard, how to pass through a forest without leaving a sign, how to forage food or steal what he needed to survive.
    Gianavel had watched over and over how the battalions maneuvered, deployed, attacked, and counterattacked. He studied how weapons and cannons were used, watched how men killed with dagger and sword. And when the war was finally over, he descended from the mountain to see who else had survived...and then came the plague.
    The Black Plague was brought from France by the Catholic soldiers themselves and reduced the valley of Rora to smoldering funeral pyres surrounded by starving survivors who had no strength to dig more graves. The black stench that rose and crowned Gianavel's brow for a year and a half held the blood and bodies of his father and friends. It soaked into his head, his ragged clothes, and his lungs as he worked from nightmarish dawn to dusk disposing of worm-eaten bodies until he finally understood the dark heart of war, the frailty of the flesh, and the terrible power of the sword. And somewhere in the long night, lying awake, watching the mounds and dunes of bodies burn beneath a cold, haggard moon that grinned like a skull, he knew that he could never again run from evil, for there was no place to run.
    And as Gianavel grew strong, he grew wise.
    With each year his skill increased with the rifle and sword, listening to old Descombie recount the fabled stories of David, the greatest king of Israel, as he defeated the enemies of the Lord. And, even in the old stories, Gianavel could see David's gift of attacking while retreating, of striking while avoiding, of stalling while confronting, to contest a grim battle of truth. When he was cold, he would build a shelter to weather the night like the squirrel built its home—leafy and small on the inside yet covered with bark to resist the dew and rain. And when he hunted, he hunted as the wolf, exhausting the prey until it simply fell to the ground, ultimately defeated by its own fear.
    And ... he read the Lingua Romana until he could recite entire gospels and epistles by heart, searching every word for a deeper understanding of life and death—of living in peace, surviving in war, and honoring God throughout.
    And, in all this, Gianavel learned more than he ever expected. He found his mind retaining more, remembering more, so that memory became a vast repository of knowledge—of nature, science, philosophy, and cunning—that he could recall effor tlessly.
    When he reached manhood and could take a respected seat in the synod, his growth had not escaped the attention of the elders of the barbes. At the request of his kinsmen, Gianavel had been called forth to be Captain of the Militia in a valley decimated by war after war, a valley surrounded by