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enemies of Christ? Nay, Jaufre's idol had been pierced through with an arrow while shrieking for his share of a treasure trove that had not even existed.
    And then there had been Yseult, his beautiful Yseult, and young Godric, her lover… Jaufre could think of the lad in no other way since that night he had caught Godric ensnared deep in Yseult's plots against his life.
    Slamming the lid down on the chest, Jaufre closed his mind to memories that only consumed him with their bitterness. He threw himself back on the bed and shut his eyes. But now that he was alone, sleep eluded him. Damn Finette with her overheated thighs and equally overheated temper. After all her nonsense, he was wide awake.
    Sitting up again, he wondered if he would find such a thing as a candle in Finette's miserly household. Groping along the wall, he found a half-melted piece of tallow stuck in one of the wall sconces. He lit the wick in the dying fire, crinkling his nose at the stinking smell of burning animal fat. Carefully propping the candle, he slipped on his woolen drawers and turned to the chest where his real treasure lay, some dozen beautifully illuminated manuscripts he had collected over the years: The Romance of Rollo , Bede's History of the English Nation, The Life of Alfred, King Alexander the Great, The Roman da la Rose … Lovingly he fingered the pages as he lifted each volume in turn. He'd read them so often, he could recite many passages by heart.
    Crashed beneath Tacitus' Germanicus , he found an aged document he had half forgotten. Snorting with amusement, he unrolled the wrinkled parchment. This is the Charter of Henry I by means of which the barons sought their liberties . Pledges from Jaufre's great-grandfather's day, long ago forgotten. Jaufre recalled how impressed he'd been as a young man when he'd first discovered the charter hidden amongst the family records. Rights… liberties. Such stirring words. Such stirring nonsense!
    Scornfully, he tossed the parchment back in the chest. The only other object remaining in the trunk was a small wooden jewel box containing a lock of his mother's hair, the crest from his father's helmet, and a child's silken veil.
    Jaufre removed the veil from its hiding place after looking over his shoulder at the dark outline of the door, half dreading that someone might enter and catch him at such foolishness. He crumpled the small garment in his fist.
    "I should fling it into the fire," he muttered, and wondered why he had not done so long ago. He had never saved any other lady's favor from a tournament, not even Yseult's. What ridiculous sort of sentimentality caused him to cling to this relic of his past?
    But instead of consigning the fabric to the flames, he smoothed it, a half smile touching his lips. Ah, but the little girl had radiated such innocence as she had offered him the veil. As simple and naive as had been the knight who had accepted it. "God grant you victory, Sir Launcelot," she had said even after he had told her his name, her young face shining with dreams and ideals of chivalry that at that time he had shared with her.
    The only difference was, the lady Melyssan had kept her dreams. Jaufre knew that the minute he had seen her again. Even while arranging his marriage to her pert brattling of a sister, he was conscious of Melyssan's quiet presence lingering in the shadows. Although she had grown taller, her frame was slender, delicate as he remembered it, her glossy brown hair retaining those baby-fine strands of gold, her sea-green eyes that look of childlike trust…
    She was never obtrusive during the days he spent at Sir William's manor, yet he saw her everywhere, fetching the towels for his morning wash from the locked linen cupboard, sending a page with extra logs for the fire in his chamber, commanding the cook to prepare an extra brace of partridge because "Lord Jaufre has been hunting and will be famished."
    He was not long at Wydevale before he realized it was she who ran