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German.
    After tending to the worst of those who still lived, she and the others assisted the recently disarmed Germans into a hay cart to travel up the hill to the fortress.
    Sixteen men had crossed the river. Only fourteen had made it alive. Three more survivors were so badly wounded that Maria didn’t expect them to last the day. The old man, Brother Heinrich, was not above treating his men or helping carry them into the wagon. Even so, Maria felt as if he watched the whole process with an uncomfortable coldness.
    To Maria, it was overwhelming. She rode back with the wagon, and even if she didn’t look at the wounded young men who filled the cart, the miasma of blood clung to every breath she took. Every time the creaking wheels of the cart found a bump in the muddy trail, it was accompanied by a chorus of groans from the men who were conscious.
    She couldn’t help but wonder what had attacked these men so savagely. The wounds were inhuman—flesh torn and bitten. Several men were missing hands or arms, and about half showed wounds to the face that appeared to be claw marks. None of the men spoke of what had happened to them; few spoke at all. The quiet infected the Poles who treated them, so the ride back to the fortress had the mournful character of a funeral procession.
    She heard some whispers from her fellow Poles: speculation that the Germans had retreated bloody from some battle and then had had the bad luck to be set upon by a pack of wolves. That explained their horrible state, and their reluctance to talk. Even so, Maria thought that whatever had decimated the Germans was unquestionably evil. Even a wild animal attacked to kill. Many of these men had been maimed, it seemed, simply for the sake of the maiming.
    Maria held her cross to her chest and silently prayed to keep the Devil at bay.

    T hrough the afternoon, the population of Gród Narew worked to accommodate the new arrivals. The order from Wojewoda Bolesław was to provide the Germans with accommodations as honored guests. This meant that, instead of being housed in the common barracks meant for visiting knights, the ambulatory Germans were split up into twos and threes andgiven lodgings that normally served the residents. The severely injured were placed in a series of rooms by the stables, displacing grooms and other stable hands.
    Maria wondered about it until she heard one of the guardsmen comment that Wojewoda Bolesław was not just being a gracious host but was preventing any large group of Germans from assembling to plan mischief. Apparently, their leader, Brother Heinrich, had the honor of staying in the personal guest chambers of the Wojewoda himself—deep inside the central stronghold, far from the stables and the other houses where his men were being kept.
    Maria thought that the Wojewoda Bolesław should be more concerned about what had attacked the Germans than the Germans themselves.
    Because she was one of the few servants to speak the German tongue, Maria was one of a half dozen who gained additional duties. Along with her normal routine of assisting in the main kitchens, she now had the task of tending to one of the badly injured knights of the Order.
    The man’s name was Josef—one of the men Maria hadn’t expected to make it through the day.
    The kitchens had been more chaotic than usual, with the extra mouths to feed and too many people—Maria included—coming to their jobs late because of their visitors. The sun was setting by the time she had completed her duties in the kitchens. When she brought a bowl of porridge to the rooms by the stables to attempt to feed her charge, she did not expect to find the man still alive.
    She opened the door to the small room, then stood transfixed for several moments, staring at the young man who had been unceremoniously dumped on someone else’s bed. His skin was pale, nearly translucent, in the fading evening light streaming in from the unshuttered window, and his face bore an expression