Saturday before Easter through Tuesday following Easter, 1198

The Brochet et Sangolier had not been noisy, as town taverns can be, but this night a group of four men were filling the hall with raucous laughter, with shouts, curses, and cheers. They were throwing knucklebones, and did not seem to mind--or even notice--who they jostled or annoyed.

One--a lean but powerful man with a whiskered, narrow, ratlike face--grabbed a serving girl and demanded a meal. Unhappy with the price, he instead stood, leaned over the next table, and, without a word or apparent concern, simply took Michi's supper. Within a moment fists were flying. When one of the thugs flipped over a table, Bruder Cornelius grabbed bench and clocked the rat-faced man.

"Stop!" came a shout, and all hesitated to look toward the inn's door. There, under the gallery, stood a young man--Richard, the boy from the hue and cry the night before. His eyes travelled the entire room, wary of every detail. He balked slightly when his eyes fell on Michi and Cornelius, but he said nothing. Instead he addressed the four thugs, any one of which was half again his weight and age. "You were given no leave to wander. Get back to the house."

One of the thugs had already drawn his knife and seemed for a moment ready to challenge. But getting no support from his comrades he backed down, helping his companions lift the rat-faced man from the floor. Richard followed them out, never turning his back on the room, like the rearguard of a raiding party.

Michi quickly grabbed a pair of kitchen boys. "Here's a farthing for each of you. There's another when you come back and tell me where those fellas went to. But don't be seen!" Ten minutes later the boys returned. "They went into the alley by the DuCraindre house. It leads to the croft behind."

Easter Sunday dawned bright, clear, and warm. After a lengthy mass at the cathedral, Bruder Cornelius, Gaspard and Michi, and Lady Madeleine with her girl Celestine all headed up the hill toward the castle. The bailey was decked out for the feast, with spring garlands all along the walls and performers beginning their acts. Crowds streamed into and out of the hall. The count's table was on the dias at the end of the hall, while the second table (several tables, actually, to handle the crowd) was at the far side and the third table opposite. The fourth table (like the others, actually a long row of trestles) was set up out in the bailey where the guests were ogled by the commoners who enjoyed the feast on foot or sat on the cobbles.

Lady Madeleine was seated at the second table, where she found herself in conversation with the count's steward, Valprés. The older man still bore vestiges of a strong build, though his close-cropped hair and beard were greying. "Tell me about that young man over there," Madeleine asked him after some conversation. "I've run into him before--I believe his name is Richard." Valprés followed her gesture across to the third table, where Richard sat, gloomy and embarrassed, a few places down from Bruder Cornelius. "Richard? No, his name is Gigot. He's the captain of Lady DuCraindre's guard." "Captain?" asked Madeleine. "He can't have more than seventeen summers--maybe twenty. How is he the captain of anyone's guard? Her illegitimate child, perhaps?" Valprés pointed out Lady DuCraindre, where she sat at the first table sharing a laugh with the countess. "He is young, but she isn't more than a few years older. Whatever his secret, that isn't it."

Cornelius spoke briefly with Gigot, but found the youth less than responsive. Gone were the composure and assertiveness of the night before, replaced by edgy nerves and a few words of awkward, sullen conversation. The young man did speak several times with another seated beside him--an exotic looking fellow of indeterminate age. "Where are you from?" Cornelius asked, but Gigot's companion would say only, "east." "There are mountains to the east," Cornelius replied. "Yes," agreed the man, "from beyond the mountains."

Michi and Gaspard were seated at the fourth table in the bailey. "Let's pay our respects to the host and hostess," Michi suggested, taking Gaspard by the arm. They approached the first table in the hall and spoke briefly with the count--aptly called Montaigne, for he was a bull of a man. "That's a fine lookin' boy ye got there," Michi told the count as the latter's children came in. The boy, introduced as Jean, was perhaps eight, and immensely proud to sit for a few moments by his father's side at the high table. There was also a beautiful but shy little girl a few years younger, and a vivacious third child, no more that four. "If we let her, she'll take over the entertainments," the countess laughed, as the smallest child launched into a song for the benefit of anyone who would give her their attention. Lady DuCraindre, seated next to the countess, looked on in amusement.

"Do you have any interest in falcons?" Valprés asked Madeleine. "We are falconing in a few days--more of a social occasion than a real hunt, I'm afraid. You and your companions are welcome to join us."

The falconing trip was on Tuesday. The party gathered outside the town's southern gate--Madeleine and Gaspard, along with Montaigne and the Countess Cecilia, the bishop DiLimoge, Valprés, Lady DuCraindre, and a knight called Lars de Calais. There were a few armsmen along as well, including Michi and Gigot, and Bruder Cornelius joined the train of servants, his well-loaded mule in tow. Before departing the count and countess said goodbye to their children, Montaigne mussing his boy's hair. DuCraindre spoke briefly to the easterner from the feast, before sending him away. And Valprés was approached by a sergeant of the guard, nodding grimly at the news he was brought.

"Another wolf attack, near a village by the forest," he explained when asked. "Three villagers killed this time. This makes three attacks in the past week."

True to Valprés's word, there were only a few with birds, and only the count and the bishop seemed serious about the hunt. After a few hours they reached a pond on the demesne where the servants had set up for lunch. Talk had turned toward hunting stories: The count talked about facing down a bear alone when he had gotten ahead of his huntsmen and hounds, and Lars showed off a massive scar left by a boar that broke the stops on his pike. Then faces turned expectantly toward Valprés, whose reputation as a hunter was becoming clear. "Tell the story," his friends encouraged him. "You know which one!" Eventually he agreed.

"It was many years ago. I had been hunting this stag all summer. He knew all the tricks, and I'd lost him six or eight times. He would confuse the greyhounds, or double back across the beater line. But his favourite trick was to cross through some dense undergrowth--like at the edge of a clearing--then make a sudden turn while we couldn't see him.

"I had him in sight. The dogs were exhausted; my horse was flagging, but he was tiring too. We were deep in the Ardennes--five leagues, at least, into the forest--and we'd long ago left my beaters and huntsmen behind. I saw him bound toward a clearing along the ridge, and I knew if he broke the brush and we lost sight of him, he'd cut one way or the other--and the ground was rocky; I might not be able to find a track. So I put the spur to the horse and drove forward, desperate to keep him in sight as he crashed the thick growth at the edge of the clearing. My horse found new feet and charged, but just as we hit the brush, out came the stag, at full gallop, right past us! I tried to turn, but the horse had too much speed, and we wheeled into the clearing. And there, dead in front of me, I saw what had sent the stag running back: A huge dragon, right in my path! The horse practically threw me trying to turn, and as he slipped on the rocks we almost drove into the beast. What choice did I have? I drove my pike into the creature's shoulder as the horse spun, and then--"

Suddenly there was a scream. Then another.

Michi was on his feet in a second, dashing toward the trees by the pond. He arrived alongside Gigot just in time to fend a wolf from Lady DuCraindre. Just beyond, Countess Cecilia was being dragged to the ground, three wolves snarling and snapping and pulling her down while others moved in. The others came running, shouting, the few that came armed drawing swords. Gaspard called forth a noxious cloud that drove the wolves from the countess, leaving several writhing on the ground. Bruder Cornelius produced a sword and shield from the baggage on his mule, charging into the pack as they turned on their attackers. Montainge struggled toward his wife, getting to her as the wolves began to break and flee.

The countess lay on the bank of the pond, her eyes gazing without life at the branches overhanging above. About her lay a scattering of her own viscera, torn from her body with a fury. Four wolves lay dead, but several others had turned tail, including the large dark animal with grey-tipped ears that had pulled the countess down--then fled with her blood on its snout.