Alain tried to imagine being recognized by Count Lavastine as his bastard son, blood of his blood, invested into a new and exalted rank. But he could only see his father Henri’s face, torn by grief as he remembered the woman who had been Alain’s mother. A woman Henri had loved.

“You have nothing to say? You are an ambitious boy, are you not?”

“Lord Geoffrey’s child, the girl born to Lady Aldegund last autumn, will become Count Lavastine’s heir. I heard them speak of it.”

“If she lives. If no more suitable candidate can be found. Lady Aldegund comes of Wendish kin. These are borderlands, it is true, but to the people here a child of Varren blood would be preferred. Bastard or not.”

“There is no proof,” repeated Alain, terribly uncomfortable with Agius and his insistent questioning. Could the frater not let well enough alone? “I have never heard one soul in this holding claim the count got a serving-woman with child. Surely they would gossip about such a thing, if it was known. Count Lavastine had an heir, but the child is dead now, is she not? Surely he will marry again.”

“Perhaps. No one speaks of those deaths now, except to say it was a terrible accident. Ah, well. No doubt if Count Lavastine wishes to investigate your birth, he will. Indeed, it is none of my business. He is no kin of mine, and I am in any case sworn to the church now, no longer to the concerns of the world.” His voice turned brisk and he looked suddenly preoccupied by other matters. “I will speak to Master Rodlin and Sergeant Fell. I wish you to attend me for one hour each day. I cannot forget you are still sworn to the church. I will tutor you in letters and reading, as is fitting.” He turned abruptly to the altar, knelt, and began to pray.

Alain backed down the aisle as silently as he could. Reaching the vestibule, he bolted outside.

Too late! There lay the damning evidence, right next to her. Dressed in sackcloth, her hair streaked with ashes, Withi was huddled, weeping, on her knees on the cold ground next to the church doors. As she had been for ten days now, ever since the captain had caught her fornicating with young Heric in the stables. There had been other witnesses, so he had had no choice but to demand that they confess their faults publicly. Frater Agius had demanded the sinners perform full penance, although the captain had gotten Heric sent home to his own village where his parish deacon might show more mercy.

So Withi wept, her blue eyes no longer pretty but swollen with tears, her face chapped with the cold and her hands red and chafed. Lackling had left the cheese and onion right out in plain sight, as an offering to her, since all he understood was that she was forbidden any food except bread and water. He was hiding at the corner of the church. He darted forward, seeing Alain. His speech sounded more like the grunts and cries of the beasts of the forest than like that of a human man. Withi sobbed out her shame. Some of the men-at-arms paused down the road to look back at her. Alain jumped forward and concealed the dirty cloth with its forbidden treasure under her sackcloth robe.

She gulped down tears. Her hand clutched at the cloth. “You brought that for me?” she whispered. “It is a sin to lighten the burden of a penitent, as if you were a deacon or a frater given leave to lighten the judgment passed on a sinner.”

“It’s only a lesser sin,” said Alain quickly. He could not help but feel sorry for her. Lackling grunted excitedly beside him. “And it wasn’t me. It was Lackling—”

She lifted blue eyes to Alain’s face. “I won’t forget,” she said, but to Alain, not to Lackling.

The halfwit screwed his face up and tried to speak.

“Wheefoe.”

She shuddered and backed away from him.

He was only trying to say her name.

Frater Agius appeared at the door. “Friends.” He walked over to them. “Compassion is a virtue, but penance cleanses the soul. For pausing here to speak with this penitent, Alain, you will fast next Ladysday and reflect upon the meaning of the lesson I preached today. May the Lady have mercy on your soul. Amen. Now come. I will speak with your masters.”

Like everyone else, Agius ignored Lackling. Alain had no choice but to follow. What could he do for Withi, after all? She, along with everyone else, had shunned him after Count Lavastine’s return and the incident with the hounds, and yet it hurt him to see her reduced to weeping in the dirt outside the church door. Deacon Waldrada had never been this hard-hearted. The best anyone said of Frater Agius was that he judged all with equal harshness, including himself.

Lackling, after loitering near Withi without getting any kind of a sign that she noticed him, finally lost heart and dashed after Alain. He was as loyal as the hounds but rather worse kept. He did not get meat at all, not even on feast days, such a delicacy being too valuable to waste on a simpleton; besides his odd face, he was scrawny and short and he walked with an odd rolling gait with his bandy legs. Even the dread hounds, who snapped and bit at everyone, treated Lackling with indifference, though of course he could not command them. Alain pitied him and did what he could to protect him from the taunts and cruelties of the other young men and women.