"You may rise, my son," the bishop said.

Ruck stood. He started to bow and move back, but the prelate raised his hand.

"Sire Ruadrik—do you believe this woman's visions are given to her by God?" he asked mildly.

"Yea, my lord." Ruck knew well enough to answer that in a firm voice. Any other reply, he felt, could be twisted to mean that they were Hell-inspired.

"You follow her in her preachings on that account?"

"She is my wife," Ruck said, and then felt a flush of embarrassment rise in his face. "She was. My lord—I—could not let her go so far alone."

"You did not require her to stay modestly at home?"

He stood in shame, unable to admit that he'd found it impossible to command his own wife. "Her visions enjoin her," he said desperately. "She is God's own servant."

His words died away into a profound silence. He felt they were laughing at him, to offer that as an excuse.

"And you have given a solemn vow of chastity to her some five weeks past, on the road from Reims?"

Ruck gazed helplessly at the bishop.

"In obedience to this woman's visions," the bishop repeated insistently, "you lived chaste in your marriage?"

Ruck lowered his face. "Yea," he mumbled, staring at the bright floor tiles. "My lord."

"Oh, I think not," said a light female voice. "He is not chaste. Indeed, he is an adulterer."

Ruck stiffened at this astonishing accusation. "Nay, I am not—" His fierce denial died on his tongue as he turned to find the lady with the falcon standing not a rod behind him.

She strolled forward, sliding a glance at him over her shoulder while she dropped a token reverence toward the bishop. Her eyes were light, not quite perfect blue, but saturated with the lilac tinge of her dress and lined by black lashes. She seemed ageless, as young as Isabelle and as old as iniquity. The emeralds on the falcon's hood glittered.

Ruck felt his face aflame. "I have not adultered!" he said hoarsely.

"Is not the thought as sinful as the deed, Father?" she asked, addressing the bishop but looking at Ruck, her voice clear enough for her words to resonate from the walls.

"That is true, my lady. But if you have no earthly evidence, it is a matter of absolution between a man and his confessor."

"Of course." She smiled that serene and indifferent smile, lifting her skirts, withdrawing. "I fear that I presumed too far. I wished only to spare Your Holiness the mockery of hearing a solemn vow of chastity made by such a man. He stared at me full bold yesterday in the Hall of Great Audience, causing me much uneasiness of mind."

A low sound of protest escaped Ruck's throat. But he could not deny it. He had stared. He had committed adultery in his heart. He had desired her with an inordinate desire, a mortal passion—her eyes met his as she retired gracefully to one side—he read absolute knowledge there; she laid him bare, and she knew that he knew it.

"I am grieved to hear that you have had any cause for annoyance in the house of God, my lady," the prelate said, not sounding particularly disturbed. "Modesty in manner and dress, daughter, will temper the boldness of ungodly men toward you. But your point is well-taken with regard to the vow. Sire Ruadrik—can you swear to your purity both in thought and in deed?"

Ruck thought God Himself must be subjecting him to this mortification, holding him to a standard of truth beyond the strength of human flesh. Why else should all these great people take up their time with him? He was nobody, nothing to them.

He could not bring himself to answer, not here in front of everyone. In front of her. She might be the agent of God's truth, but he thought no woman had ever appeared more as if she'd been sent by the Arch-Fiend to enthrall a man.

The silence lengthened, condemning him. He looked at her, and at Isabelle's open tear-streaked face. His wife stared back at him.

Ruck closed his eyes. He shook his head no.

"Sire Ruadrik," the archbishop said heavily, "with this admission of impurity, and other considerations, the vow given to your wife must be considered invalid."

As the interpreter translated, Isabelle broke into a great wail.

"Silence!" the archbishop thundered, and even Isabelle drew in her breath in shock at the suddenness of it. In the pause he said, "You must be heard by your confessor, Sire Ruadrik. I leave your penance to him. For the other matter—" He glanced at Isabelle, who had crawled forward and lay tugging at his hem. "In the usual course, one spouse is prevented from taking such a vow of chastity, if the other does not consent to it and vow also the same. Consent alone is not sufficient, as without the consolation of a solemn commitment to live celibate and close to God, the temptations of the flesh may prove too great." He looked at Ruck. "Lacking this true commitment, you will see the wisdom in such requirement, Sire Ruadrik."

Ruck could barely hold the man's eyes. He nodded slightly, burning all over.

The archbishop lifted his hand. "Nevertheless, this woman appears to me to be a special case. With the proper provisions, I am willing to allow that she may be attached to the convent and live in obedience to the rules of the house without her husband's concurrent vow. After I have examined her further in the articles of the faith and found her response to be satisfactory, and the provision for her support has been received, she may be admitted to the order."

When Isabelle heard the translation of this, she kissed the archbishop's hem and showed clear signs of working herself into an ecstasy. The archbishop made a gesture of dismissal. Ruck found himself escorted toward the door.

He wrenched his arm from the clerk's hold and turned back, but people had crowded in. From the corridor all he saw was the lady of the falcon, lifting her hand to her ear with a look of pained sufferance as Isabelle's voice rose to a shriek. The door closed. A clerk accosted him, informing him that an endowment of thirty-seven gold florins had been promised on behalf of Isabelle and would be accepted at once.

Thirty-seven gold florins was all the money that Ruck had, the last of the ransom from the two French knights he'd captured at Poitiers. The clerk took it, counting carefully, biting each coin before he dropped it into the holy purse.

* * *

Ruck walked to the hostel as if in a dream. His steps took him first to the stable, to make certain at least of his horse and his sword when everything else seemed a daze.

"Already gone," the hosteler said.

The haze vanished. Ruck grabbed him by the throat, sending his broom flying. "I paid thee, by God!" He threw the man against the wall. "Where are they?"

"The priest!" The hosteler scooted hastily out of reach. "The priest came to collect them, gentle sire! Your good wife—" He stumbled to his feet, ducking. "Is not she to go for a nun? He had a bishop's seal! An offering to the church—on her behalf, he said—he told me you had willed it so. A bishop's seal, my lord. I'd not have let them go for less, on my life!"

Ruck felt like a man hit by a pole-ax, still on his feet, but reeling.

"They took my horse?" he asked numbly.

"My lord's arms, too." From a safe distance the hosteler made a sympathetic grunt. "They would fain have me climb upstairs after your mail and helm. Bloodsuckers, the lot of them."

Isabelle had made him leave his armor. She had made a great ado of it.

Thirty-seven gold florins. Exactly what she had known was in his purse. And his horse. His sword. His armor.

He locked his hands over his head and tilted his face to the sky. A howl burst from him, a long bellow that reverberated from the stones like a beast's dumb roar. Impotent tears and fury blurred his vision. He leaned back against the wall and slid down it, sitting in the dirt with his head in his arms.

"Ye might sue for to have the horse back, if it were a mistake, gentle sire," the hosteler offered kindly.

Ruck gave a miserable laugh from the hollow of his arms. "How long would that take?"

"Ah. Who could know? Twain year, mayhap."

"Yea—and cost the price of a dozen horse," he muttered.

"True enough," the hosteler agreed morbidly.

Ruck sat curled, staring into the darkness of his arms, his back against the stone wall. He heard the hosteler go away, heard people talking and passing. Grief and rage spun him. He couldn't move; he had nowhere to go, no wife, no money. Nothing. He couldn't seem to get his mind around the full dimension of it.

A smart prod at his shoulder pushed him half off his balance. He looked up, with no notion of what time had passed, except that the shadows lay longer and deeper on the street.

The prod came again and Ruck grabbed at the staff with an angry oath. Before him stood the hunchbacked mute he'd gifted with a denier—and his first thought was that he wished he had the money back again.

The beggar held out a little pouch. Ruck scowled. The hunchback wriggled the pouch and offered it closer. He waited, staring at Ruck expectantly as he accepted it.

The bag contained a folded paper and a small coin. The beggar was still waiting. Ruck held onto the coin for a moment, but futile pride overcame him and he tossed it to the beggar with no good grace. The man grinned and saluted, shuffling away.

Ruck watched his dinner and bed disappear up the narrow street. He unfolded the paper—and jerked, catching at the green glitter that fell from inside.