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Chapter One

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, That he may withdraw man [from his] purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. --The Book of Job, 33:15-18

Feast of the Ascension, Thursday, May 13, AD 1260 Chateau du Chancy, near Ypres, Flanders

I must not sleep, thought Dominic, though the very walls were blurring. All would be lost if he let down his guard before Michel woke from the Sleep of Transformation. He had broken every law of the djinni and the House of the Rose to capture and forcibly Transform Michel de La Roche-en-Ardennes, the man who now lay still and pale as death upon the pallet before him. He had not done it merely because he had loved, over many lifetimes, the soul now incarnated in Michel's body. Only his great need to understand Michel's hidden memory had driven him to this desperate, dangerous act.

He sensed Cecilia's presence nearby, outside this emptied storeroom, her anger a dull red pulse against the fringes of his aura. He had bound her with a geas so she could not kill him, but she was ancient and devious.

Wake up, beloved!

But Michel did not wake. Three nights had passed, yet he lingered between life and death, his heartbeat slow and his breathing nearly imperceptible.

Dominic yawned hugely. Then, as he had done so many times before, he took the sleeper's limp, callused hand in his and whispered the ritual invocation, "Let the gates be opened, let the wanderer return. Let the gates be opened, let the house be prepared..."

Let him forgive me, Dominic prayed to whatever compassionate deities might be listening. "Return to me, O wandering spirit, and dwell in the immortal temple of thy body!" Let him remember his life as Honoria, and our love, when I was Menelaos. Let him forgive me, but let him remember what we have forgotten!

Once Michel woke, he should be able to explain the ancient memory Dominic had seen in his blood during their struggle on the road to Ypres: In a great windowless hall, eleven Apkallu who look like siblings, all with Cecilia's dark hair, blue eyes, and facial structure, confront a chained Inanna, her divine aura dimmed to angry scarlet. Ea rises to speak in her defense, and Ninshubur also. Enlil stands, clears his throat...then the earth groans, the walls shake, and a mountain of brown water slams through the chamber. There is nowhere to flee. Inanna screams Ea's name. He and Ninshubur try to reach her, but the waters batter them, stealing breath and life...

Cecilia claimed, and the House's own stories repeated, that Inanna, tried for treason by the Apkallu, had been unanimously condemned. In resisting their sentence, she had broken the earth so that the Middle Sea flooded the Cities of the Plain, the first cities of man. That world and all the Apkallu, except for Ereshkigal, had been destroyed by her rebellion.

But Michel's memory gave the lie to that claim. Had Cecilia excised those memories from Dominic's awareness, from all the Apkallu she had Raised and Named?

Dominic traced the line of Michel's forehead, his cheek, his lips. So cold...

Then he felt it: the barest puff of breath against his palm, followed by the slight but regular rise and fall of Michel's chest.

Not dead!

Michel's hand felt warmer, the formerly waxy skin now vital under Dominic's fingertips. Joyfully, he pressed the back of a living hand against his forehead.

In that unguarded moment, Cecilia struck. Her power penetrated his defenses, coiling around his fatigue like sandalwood smoke. <Menelaos, sleep!>

He fell onto his knees beside the pallet, his head pillowed on Michel's shoulder, his hand still gripping Michel's. He tried to fight, but found nothing to strike. Distantly, he was aware as Cecilia's coercion slid over him like a warm fur coverlet.

Then it was too late.

* * *

Cecilia entered cautiously. The stone chamber under the great hall was alight to her Seer's eyes, revealing the golden glow of Michel's aura, his great spirit-wings furled around him like a cloak of sunlight.

Dominic sprawled across him, his aura marred by his old injuries as if a bronze mirror had been scorched and half melted by intolerable heat. She studied them with weary regret. How often had she seen Honoria and Menelaos curled together with the intimacy of centuries? Now they were both male, one dark-haired, one blond, and both changed almost beyond recognition by their ordeals.

Menelaos had been ruined on that dreadful afternoon in Beziers, when she had lost the rest of the Apkallu under the swords and arrows of heretic-hunting Crusaders. Menelaos-who-was, all the way back to Ninshubur-who-was, had been loyal, his strength and competence serving her as he had once served her hated sister Inanna. Dominic, as he called himself now, had turned on her after she saved his life. His betrayal hurt.

Queen of the East, how you have fallen.

She should have returned him to the Underworld when she had the chance, but then she would have been alone, the souls of her siblings scattered to reincarnate across the world like poppies in a vast barley field.

Dominic's horrific head injury and Sharibet's bungling of his memory return had nullified the deadly geas that she had so carefully implanted in all of the Apkallu. How much had he guessed? How much did he know?

He had denied her the ability to use the Word of Death. Restrained by his geas like a prisoner weighed with chains, she had cursed him for reducing her to a mere spectator in the ritual she had ruled for millennia. But there were other ways of ensuring the outcome she desired. She had loyal allies, both within the House and without. Michel himself might be one. He should be very angry if he woke in the right frame of mind. Had Dominic fully considered the risks in Transforming an Apkallu powerful enough to break his hold while still mortal?

She would kill him now, she vowed, shaping her power into a dagger of light. One blow, and she would be free--

The blinding pain that accompanied her intention was instantaneous, and she doubled over, gasping. Damn him! He had twisted her own power against her. She straightened up, reforming the dagger of light in her hand. How long had it been since she faced a challenge like this?

She reached out. <Sleep,> she commanded, opening the blood bond between them. If she could not kill him, she would geld him, and tame him to her hand once more.

* * *

In the twilight realm between sleep and waking, Michel dreamt of angels. Though his low bed was hard, a shimmering golden coverlet covered him like woven sunbeams. For the first time in a decade, his leg didn't hurt.

There were no candles in the stone-walled chamber, yet the room itself was bright as noon. Lady Cecilia stood next to his bed, her face, grave and sweet as the Virgin's, framed by immense wings of iridescent moonlight. She raised a dagger made of silver and fire.

Does she mean to slay me, then? But there was no fear, only distant wonder.

Cecilia's wings swept down next to him, and surrounded a sprawled figure with white-streaked dark hair and pale curve of cheekbone, nestled against Michel's side.

A wave of violent images returned to him: ...a frantic flight in the rain, stealing a horse, and then, teeth tearing his throat as if the man--no, the demon--pursuing him were a wolf. What had Dominic done to him? Am I dead? Is Cecilia the angel guarding the gates of Paradise? Why am I back in the Chateau du Chancy? Why is Dominic wearing such a tattered bronze cloak?

Cecilia plunged the dagger of light into Dominic's exposed temple. Pressing the hilt between her palms like an invocation of flame, her wings began to beat slowly, growing brighter.

Once, in Acre, Michel had seen a captive python devour a living rabbit. Cecilia's expression reminded him of the single-minded calmness with which the serpent had swallowed its prey, until only a single twitching foot remained protruding from the snake's grossly distended mouth.

He tried to roll away from the brilliant shroud now surrounding Dominic, but he was unable to move so much as an eyelid.

My eyes are closed? How am I witnessing these wonders?

Cecilia's expression remained serene. Dominic still seemed peacefully asleep, his breathing regular. What injuries did the dagger wreak, that left no mark?

Please, lord, let me be dreaming. If this was a dream, then his abduction by Dominic from the Templar dormitory was also a dream, and he could wake, soon, to his life.

His life? Memories overwhelmed him.

...night in a ruined temple. Dominic, handsome and dangerous, at his side. The bitter taste of myrrh-laced wine on his tongue as he sounds out the hieroglyphs for Alexander the Great... In a room with red and yellow painted walls, a younger-seeming Dominic, his hair entirely dark, says, "I am not permitted to tell you more unless you consent to join the House. You'll have to trust your heart--as your brother has already done." Earlier: ...fighting for her life on the deck on a lotus-prowed galley, her bare feet slipping in blood as she swings a bronze sword. She is too badly wounded to use her full powers against the pirates who have dared to attack a ship flying the House's rosette banner... He stands at the high apex of a stepped temple, inspecting with satisfaction a vast grid of canals shining like copper wire inlaid in the wide brown-and-green plain. As his shaven-headed priests, clad in white sheepskin kilts, sing the evening blessing while playing the instruments he has designed, he whispers in the ear of a brown-skinned, gray-eyed woman wearing the raiment of a queen: a finely woven linen sheath; gold at arm and throat; an elaborately braided wig caught up in gold rings, with a diadem of delicate gold leaves and blossoms. "Ninshubur, Queen of the East, my dearest Speaker of Truth, come lie with me tonight. Forget your duties to your mistress. Let me be the first to love you." His heart leaps as she smiles at him. "Ea, beloved, I will come to you..."

His name was Ea. His life as Michel de-la-Roche en Ardennes was only a fraction of his existence, only thirty years, more or less. He caught himself on the dizzy edge of memory as if standing at the top of a tower above a cliff over a nearly bottomless abyss, every step of which he had climbed. A day, a month, a year, a hundred years, a thousand years, seven thousand years...

He stepped back from that chasm, grateful that he had not fallen. But if even he had, he possessed wings to bear him up. His golden coverlet, his aura, stirred.

He had magic. He was magic. He had created magic.

But what was this earliest memory? A high-ceilinged chamber, eleven Apkallu gathered to pronounce judgment on a twelfth, bound in chains before them, her great-winged aura stained red with rage. "You have given the fire of the gods to men!" declaims one of his brothers. Was that Robert? No, his name was Utu then. He opens his own mouth to defend his sister...

Why didn't he remember remembering that?

He became aware of Cecilia as she withdrew the dagger of light from Dominic's skull. She shifted her attention to him.

"Ea, beloved," she said in the old tongue that only the Apkallu knew. "Menelaos has completely botched your Transformation. He tried to Raise and Name you as a mortal. As I have always said, it was unsafe. I'm so sorry. I'll do my best to heal his injuries to you."

But he had already been Raised and Named. He remembered everything perfectly. What was she doing?

He couldn't move, couldn't flinch as her dagger pierced his forehead, insubstantial, painless, ruinous. Cecilia's sweet, implacable command rang in his mind. <Sleep.>

Darkness spread from the shining dagger embedded in his forehead.

* * *

Oh gods that never were, he is grown strong! But not as strong as he once was. And not as strong as he needs to be, to defeat me.

She had little time to carry out the plans she'd made, waiting for Dominic to weaken. Her first survey of Michel's memories was complete. She would not try to curb his relentless curiosity in this incarnation. As easy to dam the ocean. But his power must be curtailed.

He could not be allowed to recall the end of the trial of Inanna, of course. She found that memory, only a few moment's worth, and set her geas upon it. <Pain says: forgetfulness. Pain says: I block your memories. Look anywhere else but here. There's too much pain to remember. Death is pain. Pain is death. Don't look.> And to reset her trap: <Fire burns if you look. Fire engulfs all, if you look beyond the pain: fire channeled from the earth, from heaven, from your own bond to life. Fire eats you up if you dare to see what must not be seen, what must not be spoken, what must be forgotten.> And her last weapon: <When I speak my True Name to you, the bond of life will break.> And she imprinted her name.

Satisfied that this familiar task was done, she returned closer to the present. She had already edited Dominic's memories and found just the right point to let her regain control. It would provide the perfect basis for them to kill one another, since she was forbidden to do it herself, and there was no local Man of the Ax she dared appeal to. She'd already considered asking Josef to fill that role, but he was too close to Dominic, and too frightened of the Templars, to serve.

She sifted Michel's recent memories: Placing his hand over the mare's nostrils to keep her from whinnying, he whispers, "Let us be gone from this den of sorcerers!" He leads her out into the courtyard...

Racing across the flat countryside under threatening clouds, he crouches low in the saddle, kicking the mare's sides to keep her at a gallop on the road leading to Ypres. Then he is grabbed from behind in a crushing embrace, and lifted into the air. They are flying! He struggles, whipping his head back trying to smash Dominic's nose, kicking his bare feet at Dominic's legs... "I'm sorry," the sorcerer says. "But I couldn't let you go. I'm going to unveil your memories now. Whether you will it or not, I am the Opener of the Way." Michel redoubles his frenzied efforts, but Dominic's grip is too strong to break. "Why didn't you kill Roland," he pants. "The way you killed the others? Why did you spare us?" "Because you belong to us." Dominic kisses Michel's bearded cheek. "I want you to love me as you once did. As I love you." "Begone, Satan. I renounce you...and all your works!" Dominic lands and wraps Michel in wings of light. "Remember me. Remember everything." His teeth touch Michel's throat...

Then the double strand of memory and remembrance: ...as he stands barefoot in the cold mud of the road, in Dominic's harsh embrace, the veil of the Underworld is lifted from him, and he remembers: the steps of St. Nazaire cathedral, the sun a hot dazzle on pale golden stone, the air stinking of blood and smoke... Raymond-Soleil's Appointing feast, Menelaos's thigh warm and solid under her hand... Eras of lifetimes flash by, "Ea, beloved, I will come to you..." All his own memories to the earliest: In a great windowless hall, eleven Apkallu who look like siblings... he rises to speak in the chained one's defense, and Ninshubur also... the waters batter them, stealing breath and life...and in the muddy road, the pain explodes. <Fire burns if you look. Fire engulfs all...> He screams, convulses, rigid and burning...

This was the point she could use.

Carefully, she took Michel's memories and a similar memory she had seen in Dominic's blood, and forged them anew:

He struggles, whipping his head back trying to smash Dominic's nose, kicking his bare feet at Dominic's legs.

"I'm sorry," the sorcerer whispers into Michel's ear. "But I couldn't let you go. I want you to love me as you once did. As I love you. I remember you. One of our Lost, you are now Found. You are of the House of the Rose, if you wish to return. I am the Opener of the Way. Will you let me in?"

"What do you mean, you remember me? What kind of fiend are you?" His voice is hoarse. "Let me go and fight me man-to-man!" The scents of Egyptian dust and sun-warmed papyrus fill the air as Sir Jean struggles with the Saracen sorcerer.

Cecilia worked backward, melding the memories.

The scents of Flanders mud and lathered horse fill the cold night air as Dominic murmurs gently: "I remember you. I remember your True Name. I know why you dream of roses and a girl's face in a bronze mirror. Do you wish to remember, too?"

"How do you know--" Michel's struggles cease. "Are you the Devil? I renou--"

"Don't!" Dominic warned. "I can only Name you if you consent. Let me open the way to your memory. If you still want to fight me, afterward, then we shall fight."

"I make no pact with you. I will not sell my soul!"

"You were always so stubborn." Dominic rests his cheek against Michel's ear. "I do not want your soul. Shall I open the way, or not?"

Michel tries to twist free, but Dominic's hold pins him so he can hardly move.

Dominic sighs. "It is in your hands to choose forgetfulness, or to choose memory. I remember you--we were friends, once. If you do not choose to be Raised and Named, then...may we meet again." His right hand rises and grips Michel's chin in preparation for breaking his neck.

"No! Wait!" Michel cries. "I want to remember! Whatever you want! Don't--don't--"

His next words choke off as Dominic wraps him in wings of light. "Remember me. Remember everything." His teeth touch Michel's throat. As he stands barefoot in the cold mud of the road, in Dominic's harsh embrace, the veil of the Underworld is lifted from him, and he remembers: the steps of St. Nazaire cathedral...

Panting, Cecilia finished the seamless graft. She riffled through the last four days, finding nothing until: He becomes aware of Cecilia as she withdraws the dagger of light from Dominic's skull. She shifts her attention to him. "Ea, beloved," she says in the old tongue that only the Apkallu know. "Menelaos has completely botched your Transformation. He tried to Raise and Name you as a mortal, before your Transformation. As I have always said, it was unsafe. I'm so sorry. I'll do my best to heal his injuries to you." But he has already been Raised and Named. He remembers everything perfectly. What is she doing? He can't move, can't flinch as the dagger pierces his forehead...

One more correction to make:

In the twilight realm between sleep and waking, Michel dreams of angels. Though his low bed is hard, a shimmering golden coverlet covers him like woven sunbeams. For the first time in a decade, his leg doesn't hurt.

There are no candles in the stone-walled chamber, yet the room itself is bright as noon. Lady Cecilia stands next to his bed, her face as grave and sweet as the Virgin's. Immense wings of iridescent moonlight sweep around and above her, and she raises a dagger made of silver and fire.

Does she mean to slay me, then? he thinks, with distant wonder.

A wave of violent images returns to him: a frantic flight in the rain, stealing a horse, and then, teeth tearing his throat as if the man--no, the demon--pursuing him were a wolf or other beast. What has Dominic done to him? Am I dead? Is Cecilia the angel guarding the gates of Paradise? Why am I back in the Chateau du Chancy? Please, Lord, let me be dreaming. If this is a dream--then his abduction by Dominic from the Templar dormitory is also a dream, and he can wake, soon, to his life.

His life... memories overwhelm him.

...night in a ruined temple. Dominic, handsome and dangerous, at his side. The bitter taste of myrrh-laced wine on his tongue as he sounds out the hieroglyphs for Alexander the Great... In a room with red and yellow painted walls, a younger-seeming Dominic, his hair entirely dark, says, "I am not permitted to tell you more unless you consent to join the House. You'll have to trust your heart--as your brother has already done."

He catches himself on the dizzy edge of memory as if standing at the top of a tower above a cliff over a nearly bottomless abyss, every step of which he had climbed... a day, a month, a year, a hundred years, a thousand years, seven thousand years... But the tower sways, and he falls, falls, falls, the memories sliding and colliding. He stands on the cold muddy road, on the apex of a stepped temple, on the stairs of St. Nazaire Cathedral, before the assembly of the Poor Knights of the Temple...

He screams. He is falling, and he has no wings.

"I am sorry, my brother," Cecilia whispers. "I tried my best for you." Blessed darkness eases his utter confusion...

Cecilia pushed back her hair and wiped the sweat from her face. She had pruned away Michel's dangerous memories, and for good measure, broken his ability to recall at will. Would these changes be enough to give him good cause to hate Dominic?

She would wait and see.

* * *

In the darkness, a dream came:

Honoria huddles in a maintenance staircase between the inner and outer walls of Constantinople's Hippodrome, unable to run farther. Her arms are curled around her knees, the bricks cold under her buttocks and she prays that the demon will not find this hiding place.

The absolute darkness around her pulses gently with waves of heated color. She clamps her jaws tight to quiet her chattering teeth.

Then, she feels the supernatural warmth of the genii's presence, and sees the brilliance of his ghostly wings shining through her closed eyelids. The scent of roses surrounds her, and she braces herself for death--or worse.

"Tsk! You're ill!" Menelaos exclaims, kneeling a step or two below her. "Foolish girl. Why did you run so long?"

Somehow the stairway is bright enough to show that his extraordinary gray eyes are filled with concern. A hesitant smile tugs at one corner of his bearded mouth.

Honoria cowers from this sorcerous vision. "H-how did you find me?"

"By your aura, of course. Lost one, it is good to meet again." She flinches as his fingertips brush her cheek.

In her feverish state, she is startled to find his flesh is warm, not cold marble.

"Little one, you're burning up!" He briefly lifts her hand, gentle fingers resting on the pulse at her wrist. "And so thin..."

"Are you going to drink my blood?" She wants to be defiant, and show this demon how nobly a woman of Gaul dies, but she can't stop trembling.

He chuckles. His strong arms slide under her knees and back, lifting and cradling her. "I'm taking you to the House, where your brother awaits you. You're safe now." The conviction in his voice is so absolute that she believes him in spite of herself.

Long before they reach the House of the Rose she realizes that her position, face pressed against his broad shoulder, feels comforting instead of terrifying. Light-headed, she imagines that the genii's shining wings are wrapped around her even more securely than his arms.

...and Honoria awoke, curled in Menelaos's arms, her face resting in its accustomed spot on his broad chest.

"Beloved, you've returned to me," he said, his voice breaking.

Sleepily, she reached up and touched his cheek. It was wet, and he was shaking, his fingers digging into her back.

"Menelaos, why do you weep?" She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him, stretched out next to her on the feather bed.

His gray eyes shone with incredulous joy and something else she couldn't identify. He looked tired, and there was a white streak in his hair that she, used to the unchanging visages of the djinni over centuries, did not remember.

A brief flash--Menelaos, being carried through smoke-filled streets by two other djinni, a crossbow bolt bristling grotesquely from his head. And then...fighting for her life against a mob of soldiers, standing on the steps of St. Nazaire cathedral, the sun a hot dazzle on pale golden stone, the air stinking of blood and smoke...

Honoria stroked his cheek, smoothed the streak in his hair that marked the site of his injury, and leaned down to kiss him. His mouth was warm, faintly salty from his tears, and wonderfully familiar. Menelaos murmured against her lips. "I couldn't bear to live any longer without you."

He returned her kiss with desperate intensity, his aura brightening until her Seer's eyes were nearly blinded. She was surrounded by his light, his great bronze wings wrapping them both in a cocoon that caressed her skin like soft feathers.

She pressed close to him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, relishing the solid contact until she realized that something was different. Wrong. The sweet ache that should have been in her breasts was in her groin, where she was...stiffening?

She looked at her hand, braced against Menelaos's shoulder. It was man's hand, large and square-fingered, dusted with golden hairs, the knuckles scarred, the fingers and palm callused.

A man...?

A new wave of memories, recent and painful, hit her: In the room filled with light Cecilia stands by the low pallet. "Ea, beloved," she says in the old tongue that only the Apkallu know. "Menelaos has completely botched your Transformation. He tried to Raise and Name you as a mortal, before your Transformation. As I have always said, it was unsafe. I'm so sorry. I'll do my best to heal his injuries to you." ... In the cold and muddy road, Dominic sighs. "It is in your hands to choose forgetfulness, or to choose memory. I remember you--we were friends, once. If you do not choose to be Raised and Named, then...may we meet again." His right hand rises and grips Michel's chin in preparation for breaking his neck. "No! Wait!" Michel cries. "I want to remember! Whatever you want! Don't--don't--" ... Dusk in a ruined Egyptian temple, and Dominic reads the lines of hieroglyphs carved into the shadowed walls. "It's passing strange," says Michel. "You are a Saracen and yet I feel I know you." ...in the shabby room in Damietta Michel awakens, disturbed, from a recurring dream of a man, naked, bent over a lute in his lap. The Prime bell clangs as he rises from his hard bed. Why am I always a woman in my dreams? That's wrong.

Menelaos looked up, puzzled now. "Beloved, wha--"

"Sodomite! Sorcerer!" howled Michel, scrubbing away the vile kiss. Roland, Mathilde, Blanche, Aumery, even acerbic Brother Philippe... all lost to him now, with his stained honor.

"Get thee gone, demon!" Michel felt power gathering around him, prickling his skin. He caught a glimpse of Dominic's shocked expression before the other man was engulfed in a torrent of golden flame, and swept off Cecilia's huge bed. It carried Dominic across the room, and flung him against the wall of the solar before dissipating.

As the brightness faded, Michel saw Dominic crumpled at the base of the wall. Just like a cur rolling in my father's hall.

He staggered up, feeling immeasurably powerful yet dizzy. He would cut out Dominic's heart with his own damned sorcery. Another rush of power shaped by his will formed a sword fashioned from pale gold fire. His fingers closed around its hilt.

He took a step, and the agony clawed his gut. Hunger had passed beyond starvation in less than a breath. He tried to take another step, but his balance failed. He fell. He falls, falls, falls, the memories sliding and colliding. He stands on the cold muddy road, on the apex of a stepped temple, on the stairs of St. Nazaire Cathedral, before the assembly the Poor Knights of the Temple...

The rushes on the floor were dusty and thick. He had no strength to hold the form of a sword of light. He had no strength to hold to consciousness. Will I wake? I don't care.

Chapter Two

My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit. --Proverbs 1:10-13

Friday, May 14, AD 1260 Chateau du Chancy

Cheerful early morning sunlight greeted Michel after a night filled with disturbing dreams, like the one that had just woken him. Whoever dreamt of drinking blood through a straw?

His cheeks moved, and thick salty liquid filled his mouth. He swallowed, and realized with dawning horror that he was living his nightmare. As much as he wanted to stop this travesty of nourishment, this blasphemy of Our Lord's sacrifice, his body would not obey him. It tasted so good. Still slightly warm, familiar in a disgusting yet comforting way, even to the zing of orange oil.

If only he had merely overslept Vespers! Brother Philippe might have come to rescue him, and set him back on the path to paradise. Instead he had woken in the solar of the Chateau du Chancy. In Cecilia's bed.

Alive. Transformed. And broken. She had told him so last night. "Ea, beloved," she says in the old tongue that only the Apkallu know. "Menelaos has completely botched your Transformation."

He had understood her speech as alien memories clamored at the fringes of his mind--seven thousand years--and he had become lost in the whirlwind of stairs... tower... road... church... House...

This morning he could look across the chasm of memory and tell himself: Ea. My name is Ea. Was Ea. Was Tahat. Was Honoria.

I am Honoria. Her voice in his head was deep for a woman's, confident, slightly impatient.

No! My name is Michel de la-Roche-en-Ardennes. Brother Michel, Preceptor of the Poor Knights of the Temple in Ypres. Oh, God. How long did I sleep outside the convent walls without permission?

A Transformation took three days. They would expel him for that crime, as well as heresy and sorcery, if they discovered him..

Despairing, he remembered how he had promised the Master of the Templars in Damietta that he wished to suffer all the hardships of the Poor Knights of the Temple for the remaining days of his life. With Dominic's hands ready to break his neck, he had weakened rather than choosing to die true to his vows. He had chosen life, and the bitter fruit of self-knowledge. Coward. Oathbreaker.

He would have to live forever with the consequences.

He had caught only glimpses of his many lives, as if he clutched the embroidered patches of a surcoat, but not the whole cloth. What, he wondered, had happened after Ninshubur said, "Ea, beloved, I will come to you..."

His head split open. The words he screamed were the same gutter talk he'd used to revile Brother Olivier aboard the St. Sebastian. Hands of air held him down, preventing him from thrashing as he drowned in a sea of goosedown. After a while the soft featherbed became his friend, not his enemy, as he lay gasping like a shipwrecked sailor washed up to shore.

"So, you have finally returned to us, Brother Ea," Cecilia, no--his sister, Ereshkigal--said in the old tongue. Against her breasts, clad in a loose gown, she carefully cradled the jar he had been drinking from. "It is good to meet again."

"Is it?" Michel brought a weary hand to his aching forehead. His mouth couldn't shape the sounds. He had an accent in his native language! He would have laughed hysterically, but his first bark jarred his head so badly that he had to stop.

"You are among family now. Welcome home."

This place didn't feel like home. He was dizzy and his tongue was swollen. Had he bitten it last night during his futile struggle for freedom? Where was Dominic? He tried to look around for him but echoes of agony warned him to keep his head still.

"My dearest, Dominic risked your sanity to revive your love for him. I tried my best to repair your injuries, but I fear..." She clucked her tongue.

"Injuries," said Michel, tasting the word as if it were a chunk of rancid salt pork.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, noticing first the miraculous lack of pain in his right hip and thigh, and then that he was naked.

Michel blushed at a replay of the old carnal image from his dreams as a youth: Menelaos sits next to her, as naked as she, bent over the lute in his lap... She reaches to trace a slender henna-tipped finger down his nape, where his dark hair curls a little...

Not a dream, after all. Oh, God.

Cecilia handed him an unopened clay jar, its seal marked with the symbol he knew meant 'those who deliver decisions.' He wanted to shatter it onto the wooden floor. The mess it made would be no uglier than the shambles of his life. But he opened the jar, and drank. He needed the strength.

"No one escapes the Underworld unmarked," Cecilia said when he was done. "Yet we continue to find each other, and to live, and serve the House." She had a small object in her hands.

He watched her warily as she brought it up to show him. It was a bronze mirror. "Dominic did not even complete your Raising and Naming ceremony. May I?" At his nod, she said, "Here is your new face, you who are called Michel de la-Roche-en-Ardennes. I have Raised you, and I remember your True Name. Hail to you, Ea, Enki, House of Water, Lord of the Earth, and honor to your long service to the House. We rejoice that you are Found."

The face in the mirror was his own, minus the beard required by his vows. Someone had shaved him while he slept. His skin was pale, more so where his beard was gone. The oddest thing was a shimmer in the metal. Then his Seer's eyes opened, and he saw the shining gold of his aura, darkened by his recent pain, and the red flickering balefire of his Raising and Naming mark, which should have been a steady flame.

Botched, indeed. No wonder it was torture to try to remember. Had he once known any cure for such an ill? Pain was the only answer. He thought of other things: the delight of his sister Mathilde's saffron-flavored fish soup. The joy in Sir Aumery's face on meeting his new horse. Pain eased. He had found the only cure he was likely to get.

"I don't remember the response, my sister," he confessed. "You must teach it to me anew."

Shining tears tracked down her dear, sweet face. "You must say 'Hail to you, Ereshkigal, you who have kept my memory, and my life, in your keeping for so long.'"

Effortlessly, he repeated her refrain. And waited, feeling there must be more.

She placed her hand in his, and touched the back of her hand against his forehead. "It is good to meet again."

"It is good to meet again," he said, holding back tears of his own.

"I'm so sorry Dominic did this to you," she said through her tears. "Do you still wish to kill him?"

His rage and confusion had cooled. He remembered the tattered cloak of Dominic's aura and recognized monstrous injuries, more grievous than his own. Clearly Menelaos-who-was was too damaged, too unstable to be allowed to live. Vengeance and necessity both clamored to make his answer yes.

NO! yelled Honoria. Don't you dare kill him! What if we never find him again? We can't heal someone if he's Lost to us. Besides, her tone turned to pleading, the House needs all the Apkallu it can get. Unspoken was a fierce, unwavering longing to reunite with Menelaos. She knew Michel would never acquiesce to such a union, but it didn't stop her craving. We love him, she said baldly, speaking for Michel too.

He didn't grant her the dignity of a response. "Who survived, and who has been Found, since Beziers?" he asked Cecilia, instead.

She bowed her head, her aura dimmed. "Only Menelaos and I survived the sack of the city. Sharibet, Basil, and Leila were safe on the ship, with those we were able to evacuate before dawn."

Out of long habit, Michel began to cross himself. Midway through the gesture, he changed it to the simple forehead touch of the House. "May we meet again."

Cecilia echoed the phrase and gesture.

"How many of the Lost have been restored to the House?"

"Not nearly enough. Only your cousin Roland, who was Marcus."

"In nearly fifty years, you have found no other Apkallu?" Michel didn't intend for his astonishment to express itself so sharply. Roland, Apkallu?

"We have found them, from time to time, but too late to obtain their consent. As you yourself know so well, worldly ties are difficult to break after a certain age."

Michel flushed at Cecilia's jibe. "Who has been Found?" he repeated his question.

"Utu returned as Roland's elder brother Robert. He refused us in Acre last year, and died on his voyage back to Artois." She stopped, then said, reluctantly, "Ninharsag...your sister, Mathilde."

A spike of joy made Michel's heart pound. Mathilde! "Does she know?" he asked eagerly. "Have you--?"

"I have not asked her, because of the consumption in her lungs." She bowed her head. "I judge she would not survive Transformation."

"I want to see her."

"You know you can't," Cecilia chided gently. "The Templars are searching for you everywhere."

"Bring her here!"

"She's too sick."

"Damn you!" he raged, standing up on the bed's step, towering over Cecilia. "If there are so few Apkallu--"

Cecilia's aura immobilized him like a bug in amber. "You're so volatile! It's all Dominic's fault. He broke the rule of Consent in going after you. Do you wish to kill him?"

Yes. No. Hell and damnation, he didn't know. NO! Honoria said with utter certainty.

He deflated. "Let me down, sister mine. I don't wish to kill him. We are too few, as it is."

The bonds that held him melted away. "I'm sorry," she said, tears in her bright eyes, and held out her hand.

He came down the bed's steps and caught her up in a tight embrace. She kissed his cheek, and he buried his nose in the comforting darkness of her hair. She still smelled of sandalwood. Once she had tried to seduce Michel with that scent, but now it reminded him of home, and family.

Then she wriggled free. "Are you willing to be Appointed as a Protector? The House will want to hold the ceremony as soon as possible."

He had lived--no, Honoria had lived--to protect the House and its people. Could he turn his back on them now? Of more weight, would they accept him, broken as he was? Oathbreaker... They had kept Dominic, despite his flaws. "What choice do I have?"

Cecilia kissed his mouth. "Welcome home, my brother."

* * *

The Rosenhuis in Ypres was a new building three stories high, with a steep tiled roof, smooth gray stone walls, and arched windows glittering with dozens of round green-glass panes.

In the djinni's suite that occupied half of the second story, Dominic sat in a chair formed in the shape of interlocking bows. He didn't feel the polished wood. He didn't see the calligraphy or the brightly-colored drawings of the book open on his lap. His gaze was drawn to the slice of sky and garden showing through the half-open window. In the courtyard below, Sharibet's rosebushes were just showing the first pink buds of spring.

He ached in body--Michel's assault had broken several ribs and his collarbone--but by tomorrow morning, the bones would have knitted. How long would it take his heart to heal? He might never recover from Michel's hatred and loathing.

He had searched for Michel for so long. Done unspeakable things. Broken the laws of the House and Cecilia's gravest prohibition. He had been so certain that Michel would return his love if he could remember.

Instead Dominic had made another cripple like himself. The pain of that inadvertent betrayal wracked him, harsher than any bodily agony. Beloved, beloved, I never meant to harm you.

He had waited fifty years to taste the sweetness of Honoria's kiss. He didn't care that Honoria's kiss came from Michel's lips. But Michel cared.

Dominic could not blame Michel for his violent rejection. He could only mourn the death of hope. He would never get Honoria back. Just as Cecilia had warned, Michel could not love him as Honoria had.

So be it. Michel was alive. Found. Transformed. Dominic knew exactly where he was--in Cecilia's arms, as she so deliberately let him know with tantalizing glimpses of the softness of Michel's skin, the fine spun gold of his hair. She hoped to punish his disobedience in this way, but she miscalculated badly.

He drew strength from the vision of Michel, alive. If Michel found pleasure in her arms in the way of djinni, Dominic would rejoice that Michel could feel pleasure, could feel anything at all. He was not dead. Anything else was a trifle, unworthy of consideration.

The Menelaos of old--before Beziers--had been an obedient djinn, a patient master of strategy. But Dominic, the man Sharibet had so painstakingly stitched together from the broken pieces of Menelaos, was someone altogether less restricted by the confines of conscience. He would repeat his rebellion endlessly, given the chance. He only regretted the pain he had caused Michel. But even pain was a sign of life.

He would not regret it. He would not.

"My lord, are you in pain?"

"Don't worry yourself over me," he said to Tirgit, Cecilia's handmaid. "The bruises are fading."

"That isn't what I meant," she said, impertinent as ever. Her eyes, a changeable blue-green startling in her olive-skinned face, were compassionate and concerned as she set down a jug that smelled of blood and citrus. Pouring from the jug, she filled a goblet and pressed it into his hand. "Drink and heal, my lord."

She knelt gracefully beside the chair, and pinned him with a determined look. Yielding, he drank.

She had been a loyal daughter to him since he had bought her in a slave market on the Silk Road. Tirgit was a reborn daughter of the House, to be rescued and cherished. She never knew he had intended to drink the death of a nameless slave. Would she forgive him, if she knew? Or would she hate him, as Michel did?

"You did the right thing," she said, suddenly.

He couldn't stop himself from saying, "He tried to kill me!"

"He's confused, I imagine, his life overturned. I believe Lord Michel will forgive you, eventually."

"Poor Brother What-a-Waste," Dominic said, sardonically using her nickname for Michel. "He'll come to his senses soon."

Her cheeks reddened. "When you and Lady Cecilia found me, do you remember how I was, those first few months of travel?"

He smiled lopsidedly. "I was tempted to leave you behind, once or twice."

"You were so kind, and I was horrid to you." She laid her head on his arm, and he stroked her fine dark hair.

"After I was captured away from my family, I never let myself weep. Not once. I dared not show any weakness for them to use against me. The only thing I had left of my very own was my hidden heart. Then you came, and I didn't have to hide any more."

"So you were free to weep," Dominic said softly.

"And rage. You would never beat me, or..." She swallowed hard. "Lord Michel will come to know you, as I do."

"Should I depart? To avoid reminding him of the indignities I've heaped on him?" The prospect of parting again so soon burned like a wound washed with wine.

To his surprise she drew her belt knife and made a tiny incision on the inside of her wrist, in a place already marked by scores of thin scars.

"Tirgit, child, you don't have to--"

"Let me give you this comfort. It's the only thing I can do for you, father of my heart." She raised her hand, palm up, offering herself without reservation.

Unable to refuse, he bent his mouth to the tender skin and tasted her, seeing himself in her memories: sometimes aloof because of his pain, sometimes protective, always kind to her.

He withdrew, reluctantly. Her love for him remained, lingering like the taste of her blood.

"Thank you." He smoothed her dark hair for the pleasure of touching her. Bending, he rested his cheek briefly against the top of her head. "Thou art precious to me, little one," he said in Arabic.

She smiled at him shyly. "Please stay in Ypres. Perhaps Lord Michel will show you his hidden heart, in time."

He dared not hope for that. But he would stay.

* * *

The church bells were ringing mid-afternoon None when Dominic's restless pacing through his chambers was interrupted by the arrival of one of the pink-cheeked Flemish maids.

"Lady Cecilia wishes a word with you," she announced.

Finally. He pushed past the maid, his feet pounding on the wooden stairs down to the parlor. He flung open the door to see Cecilia seated near windows that pooled sunlight the color of electrum on the floor.

She wore the same serene expression as always, damn her.

"Well?" he demanded, coming to stand over her.

"Have I managed to clean up the mess you made of our beloved Ea?" she asked acidly. "Of course. But now you know why consent is so necessary. You risked his mind and soul by coercing him, Menelaos. He may never regain voluntary recall of his past life memories. When he tries--it's agony for him, and for me, watching him suffer."

He let her use of his old name pass. She wasn't done reprimanding him, and he didn't feel like trying to stop her. She wants me to feel the pain, too. "Does the House rejoice that an Apkallu has been Found?"

"I lay his diminished capacity at your door. If you hadn't held to your stupid obsession--"

"Does the House rejoice or not?" He tried to keep his voice even.

"The House rejoices," she said reluctantly. "You can make up some of the damage you've caused by starting the invitations and preparations for his Appointing. Pick some holy day in the next two or three weeks. The non-kin will need an excuse to be safely away from the chateau."

"So soon?"

She glared at him. "He's a Raised and Named djinn. The only thing saving him from the ax right now is that he's living in my house, not a House of the Rose. If we can't get him Appointed soon..."

"I'll begin immediately," he said, in very close counterfeit of his former respectful obedience.

"I've come to bring my servants back with me. But perhaps..." She paused just long enough to let him know she was toying with him.

He wanted to lift a lazy eyebrow and ask, 'Have you forgotten what you planned to say?' but deemed it more prudent to remain silent. What had Alexander said? Pick your battles.

She tilted her head and Dominic braced himself for a blow, despite his non-response.

But she gathered her temper, and her next statement was cool. "Do not return to the Chateau, just yet."

Despite anticipating just such a command, it still hurt. He didn't want confirmation of his deepest fears. He hates me.

"No. He pities you," Cecilia said, cruelly, reading his expression.

"Remembering the djinn I once was?" Dominic shrugged, feigning nonchalance.

Cecilia folded her hands. "It worries the people of the House--with good cause!--when the djinni fight amongst themselves." Her smooth girlish face showed weariness. "I will be returning shortly to the Chateau. Send Tirgit to me. I will let you know when you may return."

"Yes, lady," he said, bowing. What he kept in his hidden heart, Cecilia need not know.

Michel. Alive. Half sane. What wonderful news.

* * *

Tirgit entered the parlor, her heart in her mouth. She stood before Cecilia, her hands folded at her waist in the old gesture of homage. "My lady, it is good to meet again."

"It is," agreed Cecilia, with less than her usual graciousness. "Brother Michel is doing well enough, considering the poor introduction he received to our life. You did him a great disservice by summoning Dominic here."

Tirgit winced at the reminder. "I'm sorry." From long experience, she knew that only humility and compliance would placate Cecilia in this mood. But was she still angry?

"How old are you, Tirgit?" Cecilia watched her with a cool assessment that fluttered Tirgit's nerves.

She had not seen that look since she had been freed from slavery. "I'm not sure, lady. Fifteen, perhaps sixteen?" she replied, casting her gaze down to the tips of Cecilia's leather slippers, which emerged coyly from the rich blue folds of her gown.

Was she to be married off? Would Cecilia want her to help start a new House, a family, in one of these booming European towns to increase the House of the Rose's reach, and territory? She was prepared to do her duty if she must, but after having traveled with Cecilia and Dominic from Samarkand to Hind to Egypt to Italy and now, to this flat, cold, northern country, she didn't want to spend this life far from the circle of their powerful affection.

Or will she just send me away in disgrace? In her turmoil, she scarcely heard Cecilia's next words. "--a great favor to the House, to Lady Sharibet, and to me, if you would consider it, Tirgit."

Tirgit's eyes snapped open. "I--lady, what?"

Cecilia smoothed the patterned brocade of her gown over her lap. "There is no one else. Fausta's daughters are far too young. You are the only suitable Raised and Named girl within a fortnight's journey. You know the way of djinni. The sooner you can go to him, the better the chances for a child."

In amazement, Tirgit realized what Cecilia was asking. She wants me to be Michel's concubine. A newly-made djinn had a brief period of fertility after his Transformation. There was always the hope that a child conceived in that time might be a reborn Apkallu, enticed back from the Underworld to the House by love.

She remembered her enslavement: Brutal hands spread her legs, and her anger burns hotter than the pain for a while. But it hurts, it hurts and she can't make it stop... Tirgit swallowed.

The first slave dealer had been honest in advertising her as a virgin. With the others, only her youth made the lie plausible. The rapes usually slowed a few weeks before they sold her again, to allow the bruises and torn flesh to heal. She remembered the stink of the fish oil the women used to smear on her abraded flesh to prevent scarring, and the stale-urine reek of the men. Skinny, fat, young, old, they had all smelled the same to her.

When she saw how Dominic studied her, before buying her, she had been certain of her fate. Yet he had never touched her that way, never forced himself upon her, and she loved him for it. After she had been Raised and Named, the memories of previous lives as a woman, wife, and priestess had counterbalanced much of her fear. And Lady Cecilia, with her clever fingers and perfumed skin, had soothed away her nightmares, re-teaching the pleasure of touch. Tirgit might flirt with the young men at church, but always where it was safe, where Lady Cecilia or Lord Dominic could protect her. She was prepared to do her duty to the House by marrying and having children, but she hadn't planned to ever enjoy lying with a man.

Now... to bring a Lost one from the Underworld, she must open herself to love. Could she do it?

"Are you all right, child?" Cecilia said, sounding concerned. "You know I don't want to force you."

Tirgit shook her head. She knew Cecilia would never send her to Lord Michel's bed if she did not consent, but if she did not, then what? Michel would lose his only chance to father a child of his flesh, and Cecilia might send Tirgit away, to be married to a suitable man of the House, never again to see Cecilia or Dominic.

She had already defied Cecilia once. Did she dare do it again?

She forced away memories of pain and subjugation. The act of sex had never taken very long. Surely, the life she enjoyed now was worth a few minutes of enduring what, to be honest, she had already endured many times, and if she did this thing for Cecilia, perhaps she might be forgiven. No one would blame her if no child resulted, or if the child were not Apkallu.

"I--I will do it, lady." Tirgit's voice quavered.

She was rewarded by Cecilia's smile. "You are a good and loyal girl, Tirgit. Thank you."

Tirgit tried to ignore the sickness she felt at the prospect of feeling Michel's weight pressing down on her, of his pinning her, penetrating her. She was no longer a slave. She was agreeing to this out of her own free will. He would not be forcing her.

"Come, let us return to the chateau. I will have the maids prepare a bath."

Guided by Cecilia's touch, Tirgit allowed herself to be led out of the parlor, into the bright sunshine of the courtyard, where saddled horses waited for them. She concentrated on reminding herself that Michel was a very handsome man. This past year, she had seen for herself his kindness, and his courtesy. He would not mistreat her. He would not deliberately hurt her. She was certain of that much.

* * *

Chateau du Chancy

Michel, still somewhat aroused from Cecilia's kissing and fondling that morning, spent the afternoon of her absence reacquainting himself with powers he hadn't used in fifty-one years. He clearly remembered being able to move objects simply by stretching out a wing of his aura. He had thrown Dominic across the room! But his delicate control was so clumsy.

In the great hall outside the door to the buttery, he shattered a set of dishes and dented a set of pewter cups. After an hour, he sank to the floor completely exhausted, slumped amidst herb-scented rushes and brightly-painted earthenware shards, ready to curse with frustration.

It had been just the same after his months of recuperation from the dreadful injuries he received in Al-Mansurah. When the Templar infirmarer had finally given permission for the splints and webbing to be removed from his leg, Michel had spent nearly a week trying to learn to walk, as unsteady as a year-old child. He would have fallen nearly as often as a toddler, too, had it not been for his squire, Aumery.

There was no Aumery to support him now. All of the servants had been removed on his awakening. Thank God, exercising his powers didn't hurt like trying to walk with a handful of metal fragments embedded in his thigh. Only practice would return him to the level of skill that Honoria had enjoyed during her long life.

Michel rose wearily to his knees, gathered up the shards, and piled them neatly in a corner for the servants to take out to the rubbish heap later, after they returned. Then he went into the pantry and brought out the next bowl to practice with. I used to know how to do this.

* * *

He waited at the solar's window, noticing with some relief that Dominic was not among the party when Cecilia and the servants returned at twilight. He and Dominic would have to reach a truce soon for the sake of harmony in the House, but a tight, hot lump of resentment filled his heart at Dominic's differences from Menelaos.

The Menelaos of Honoria's memories would never have terrorized de Sens and his knights, as Dominic had done on the shore of Lake Manzala. He would never have broken the laws of the House to abduct a candidate for Transformation, or raped another's mind by Raising him without true consent. And especially Menelaos would never have done these things to his beloved.

Honoria's regret whispered over and over, His left hand is under my head, and his right hand does embrace me...

No more. How had this brutal transformation occurred? What force had warped Menelaos out of true? No one escapes the Underworld unmarked. But Menelaos had not died. Michel could not understand this change, any more than he could understand why he himself had consented to break his vows.

He hid in the solar as servants, most of whom were Flemings and not of the House, set up the great hall for dinner, shared the meal, cleaned up, then retreated to their thatched cottages outside the main building of the chateau. It wasn't until late in the evening that Cecilia joined him, sharing a pitcher of lamb's blood, while a subdued Tirgit poured for both of them.

Feeling acutely uncomfortable, Michel spoke a silent Grace over his food, if blood could properly be called food. Trying to reconcile his faith as a Christian with the knowledge of his many lifetimes made his head ache. All he knew was that it felt wrong to eat without saying Grace, so he would say Grace. Let the theological implications sort themselves out later.

As he sipped, Cecilia related the news passed on to her by Fausta de la Rose in Ypres. The Templars were still searching for him, and the city was filled with rumors. The most common rumor, Michel was dismayed to hear, was a speculation that he had embezzled money and fled with laden saddlebags. Another favorite was uncannily close to the truth: a faery princess had abducted the handsome Preceptor, and borne him away to her underground palace, where a hundred human years would pass in the course of a single night.

Dismissing rumor, Cecilia turned to business, reporting a problem with increased demand amongst the prosperous merchants of London for vials of scented oil to soften the skin of their wives and daughters. Transportation of almond oil from the Mediterranean to England often resulted in half the shipment going rancid. The House in London had tried to use lanolin as the base oil, but the greasy smell of wool required the addition of a prohibitive amount of floral essence. How could they increase production while keeping costs down?

Michel listened intently. In the matter of the almond oil, he could offer a simple solution from his days as Marshall of the Templar Preceptory in Pezenas: ship the nuts to England still in the shell. An oil press could easily be purchased or made locally.

Cecilia was pleased with his suggestion, but instead of bidding him stay with her for the night, as he halfway expected with a guilty thrill, she only kissed his cheek. "Tirgit will show you where you are to sleep." She closed her door on both of them.

Michel found himself weary as he followed Tirgit to the other chamber on the second story. There was a bed made up, a candle burning, and signs of hasty removal of someone's possessions. The predominant smell was of soap. Menelaos, Honoria whispered with a stab of longing. But Dominic wasn't in the room. He had just lived there recently.

"Why am I staying in Dominic's chamber?" he asked Tirgit, refusing to go further until his question was answered.

"Lord Dominic is staying at the Rosenhuis for now," she said, gaze downcast. Her aura was dimmed and drawn so tightly into her body that only a faint, glowing outline remained. "This is the only other chamber suitable for a djinn."

She moved to the bed, and turned down the covers. She circled back to him and, standing to one side, said, "Let me help you disrobe."

"I can do it myself--" he started to say, but she freed her hair of the veil, pins, and bindings that hid it modestly. Black, loose curls fell below her waist.

"Let me help you," she said, then hiccupped. Her aura fluttered with the racing of her heart.

What was going on?

She's come to be your concubine, Honoria whispered. She's here to increase the House. Honoria's memory showed him: Jehanne de la Rose, six-months pregnant, carries the lapis-lazuli cup of the covenant before the assembled kin to a thunderstruck Raymond Soleil...

"Tirgit," he said, quietly. When she flinched, he wondered when she had developed a disgust of him. She had flirted boldly at their first meeting. Now? Now he was forsworn. He had failed to keep his Templar vows. How could any of the people of the House trust him? How could he trust himself? He turned away to find a safer place to sleep.

She slipped between him and the door, looking very young despite the smooth curve of breasts half-hidden by the embroidered silk chemise under her gown.

"It's my wish--and the wish of the House--to bear you a child, lord," she said in a choked whisper.

Michel was ashamed by the sudden stirring of his prick, reawakened by his newfound vigor and the release from the crippling pain of his mortal existence. Cecilia had prepared him for this, he realized, by rousing him with her kiss this morning.

"Are you here of your own free will?"

Tirgit bobbed her head, but didn't look at him. "P-please, lord. Allow me. I want to, really I do!"

The usual appeal of her lively wit and rounded hips had vanished in the presence of this stiff, terrified version of Tirgit, offering herself like a sacrificial victim.

We remember what it's like to be a young girl-slave at the mercy of powerful men, don't we? Honoria challenged.

Michel took a deep breath, and imposed control honed by long practice of Templar discipline. He had been celibate for ten years. One more hour would make no difference. "I will not eat thee," he said in Arabic. "I will not touch thee, save at thy desire. But I would like--" Desire surged through him like a storm at sea. "I would very much like to have a child of my own."

I was never allowed to risk giving birth, Honoria added. Let her give us a baby! The emptiness in her arms was a ghostly ache in his own flesh.

"I would be honored if you--" He stopped, and realized that even as a djinn, he could still blush. "But only if you truly wish it."

Chapter Three

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. --Genesis 2:25

"I do consent. I want this." Tirgit bowed her head.

She should start over. First, the formalities: "It is good to meet again, Lord Ea. My True Name is Lal-hamun. Remember me!" She kept her gaze down, and her hands on her thighs. They were ice-cold, and unpleasantly sticky with nervous sweat.

"It is good to meet again," Brother--no, Lord Michel replied. Then he smiled at her, transforming his rather stern expression. He noticed the pitcher she had placed on top of the linen chest after she cleaned the room and changed the sheets. He poured two cups of wine, releasing the scents of cinnamon and Burgundy wine into the still air of the room. He brought both cups to where she stood, back pressed into the door.

"I think you need this," he said sympathetically.

She agreed. She managed not to spill any of the wine before she swallowed, but her hands still trembled afterward.

He took the cup from her and set it down. "You look tired."

Time to come to bed, her mind added, helpfully. She closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself. It was time to do her duty.

But instead of pressing her, he stepped away and seated himself on the bottommost of the steps that led up to the bed. He was close enough to talk to her, but far enough away to reassure.

He stretched out his long legs, apparently entirely at ease sitting on the bed-stairs.

Fascinated, she stared at his ears. He seemed less...intimidating...when he wasn't towering over her. She gulped down another mouthful of wine, coughing at its astringency. Girlhood in Muslim lands had not prepared her for the Flemish habit of drinking wine or ale with every meal, and she usually watered her beverages heavily.

He cleared his throat and looked away from her. "Honoria remembers--I remember--our last meeting. You were Eugenia, Chief Perfumer at the House in Constantinople in the reign of Basil the Macedonian. I came to learn from you, for you had learned the new Arab technique of distillation."

Tirgit remembered Lady Honoria's visit very well. The red-haired djinniah had been the tallest woman she had ever seen. Eugenia, though not the tiniest person in the House, had barely come up to the level of Honoria's bosom.

Lady Honoria had spent nearly a week serving as Eugenia's apprentice, patiently performing the humblest tasks. She had been entirely focused on observing and learning--there had been a stillness at the core of Honoria's intensity, an utter concentration. Occasionally, her eyes would unfocus, and Eugenia feared that she had bored her illustrious student, but then Honoria would ask a question that revealed the keen intellect behind the dreamy expression. It was disconcerting, but only to be expected of the soul once called the God of Wisdom.

With wine sending waves of warmth to her fingertips, Tirgit began to relax.

Lord Michel still sat comfortably, the cup held loosely between his hands. He was so big! With broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms, he was as blond and pale-skinned as the other people in this flat country, but the strange flesh was simply a new garment worn by a soul she knew well.

Tirgit released a slow breath, feeling her nervousness recede. Michel was not a stranger. Even if tonight's activities were uncomfortable, she could trust him. They had known each other for centuries, after all.

She drained her goblet and walked toward him. As if her arm floated through warm water, she reached out languidly to touch Michel's hair. It was as soft as it looked.

Her pulse jumped as he caught her hand and kissed it, first the palm, then the tender, sensitive inside of her wrist. His eyes half-closed, he slowly kissed each fingertip, then turned to look up at her.

She giggled, and tugged at his hand, urging him to join her on the bed. They climbed up together. Balancing on the top step, he reached for her eagerly, pulling her gown and chemise over her head. His own clothing followed in a hasty shedding.

Then, sitting thigh-to-naked-thigh, he kissed her. His mouth was surprisingly soft, and it felt nice. She liked how he stroked her back and shoulders while he was kissing her, as if she were precious.

She kissed him back, returning his caresses. The first gentle warmth between her legs intensified as he stroked her breasts reverently. She finally permitted herself to simply enjoy until he pushed her back onto the mattress. The soft billows of the featherbed rose around her, smothering her as he settled his weight on her, pressing her down.

In a moment, her legs would be wrenched apart and the pain... Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. She shoved at him blindly, aware of his heaviness, his size, of his member pushing urgently at her belly, wanting to tear inside her.

Of course fighting him wouldn't help. It never helped, but she was choking, smothering-- "No!"

With a distraught groan, he rolled off her. "I'm sorry!"

He was apologizing to her? "No! You didn't--I'm just--" She struggled up to a sitting position. The warm wine-glow evaporated as she wondered what to do next. Her heart was still pounding.

She could leave now, and crawl to her pallet in the little chamber behind the fireplace. But then Cecilia would know that Tirgit had failed her once again. And she would rob Michel, who was being so kind, so considerate of her, of the opportunity to have a child because she was weak and terrified of pain.

Tirgit fisted her hands, digging her short nails into her palms. She had to go through with this. Perhaps if they started again, but more slowly? Would that try Michel's patience too much?

He rolled slowly onto his back and said hoarsely, "Tirgit, we can stop now, if you like. "

"No!" she said. "No. If I stop now, I'll never..." Have the courage to return.

"Did someone hurt you before?"

"I was a slave until Lord Dominic found me."

"Ah." There was a world of understanding in Michel's acknowledgment. "Honoria--that happened to her, too. And I--she--did not experience the worst of it." He paused. "Are you certain you want to go through with this?"

"Yes," said Tirgit. He understood! Perhaps it would be enough...

Michel folded both arms behind his head. "Did you enjoy kissing me? How I touched you?"

The candlelight revealed the flush that rose from his collarbones to his clean-shaven cheeks, and Tirgit found herself charmed. The sick fear subsided.

"Yes." That much was true.

Michel looked relieved. "Then perhaps I should just lie here, and let you work your will. You can take," he said, bright red now with unexpected shyness, "as long as you want. As long as you need. I shall do nothing, not even kiss you, except by your command."

To have him at her mercy... It might work. But, gods, he was so big, a powerful warrior in his prime, and his member was now fully erect. It was going to hurt. Even if he wanted to be gentle, it would take a great deal of force to make that fit in the narrow space between her legs.

"You won't move?" She crept closer to him.

"I give you my word as a knight." He seemed to feel some pain, but she couldn't imagine what. "Promise me in return that you'll be merciful."

Tirgit smiled, and rested her hand on his chest. "I promise." His heart was galloping beneath her palm and his pulse jumped in the hollow of his throat.

How had it been in all those other lives, when she had enjoyed making love with a man? Why did it feel so different in this body, so awkward and strange?

She stretched out beside him, and kissed him: eyes, cheek, forehead, and finally, his mouth. He responded, but kept his hands behind his head. Then she kissed his throat, and she heard him gasp.

He liked that! She lingered there, nipping tentatively. He groaned, moving involuntarily. The tingling warmth began to rekindle. She liked being in control, of knowing that she could do anything, touch anything...

She began to stroke his skin, moving her hand over his chest, the hair nearly as silky as the hair of his head, but a darker, richer gold. There were interesting scars over his ribs, white with age. She moved her hand to his flat stomach, then lower. He sucked in his breath as her hand hovered over his member, and every muscle tensed.

"Mercy!" he whispered, looking up at the bed's high canopy. His jaw muscles spasmed.

He was hovering on the edge of spilling his seed, she realized. She had to act quickly. Memory guided her as she straddled him, guiding him by hand. She breathed deeply as she accommodated him in slow stages, but the expected pain did not strike. There was no burning, no tearing. Just the sensation of being stretched, of being filled completely. She breathed a triumphant chuckle, feeling powerful and bold atop him.

"May I touch you now?" he pleaded.

Giddy at the lack of pain, she laughed as he laid his hands on her breasts.

He began to move beneath her, and she matched his rhythm, riding him as his fingers did wonderful things to her nipples.

He was breathing heavily, and his movements became faster, more frantic. Tirgit braced her hands on his shoulders, feeling sensation coil where he was touching her. Just a little more, and she would--

He groaned loudly and thrust up into her, his back arching. His hands clamped her hips, his movements short, jerky. One thrust, two, three, and he relaxed, his hands falling to his sides. "God's Bones!" He opened blurry eyes and smiled blissfully.

She smiled back. Briefly. She was grateful that it hadn't hurt, but she had started to feel herself responding, started to hope for something more...She climbed off him, and curled against his side.

He stroked her hip, then trailed his fingertips over her belly and slid them gently between her legs. He kissed her deeply, tenderly, and she opened to his touch, letting the pleasure build and crest into a long swoop down into the starry dark, as if she were a bird freed into the night sky.

Tirgit returned to her senses curled in Michel's embrace, aware that he was ready for her again. She turned in his arms, pressed breast to breast, hip to hip, and kissed him.

This time, she welcomed him inside with no hesitation.

* * *

Michel awoke hours before dawn, still accustomed to rising for Matins, though he would never sing the dawn office again in the company of his Templar brethren.

His loss was offset by the pleasant strangeness of waking up with an armful of soft girl. He buried his nose in her rose-scented hair, quietly celebrating the end of his long celibacy.

And yet... He couldn't reconcile the present with the past. Why had he made the decision to live despite his Templar vows? His memory kept circling to that moment. Dominic's right hand rises and grips Michel's chin in preparation for breaking his neck. "No! Wait!" Michel cries. "I want to remember! Whatever you want! Don't--don't--"

It nagged him like his old leg injury. Why had he surrendered?

He drew the coverlet up over Tirgit's bare shoulders. Deeply asleep, she was pressed against him, her head pillowed on his bicep, her arm loosely draped across his waist, her presence in his bed a stark reminder of the changes in his life.

Becoming a djinn again felt right, as if he had finally returned to his natural state. So why was he beating his breast about leaving behind his tiresome mortal life of duty and prayer and pain?

So what if he broke his oath to the Templars? Hadn't he ever broken a promise before? The memory was elusive. Inanna, the young woman, sits at his table, drinking beer through a straw. Her minister Ninshubur, speaker of truth, stands at her back... Too much beer later, he vows: "I will give these mes to my daughter, Inanna. In the name of my power, in the name of my temple, I will give the divine formulas to shining Inanna, my daughter."

He tried to summon more, and felt a throbbing pain. The headache that kicked in tore the gossamer threads of recollection.

It wasn't as if he regretted his decision, but simply that he was ashamed. He had wanted to expiate his sins, not commit more. Well, what was done was done, and he would try to keep to his honor in the future. After all, what was one slip in the span of centuries?

Logical as it was, that argument sounded hollow against the self-disgust in his heart. Why had he forsaken his vows in the face of death at Dominic's hands, when he had willingly entered Al-Mansurah's deathtrap with his brother Templars? What was the difference between the two tests?

Dominic wasn't in Al-Mansurah. Honoria's mental voice sounded exhausted. Go back to sleep.

* * *

Tirgit left his bed two hours later with a lingering kiss and the promise to return at nightfall. She seemed to have entirely overcome her fear of him; her aura glowed rosy with satisfaction as she dressed and slipped out of the solar to attend Cecilia.

Michel spent the morning down in the chateau's cellar, safely away from prying eyes, practicing the lighting and snuffing of torches using his power. At the end of three hours, he could reliably spark a fire from three yards away. Fine control of his aura in this body required different tricks than it had in Honoria's.

Of course, Honoria had been trained since her Transformation until her powers had become second nature. Michel, on the other hand, had reached the ripe age of twenty-seven in blissful ignorance of his abilities. He tended to choke off the flow of energy when his mind kept insisting This is sorcery! rather than perfectly normal energy channeling.

He broke his fast in the solar with Cecilia. As Tirgit waited on them, twinkling whenever she met his eye, Cecilia began a gentle interrogation of Michel, drawing out the details of his boyhood and travels to the point where he and his cousin had encountered Dominic in Egypt. She spoke bitterly of Roland, who had served as a Protector for a decade now but had refused to be Raised and Named.

Michel was sure she hadn't meant the message he received: that, even without full memory, Roland ably served the House. Perhaps there was some hope for him, after all.

Cecilia, perhaps sensing his change of mood, deftly returned to the topic of Michel's career among the Templars, seeming pleased at the recitation of his responsibilities. Cynically, Michel agreed with her assessment that a Marshal's training would serve a merchant house well.

They were discussing the future of the House in Ypres, currently just a toehold of a single couple and their children. Cecilia was entertaining the possibility of switching the focus of this House of the Rose from perfumes to specialty dyestuffs aimed at Flanders' burgeoning wool trade, when Josef de la Rose, Master of the Ypres House, was announced.

"Good," said Cecilia, sitting back and tucking her sleeves back from her hands with a regal gesture. She gave Michel an amused smile as Josef entered the room. "He should be pleased to meet his new Protector."

Short, dark-haired and golden-eyed like so many of Sharibet's descendents, Josef looked out-of-place in the ankle-length surcoat of a prosperous Flemish burgher. Over one shoulder he carried a rather large satchel. He bowed automatically to Cecilia, then to Michel.

"It is good to meet again. My True Name is Enki-am-dirig. May you remember me!" He spoke rather challengingly, staring directly at Michel.

Michel blinked, and waited hopefully for a memory, any memory, to explain why Josef was named "The Lord of Earth Prospers Me." Honoria was silent on this topic as well.

Too much time stretched between them. He had to say something. "Enki-am-dirig, it is good to meet again. I am glad my name remembers you." His ears and neck burned with embarrassment. "Unfortunately, I don't, that is, I can't..."

"What Lord Michel means to say," Cecilia interrupted smoothly, "is that, due to the irregular nature of his Transformation and Dominic's failure to Raise and Name him properly, he does not have access to all his memories. This is not meant as any slight to you--"

Josef took a deep breath and shakily launched into a prepared speech. "Indeed, as well as greeting Lord Michel, the irregularity of his Transformation it is precisely why I am here." He opened his satchel and pulled out a ceremonially incised double-bladed hand ax. The edges of the ax gleamed with recent sharpening, and quivered with the trembling of Josef's arms.

"While the House rejoices at the Finding of one of our Lost ones, the report of our sister Tirgit is that the Templar Preceptor--" he bobbed his head in Michel's direction--" was Transformed by Lord Dominic against his will, and without swearing allegiance to the H-House. I c-cannot a-a-allow this violation of the Law of the House to continue. Lord Michel must swear, or, or, or d-die."

Even as Josef pronounced this dreadful fate against him, Michel sympathized with his plight. How he had found the courage to come alone to confront them, he could not fathom.

"Master de la Rose, be at ease. I am most willing to swear whatever oaths you require, and I assure you that, however unorthodox Dominic's methods were, he did obtain my consent to be Transformed."

Josef gulped. "It is well. I am glad to hear these things from you. It's really only one oath. Do you swear that, in return for the shelter of the House, you will only drink what blood the House willingly gives to you?"

Cecilia leaned forward, eyes glittering. "You might wish to notice, Josef, that Michel has not yet accepted any shelter from the House. He has been in my house, and while he is here, I am the guarantor of his behavior."

"As you guaranteed Lord Dominic's behavior?" Josef shot back. "Lady, he's living in my house with my young daughters!" He caught himself before saying anything else, leaving Michel to wonder what Dominic had done now. "But that's another matter I wished to bring up later."

He turned back to Michel. "Do you make this promise to me, and to the House?"

"I do," Michel said easily.

Josef swallowed, and the amplitude of his fear diminished. "So witnessed. Welcome to the House, Lord Michel."

"I am glad to have returned," Michel said.

Wincing, Josef took another breath. "Now to the other matter. Lady, reports have come to me of irregularities committed by Lord Dominic, even before this last disturbance."

Cecilia sat back in her chair, tenting her fingers. "What do you wish me to do?" she asked in her sweetest voice.

"Lady, he's living in my home."

What magnitude of irregularity could cause Josef that degree of anguished intensity?

"Well, he can't stay here for now." She dismissed his complaint with an airy wave of her hand. "He's gotten what he wanted. He'll be no more trouble."

Josef took a firmer grip on his ax. "I accept your promise of responsibility in this matter, lady. So witnessed. Now as to the invitations Lord Dominic is sending to the local Houses for Lord Michel's Appointing, I m-must protest that he has issued these invitations without confirmation of the House's willingness to hold an Appointing. Y-You had no right to m-merely assume that the House would consent."

He held firm in the furnace of Cecilia's glare far longer than Michel would have guessed he could.

"My apologies to the House, Master Josef," she said, her expression smoothing into its accustomed sweetness. "You are correct. I neglected to present the candidate for Appointing to you before instructing Dominic to begin preparations. My intention was only to arrange things as quickly as possible."

"Of course, of course" said Josef, spreading his hands, gracious in victory. "But the formalities..."

"Very well," Cecilia intoned. "Will the House accept a new Protector? I affirm that his True Name is Ea, and that he is one of the Apkallu. He has been Raised but has not yet mastered his powers. I shall oversee his training."

Josef's bow was deep. "The House rejoices at the Finding of a Lost Apkallu. It is good to meet again."

Considerably calmer, he added, on an apologetic note, "My House may have only two of the kin, Lady Cecilia, but we are the House of the Rose. It is my duty to preserve our tradition."

She gave him a tight smile. "You have done so admirably. Tirgit, please bring Master Josef some wine. Will you sup with us?" Cecilia moved straight into small talk, ignoring the echoes of tension that still swirled through the solar.

Tirgit came back to life from her frozen immobility and bustled about.

But Josef was shaking his head. "I should not stay. The final information I must impart to you is that the Templars are like bees whose nest has been disturbed. They are turning the city over, stone by stone, searching for Brother Michel. Not a day passes but that one of their sergeant-brothers arrives at the Guildhall, poking his nose into things and asking questions. There have been rumors that they plan to start a house-to-house search soon, so I do not want to stay away too long. You might wish to post a lookout, in case they approach the Chateau."

"Will they try to search here?" Cecilia asked incredulously.

"It is certain they will, lady," Josef affirmed.

Michel, discomfited by Josef's news, wondered what would happen to him if the Templars discovered his whereabouts. If they seized him, it wouldn't take them long to discover that he was no longer human. And they would know of his connection to the House.

No wonder Josef was worried.

* * *

The weather was finally growing warmer, but in the house of Mathilde le Pelletier, cruel winter still reigned. In her sumptuous bed she lay, a prisoner of endless days of agonized coughing and aching joints, half-suffocated, alternately sweating and freezing as her fever rose and fell. Tisanes of mint, chamomile, horehound, and cherry bark failed to soothe the burning in her lungs. Only Cecilia's medicine eased her suffering.

"My sister, you must drink it," urged Cecilia, pressing the cold rim of a cup, redolent with licorice and poppy, to her lips.

After the first musty sip she tried to refuse another, but Cecilia insisted. Weakened from being bled yet again by the physician, Mathilde yielded, and drank, and fell into troubling dreams. At her husband's bedside she wipes bloody foam from his lips as the last of his life rattles in his lungs. (As it will soon rattle in yours, whispers the voice of doom.) The walls waver, and "Have him drink," Cecilia orders. Mathilde offers him the drugged cup. He drinks, and rises from his bed, his cheeks rosy, but a terrible accusation in his eyes. "Whose child is that?" he demands, pointing at Blanche, waving chubby baby hands at him. Yours, she tries to answer, but the lie swells in her throat, choking her. She can't speak, can't breathe... She's drowning in salt water, drowning in her own blood, battered by turbulent waters in the dark...

She tried to breathe. Somewhere there must be air!

"Shhh, my sister. You will feel better soon," crooned Cecilia, stroking her forehead, face, and arms. Stroking the inside of her body, too, with many, tiny, loving hands. There, she must still be dreaming.

Outside her husband's house in Ypres, Roland weeps as he prepares to mount his horse to depart on Crusade with the Count of Flanders, but this time, he turns back to her, and presses a string of blue beads into her hand. "Remember me!" As if she would forget...

At a wedding feast with people she doesn't know, who yet are kin, in a great hall made of golden stone, Cecilia presides at a high table. Michel is there, but somehow, he has become a red-headed woman with great angel's wings of gold. She would laugh, if she had breath.

The dream shifted again. She stands at the top of a great stone tower. Spread at her feet is a city of strange, square buildings, white-washed and dazzling hot. Beyond the griffin-guarded tile gates stretches a vast plain of barley fields divided by canals, and mountains teethe on the horizon. Her fringed linen gown, barely more than a chemise, leaves her arms bare. On her wrists, wide bracelets of gold set with lapis and carnelian glitter in the sunlight, warm and heavy against her skin. Below surges a sea of brown faces and shaven heads. "Ninharsag!" comes the cry from many throats. "Lady of the Mountains, bless us!"

After that she slept, dreamlessly, surfacing occasionally to worry about odd things. Had her apprentice, Ludo, sent the fox furs to the Sieur de Reineville as contracted? Had Blanche remembered to pack her summer gowns before going to live with her in-laws last winter? How was Michel getting along without clothes, shoes, or his staff to support his crippled leg?

She awoke slowly, alerted by the scent of sandalwood even before she forced her eyelids open that Cecilia sat by her bedside.

Her friend wore a pale blue wimple pinned with sapphires set in silver. Her head was bent over the pages of an open book. Not for the first time, Mathilde noticed that she resembled one of the carved female saints on the church portico.

Cecilia glanced up, her impassive face transfigured by a smile of surpassing sweetness. "You're awake!" She rose from her chair, and came to sit on the bed, tracing an affectionate finger down Mathilde's hot cheek.

"How--how long?" Mathilde was unable to draw a full breath, as if her gown were laced too tightly for movement or speech.

"Most of a week. I have been greatly troubled on your behalf, my good-sister." Cecilia put a surprisingly strong arm around Mathilde, helped her to a sitting position, and offered a steaming cup fragrant with herbs but not--thank God!--syrup of poppies.

"What...news?" asked Mathilde, fighting for breath, hoping that Cecilia had heard something about Michel's whereabouts.

"A shipment of silver fox came into Bruges from Reval in Livonia for you. I hope you do not mind that I asked my kinsman Josef de la Rose to make arrangements to have it delivered to your storehouse here. Your apprentice Ludo did not object to our aid."

No news of Michel, then. Mathilde tried, and failed to suppress her disappointment. "That was...very good...of you. I'll ensure...Ludo pays you...the tolls. And customs...fees."

Cecilia made a dismissive gesture. "Not to worry. You must recruit your strength, first. Oh, and I did not have the chance to tell you before you fell ill--"

"Yes?" interrupted Mathilde, eagerly.

"--but my brother Dominic arrived unexpectedly for a visit." Cecilia smiled as she said this, but Mathilde sensed that her friend was not pleased.

"Your...brother?" she wheezed. "Older?"

Cecilia inclined her head. "Headstrong, I fear. He was supposed to stay in Venice to conclude a contract, but he left as soon the trans-Alpine passes opened."

"Oh?" Mathilde wondered what had impelled Cecilia's brother to undertake such a long and difficult journey.

Cecilia wound the chain of her silver necklace around a fingertip. "I will introduce him when you are able to receive visitors."

Mathilde forced herself to grin. "Handsome?"

"Very." Cecilia mouth twisted wryly. "You will have to take care not to fall under his spell. He has a weakness for golden hair."

"I want to give...a gift. A collar of silver fox for him. And one to line a hood...for you. For your black hair..." Mathilde struggled for breath. An ominous tickle began, deep in her lungs, and she tensed, anticipating the ache that the coughing would bring.

"That would be a generous gift, and will serve us well when winter comes again." Cecilia's hand slipped behind Mathilde's shoulders, supporting her. A cup of mint tisane, lukewarm now, pressed against her mouth.

She swallowed obediently, though she knew from experience that no herb could prevent her from coughing, if the beast in her chest wanted to claw its way out.

But the cough never came. As she drank, she became aware of a strange warmth radiating from the other woman's touch on her back. It seemed to curl inside of her, like the fumes of mulled wine, warming and soothing, loosening the painful knots that had cramped for weeks.

The bedchamber seemed brighter, as if Cecilia were giving off a light of her own. But when she looked directly at her friend, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"How do you feel?"

Much better. Mathilde took a tentative breath. Her lungs filled with the bedchamber's stuffy air, sweeter than all the perfumes of Arabia. "I can breathe again!"

Cecilia returned her smile. "That gladdens me. Is there anything else I can do for you before I return home?"

"Yes," Mathilde said, deciding to be direct. "I beg you: If you know what happened to my brother, if you had anything to do with his disappearance, please tell me!"

It seemed that the room dimmed, like a cloud veiling the face of the sun. "I swear to you," said Cecilia, taking Mathilde's hand. "I did not lure Michel from the preceptory, nor did I abduct him, nor did I kill him."

"Is--is he dead, then?" Mathilde's transitory well-being dissipated in distress.

To her relief, Cecilia shook her head quickly. "I--The Templars have not reported finding his body."

Though she had been born a noblewoman, many years of marriage to Ypres' most prosperous furrier had taught Mathilde to discern meaning in what people did not say as much as in what they did. Cecilia's strangely specific denials had not disavowed knowledge of Michel's whereabouts, nor had Cecilia denied seeing him since his disappearance. Mathilde wished to ponder this, but Cecilia was talking.

"May I send a young maiden of the House of the Rose to tend to you when I cannot? Yvonne de la Rosa has some Moorish training in the physician's art. But she is a good Christian, I assure you," she added. "She is even now enroute to Ypres. She has some accounting skills, as well. She could help you keep that useless Ludo in line. I pray you will allow her to enter your service."

"I thank you." Perhaps this Yvonne might be able to help her regain her strength where Flemish physicians had failed.

She leaned back against the pillows. She hated feeling so weak and tired. Wistfully, she remembered her girlhood, and racing Michel on their ponies. Nowadays, even when the fever retreated for a while, she could hardly climb down the steps to the workroom and storerooms on the ground floor without becoming breathless and dizzy.

Loving fingers touched her brow, and Cecilia's presence flowed over her, serene as moonlight. "Shall I read to you? I have a new book, verses from a poet of Troyes."

Mathilde felt the cold embrace of the shroud winding inexorably around her limbs, heavy as lead weighing her down. Michel, where are you?

* * *

The next fortnight passed in a flurry of activity. Michel was able to come out of hiding when the first of a steady trickle of young men from nearby Houses arrived to prepare for the Appointing. He was passed off to the chateau's servants as just another cousin, albeit a blond one, and put to work.

As the cellar was cleared of stored goods, there was much hammering and sawing in the great hall, and the air was filled with the fragrance of freshly cut and planed wood. The maids carefully swept up heaps of pale curled wood shavings to use as tinder, and piled odd-shaped scraps of wood next to the kitchen sheds for kindling.

Michel, in addition to carpentry, wrote letters in cuneiform characters, using Honoria's memory of language and characters, to those Houses in Europe which would not be sending representatives to the Appointing:

Ea, Enki, one who delivers decisions, sends his greetings to the beloved people of the House in (city name), and bestows his blessings upon you, hoping that this letter finds you all well and prosperous. I am returned to you once again, having been known in this life as Sir Michel de la Roche-en-Ardennes.

It is with the greatest joy that I write to inform you of my intention to take the oath of Protector on the third Sunday after Pentecost this year of Our Lord 1260, which corresponds to the second day of Rajab in the 658th year after the Hijira. I pray you will accept me as your Protector once again, and that you will forgive the urgency of my Appointing.

Written by my own hand on (date).

In the afternoons, Cecilia drilled him in the use of his powers. In the evenings, they would partake of a communal meal in the great hall with their rapidly-growing population of guests. The representatives of the Ghent and Bruges Houses arrived first, followed shortly thereafter by visitors from Antwerp, Liege, Paris, and Troyes. There was laughter, and gossip, and even singing.

Then Michel would retire to the bed he now shared with Tirgit, and find sweet delight in her arms before they slept.

In the short lulls between tasks, he worried about his future. It would not be prudent to return to Flanders for a generation, not until those who had known Sir Michel de la Roche-en-Ardennes had grown old and died.

He didn't mind leaving the country, but he wished that he could let Mathilde know he was still alive. She had to be wild with grief. Cecilia, returning from one of her frequent visits to Ypres, reported that his sister had taken to her bed after his disappearance. Only a preparation of Cecilia's costly syrup of poppies had managed to quell her coughing and soothe her enough to sleep.

He wanted to be able to help her. Shouldn't he know some healing magic that would cure her ills? But he couldn't remember anything, and took out his frustration with a hammer. The kin were very impressed with his enthusiastic if clumsy carpentry, and he made friends easily, once they got over the shock of his half-memory. He might not remember their names the first time he met them, but he got them right thereafter.

The days passed quickly, but Michel was all too aware it was only an interlude.