Adelia ignored will o’the wisps, not knowing, nor caring, what they were. “Go on.”

“So Peter, he calls back he’s going to meet someone for the Jew-Jews.”

“Ju-jus?”

“Jew-Jews.” Ulf was impatient, twice prodding a finger in the air toward Chaim’s house. “Jew-Jews, that’s what he said. He was going to meet someone for the Jew-Jews, and would Will come with him. But Will says no, and he’s bloody glad he did, acause that’s when nobody saw Peter after.”

Jew-Jews. Meeting someone for the Jew-Jews? Running an errand on the Jew-Jews’ behalf? And why that infantile term? There were a hundred derogatory terms for Jews; since she’d been in England she’d heard most of them, but not that one.

She puzzled over it, recreating the scene at the river on that night. Even today in full sunlight, even with the crowd around Saint Radegund’s tree farther up, this bit of bank was quiet, forest and parkland closing in behind it. How shadowy it would have been then.

Peter’s character, she thought, emerged from the narrative as fey, romantic; Ulf had described a child more easily distracted than the dependable Will.

She saw him now: a small figure, waving to his friend, pale among the dusk of the trees, disappearing into them forever.

“Did Will inform anyone of this?”

Will had not, at least not the adults. Too scared the bloody Jews would come after him next. And right to be so, in Ulf’s opinion. Only to his peers, that knee-high, hidden, disregarded, secret world of childhood camaraderie, had Will committed his secret.

The result, in any case, had been the desired one: The Jews had been accused and the perpetrator and his wife punished.

Leaving the ground clear for the murderer to kill again, Adelia thought.

Ulf was watching her. “You want more? There’s more. Get your boots wet, though.”

He showed her his final proof that Peter had returned to Chaim’s house later that night, proof of Chaim’s guilt. Because she had to scramble down the bank to the river’s edge and bend low, it did indeed involve getting her feet wet. And the bottom of her skirt. And a considerable amount of Cambridge silt over the rest of her. Safeguard came with them.

It was when the three emerged back onto the bank that darker shadows than those of the trees fell across them.

“God’s eyes, it’s the foreign bitch,” Sir Gervase said.

“Rising as Aphrodite from the river,” Sir Joscelin said.

They were in hunting leathers, sitting their sweat-flecked horses like gods. The corpse of a wolf slung in front of Sir Joscelin had a cloak lain over it from which a dripping muzzle hung down, still caught in the rictus of a snarl.

The huntsman who’d accompanied them on the pilgrimage was in the background, holding three wolfhounds on a leash, each one of which was big enough to pick Adelia up and carry her off. The dogs’ eyes watched her mildly from rough, mustachioed faces.

She would have walked away, but Sir Gervase kneed his horse forward so that she and Ulf and Safeguard were in a triangle formed on two sides by horses with the river as its base behind them.

“We should ask ourselves what our visitor to Cambridge is doing paddling in the mud, Gervase.” Sir Joscelin was amused.

“We should. We should also damn well tell the sheriff about her magic axes when a gentleman deigns to notice her.” More jovial now, but still threatening, Gervase was out to regain the supremacy he’d lost to Adelia in their encounter. “Eh? What about that, witch? Where’s your Saracen lover now?” Each question came louder. “What about ducking you back in the water? Eh? Eh? Is that his brat? It looks dirty enough.”

She wasn’t frightened this time. You ignorant clod, she thought. You dare talk to me.

At the same time she was fascinated; she didn’t take her eyes off him. More hatred here, enough to eclipse Roger of Acton’s. He’d have raped her on that hill merely to show that he could-and would now if his friend were not by. Power over the powerless.

Was it you?

The boy beside her was as still as death. The dog had crept behind her legs where the wolfhounds couldn’t see him.

“Gervase,” Sir Joscelin said sharply. Then, to her: “Pay my friend no mind, mistress. He’s waxy because his spear missed old Lupus here”-he patted the wolf’s head-“and mine didn’t.” He smiled at his companion before turning to look down again on Adelia. “I hear the good prior has found you better accommodation than a cart.”

“Thank you,” she said, “he has.”

“And your doctor friend? Is he setting up here?”

“He is.”

“Saracen Quack and Whore, that’ll look good on the shingle.” Sir Gervase was getting restive and more outrageous.

This is what it’s like to be among the weak, Adelia thought. The strong insult you with impunity. Well, we’ll see.

Sir Joscelin was ignoring the man. “I suppose your doctor can do nothing for poor Gelhert here, can he? The wolf sliced his leg.” He jerked his head toward one of the hounds. It had a paw raised.

And that, too, is an insult, Adelia thought, though you may not mean it to be. She said, “He is better with humans. You should advise your friend to consult him as soon as possible.”

“Eh? What’s the bitch say?”

“Do you think him ill then?” Joscelin asked.

“There are signs.”

“What signs?” Gervase was suddenly anxious. “What signs, woman?”

“I am not in a position to say,” she told Joscelin. Which was true, since there were none. “But it would be as well for him to consult a doctor-and quickly.”

Anxiety was turning to alarm. “Oh my God, I sneezed a full seven times this morning.”

“Sneezing,” Adelia said, reflectively. “There it is, then.”

“Oh my God.” He wrenched the reins and wheeled his horse, spiking its side with his spurs, leaving Adelia spattered with mud but content.

Smiling, Joscelin raised his cap. “Good day, mistress.”

The huntsman bowed to her, gathered the hounds, and followed them.

It could be either of them, Adelia told herself, watching them go. Because Gervase is a brute and the other is not means nothing.

Sir Joscelin, for all his pleasant manner, was as likely a candidate as his objectionable companion, of whom he was obviously fond. He’d been on the hill that morning.

But then, who had not? Hugh, the huntsman with a face as bland as milk that might well harbor as much viciousness as Roger of Acton without showing it. The fat-cheeked merchant from Cherry Hinton. The minstrel, too. The monks-the one they called Brother Gilbert was a hater if ever she’d met one. All had access to Wandlebury Ring that night. As for the inquisitive tax inspector, everything about him was subject to suspicion.

And why do I consider only the men? There’s the prioress, nun, merchant’s wife, servants.

But, no, she absolved all females; this was not a woman’s crime. Not that women were incapable of cruelty to children-she had examined many results of torture and neglect-but the only cases that even approached this one’s savage, sexual assault had involved men, always men.

“They talked to you.” Ulf’s stillness, unlike her own, had been the grip of awe. “Crusaders, they are. Both on ’em. Been to the Holy Land.”

“Have they indeed,” she said flatly.

They had, and had come back rich, having won their spurs. Sir Gervase held Coton manor by knight’s fee of the priory. Sir Joscelin held Grantchester manor of Saint Radegund’s. Great hunters they were and borrowed Hugh and his wolfhounds from Prior Geoffrey when they had to run down a devil like the one across Sir Joscelin’s horse-been taking lambs over Trumpington way, it had-acause Hugh was the best wolf hunter in Cambridgeshire…

Men, she thought, listening to him run on in his admiration. Even when they are small boys…