Finding the trail was far more difficult than she had imagined. If not for the fact that she had just passed that way-and that Yngvar was waiting for her further on-she knew she would have spent a cold night alone in the wood. It galled her to admit that Rognvald was right, but she accepted Yngvar's silent lead and followed on.

By the time they reached the camp, a small fire was burning brightly in the centre of the clearing. The bodies of the dead bandits had been removed, and Dag was sitting beside the fire, holding his bandaged head in his hands. He stood shakily as the others came into the camp.

'Where is Svein?' asked Rognvald. Dag replied that he was in the wood, digging graves.

'Paulo… Rodrigo,' Rognvald said, turning to the Spanish knights s they dismounted, 'go help Svein. We will come shortly and bring the priest for burial.'

Cait heard the names and realized she did not know the Spanish knights who served her. Her cheeks burned with shame at the thought. Four of them had given their lives in her service and she did not even know their names.

In that moment, the enormity of her blind, grasping, arrogant, vengeful ambition came dreadfully, painfully clear to her. She moved to the fire, collapsed beside it, and sat staring in hollow despair. Tonight, her all-consuming hunger for revenge had cost the lives of five good men, and the abduction of her sister. And this was just the beginning, she thought. Before it was over, how many more would pay?

She heard Rognvald say, 'Come, we will join them.' He instructed Yngvar to wrap the body of Matthias in his robes, and then he was standing over her. 'I said we would join them at the grave site.'

Miserable with guilt and the heart-breaking weight of the disaster, she found she could neither lift her head nor answer. She merely nodded her acquiescence.

He stood for a moment looking down on her; she could feel his eyes, and she imagined his expression of scornful reproach. And then he was beside her, his mouth close to her ear. 'Hear me, my lady,' he said, speaking softly, but earnestly. 'Nobility's worth is not proved by the brilliance of its glory, but by the light it lends to others in the dark night of need.' Then he took her hand and stood, raising her to her feet. 'Come, it is time to say farewell to our friends.'

Taking Dag by the arm, she followed Rognvald and Yngvar as they carried the body of the priest a short distance into the wood where, by the light of a fire of pine branches, Svein and the two Spanish knights, Paulo and Rodrigo, were completing a wide trench between two large trees. Using their swords they had cut into the soft turf, hacking through the roots, and scooping out the earth with their hands. The four dead knights lay in a neat row to one side, bundled in their cloaks, arms crossed upon their chests. Brother Matthias was carefully laid beside them, and as Cait and Dag took their places beside the single large grave, Rognvald and the others began moving the corpses to their final resting-place.

The monk was interred first, and then the knights, two at either hand. The symmetry seemed to satisfy some desire on the part of the Spanish knights to see their swordbrothers accompanied on their eternal journey side by side with a priest. Once they had been arranged, their faces were covered by the hoods of their cloaks and loose dirt was pushed over the bodies.

Cait stood and watched in the gently flickering light as the knights packed and smoothed the mounded earth with their hands. Then one of the Spaniards took up a wooden cross he had made from a forked branch and crosspiece lashed together with a leather strap. The crude cross was set in the top of the mound and anchored with a few small stones.

They stood for a long moment in silence, contemplating the grave, and then, taking a burning branch from the fire, Rognvald held it over the mound. 'In elder times,' he said, 'a fallen warrior would be sent on his journey to the otherworld with fire. Tonight we will honour this ancient custom, and leave our brothers and companions with a farewell flame to light their way through the dark valley of death to the City of Light.'

With that, he planted the burning branch in the grave mound to one side of the cross. He straightened and stepped back. 'May they enter the Great King's presence with thanksgiving. May they join the glad company of Heaven and find everlasting joy in the service of the Lord of Hosts.'

Svein took up a burning branch and likewise planted it in the mounded soil. 'Farewell, my friends. Though we must leave you in this strange place, we leave a flame to light your path. Go home to God.'

Next, Paulo took up a brand. He stuck it in the mound, saying, 'Thadeus, Ricardo, Hernando, Emari, Brother Matthias-you were my friends in life. Death has taken you away, but you will live in my memory, and in the deeds I shall do in your names. Farewell.'

At last, thought Cait sadly, I have learned all their names, and now it is too late.

The other Spaniard removed a branch from the fire and, holding it above the mound, said: 'Today I lost the friends of my youth. Tonight, I mourn the loss. Tomorrow, I will avenge them. From this moment, the blade at my side is dedicated to you, my friends, and I pray to Almighty God that it will deal justice to the cowards who cut short your lives.' He plunged the burning brand into the mound. 'I, Rodrigo Bilar, make this vow.'

Cait knew the sentiment only too well, and shrank from the recognition. Oh, Rodrigo, she thought, you do not know what you are saying.

Yngvar and Dag each bade their dead friends a heartfelt, if simple, farewell and planted their torches. Then it was Cait's turn. Plucking a branch from the fire, she stepped to the graveside and stared at the great oblong bulge of earth. What was there to say? She did not know these men; anything she said would be a triviality, an empty gesture that would mock their sacrifice.

So, without a word, she added her torch to the circle of flame around the wooden cross. The party stood for a moment in silence, listening to the wind sighing through the unseen treetops. Then Rognvald led them back to the ruined camp where, after they had finished putting up the tent for Cait, he addressed them, saying, 'Get what sleep you can. We resume the search tomorrow at dawn.'

Yngvar prepared a warm gruel of pease porridge with bacon, but Cait was too tired and numb with sorrow to eat. Instead, she went into the tent and sank down on to the thin pallet of pine boughs that served for a bed. She pulled Alethea's cloak around her and lay as still as she could-as if by remaining motionless, she might calm the ceaseless whirling of her thoughts. And though she closed her eyes, she kept seeing the Moorish bandits circling and circling like ravening wolves. She heard again the dull thunder of the horses' hooves, and the desperate shouting of the knights as they strove to • fend off the attack.

And, somewhere, above the clamour of battle, she heard Alethea's screams. Although she had not been aware of it at the time, she must have heard her sister's cries for help as she was carried off. She heard something else, too: a man's voice, frantically shouting for help. The hopelessness of the cry brought her bolt upright in her bed with a gasp.

'Abu!'