In a little while they came to the place where they had met the soldiers two nights before, and Murdo asked, 'Is it true what you told those men the other night?' he asked, trying to sound indifferent.

'About the pope's decree of absolution?' Emlyn gave him a sideways glance. 'Well,' he sighed, 'it is how I feel. No doubt our Latin brothers would have a different view, but those soldiers last night did not know we were not of the same order as the rest. Men like that are rarely eager for spiritual counsel; the guilty are reluctant sheep at best, I find.'

'Is it that you do not agree with the pope's decree?'

'You and I are friends, so I will speak freely,' Emlyn replied. He paused, gazing at the twilight sky; when he spoke again, his voice was thick with condemnation. 'The pope is a fool if he believes sin and forgiveness are commodities to be bartered in the marketplace of men's souls. The sins committed here will corrode the spirit just as surely as any others, and the lack of confession will haunt the heart through all eternity.'

These words produced a peculiar sensation in Murdo; he heard in them the ring of truth, and felt himself moved to confess his part in the wickedness perpetrated on that evil day. He saw again the smoke-dark sky and the leering faces of the soldiers, the blood sluicing red and hot from the wounds, the small mutilated bodies in the street. He could feel the suffocating oppression and revulsion of all he had witnessed that day, and knew it was not a burden he cared to shoulder the rest of his life.

'I am as guilty as anyone,' Murdo declared, his voice low.

'Yes?' Emlyn's voice was gently probing.

'I have done wrong,' he said and, with halting words, described the carnage and destruction he had seen in the Holy City – the burned temples filled with blackened corpses, the streets filled with bodies and flowing with blood, the poor drowned child, the insane slaughter of defenceless people. He told how he had come upon three soldiers chasing a woman and her babies, and how, after killing the woman and her children, the crusaders had turned on him. 'They would have killed me, too, but they were careless, and I was quicker. I killed the leader and the others ran away.' He then described how he had stripped off the mantle of the dead crusader and put it on himself. 'I was afraid,' he concluded. 'I wanted only to get away from there – from that. On my life, I did not mean to kill him. But he attacked, and he was so sloven, so thoughtless… the spear was in before I knew it. In truth, I might have avoided killing him, but I did not care. He died in the street, and I was afraid the others would come back. I took his cross so I would not be attacked again.'

'I see,' replied Emlyn after a moment's thought. 'You killed only to save yourself. You acted out of fear, perhaps, but no more. Had the soldiers given you another choice, you might have acted differently, yes?'

Murdo nodded.

'There is little sin in this, if any,' the priest told him. 'You acted merely to preserve your own life. There is no condemnation in that.'

'I did not care!' Murdo countered miserably. 'If I had acted sooner, the woman and her children might have lived. I stood there and watched and did nothing to help them. I was afraid!'

'Fear is ever the great failing of Adam's race, to be sure,' the monk replied. 'While it is true that fear sometimes leads us into sin, it is rarely a sin in itself.'

'I knew what I was doing,' Murdo countered. 'That is why I took the killer's cross for myself. That woman died trying to protect her children, but when the blades turned on me, I was a coward. I should have died defending her-instead, I stole another man's cloak so I could escape.'

'I am beginning to understand,' replied Emlyn. 'Perhaps, as you insist, you might have saved that poor woman and her babies. If nothing else, you feel you should have resisted deceit. You should have refused to allow wickedness and iniquity to outwit and overpower you. Yes?'

'It is true,' confirmed Murdo, feeling worse by the moment.

'You are a man of high integrity, my friend,' Emlyn observed. 'You demand it of yourself no less than of all those around you.' At Murdo's cautious look, he said, 'This is true as well-I know, otherwise you would not feel these things so deeply. You believe that you should have remained faithful to the truth that was in you, rather than relinquish your honour to the great lie all around you. These things you did not do, and for these things you stand condemned-in your own heart, at least.'

Murdo, in full agreement with the priest's impeccable judgement, felt his failure anew. Misery descended over him in thick, black waves. His throat tightened and he could not speak.

'Listen to me now, Murdo. I am a priest, and I am your friend,' Emlyn declared. 'And I will do what any friend might do: I will raise you from the pit into which you have fallen. And I will do what only a priest can do: I will redeem you and set your feet on the True Path once more, and guide you towards the Holy Light.'

'Please,' he begged, hope rising in him again. Only a heartbeat ago he had glimpsed himself so lost and utterly bereft of virtue, it did not seem possible that he could be redeemed. 'Tell me what I must do, and I will do it. Shrive me, Emlyn.'

'Very well,' agreed the monk. He halted and, taking Murdo's arm, turned him around. 'Kneel down and bow your head.'

The road was empty; there was no one around. Murdo did as he was told, bowing his head and folding his arms across his chest. Emlyn, placing a hand on his shoulder, began to pray, interceding on Murdo's behalf and begging forgiveness for him. He then said, 'Murdo, do you renounce evil?'

'I renounce evil,' answered Murdo with conviction.

'Do you cling to Christ?'

'I cling to Christ.'

'Do you repent of your sins?'

'I do repent of my sins.' In that instant, he ached to be rid of them and make a clean start.

'God save you, Murdo,' said Emlyn. Then, placing his hands on Murdo's head, he spoke a rune of blessing over him, saying,

'May the Great King, and Jesu, his Holy Son,

and the Spirit of All Healing,

Be shielding thee, be upholding thee, be abiding thee,

Be clearing thy path and going before thee,

On hill, in hollow, over plain,

Each step through the stormy world thou takest.'

The priest then clapped his hands and said, 'Rise, Murdo Ranulf-son, and rejoice! Your sins are forgiven, and remembered no more. You may resume life's journey with a pure and unblemished soul.'

As Murdo climbed to his feet once more, he did feel the burden roll away from him. There was a lightness in himself he had forgotten; he felt calm and reassured and, for the first time in a very long time, at peace with himself.

He looked with astonished eyes at the round-shouldered monk before him. 'How did you do that?' Murdo asked, astounded at the suddenness and intensity of the feeling.

Emlyn regarded him curiously. 'I suspect you have never been properly shrift before. Oh, it is a splendid feeling, is it not?'

Murdo agreed with all his heart. Certainly, nothing any other priest had ever said or done had ever produced such a remarkable and profound effect on him. It occurred to Murdo that perhaps for the first time in his life he had, however fleetingly, brushed against true holiness, and the result was wondrous. His spirit fairly bubbled inside him like a fountain overflowing a too-narrow container. He felt as if he could lift mountains with a single word, as if he could reach out and pluck the rising moon from the sky and hold it in the palm of his hand, as if he had but to stamp his foot to send whole legions of the Enemy fleeing back to their darksome dens.

They continued on then, but Murdo, no longer content to walk, wanted to run. He wanted to fly!