"Salt, sulphur and mercury," she said, "the three basic elements of alchemy and, therefore, of transformation into a new life." The elements mixed, she carefully transferred them into a peculiar locket half as long as her forefinger, fashioned in the shape of a knight's broadsword.

She looked into Bravo's eyes and said, "Are you prepared to sacrifice your work, your friends, your family for the greater good of your fellow man?"

"I am."

She tapped him on the left shoulder with the alchemical sword.

"Do you swear to safeguard the secrets of the Order, with your life, if need be?"

"I do."

She tapped him on the right shoulder.

"Do you swear to oppose our enemies a` outrance?"

A` outrance. It had been some time since Bravo had heard the phrase, which in medieval terms meant jousting to the death. Now, uttered in this unsettling tomblike chamber, with all the implications that went with it, including the prospect of his own death, the words were as alive and full of meaning as they had been in centuries past.

"I do."

She tapped him on the crown of his head, removed the last cupping device, which had been on three times again as long as the second.

"It is done, heart, body and spirit, you are part of us now."

Donatella did not know how long she knelt in the water. Ivo's head grew cold and heavy between her hands, as if it had turned to lead. At some point a profound sense of unreality set in, so that it seemed to her that she was cradling an effigy instead of a human being. Dimly, she was aware of the fading light, of the world moving around her, but it was as if at the moment she saw Ivo's head breaking the surface of the lake, his fixed and staring eyes blindly upon her, the entire Voire Dei ground to a halt and was now suspended between them. She wanted to vomit, but she could not; she wanted to die, but she did not. Her body, betraying her, continued to draw ragged breath, sobs pulled from deep in her belly, burning her throat like acid. She began to shiver, the trembling far beyond her control. And though her cheeks were flaming, the rest of her was as cold and heavy as Ivo.

Gradually, she became aware that two long-fingered hands were gripping her shoulders, quieting her tremors. Someone was standing behind her. She felt his warmth seeping into her, and slowly she allowed herself to relax back against his knees and shins.

"I did not believe that this day would come. I did not believe that it would happen this way." The deep male voice reverberated through her like distant thunder. "I remember the day the two of you came to us. You were hollow-cheeked, emaciated, stinking and crusted in grime, and yet in your eyes I saw something." The fingers dug into the flesh of her shoulders, lending her strength as well as warmth. "They were going to throw you out, you never knew that. I stopped them. They were not happy, they said you were my responsibility. I was to train you, and after thirty days you would be tested. If you didn't measure up, you would be thrown back into the street and I would face dire punishment. I smiled at them and accepted. As you know, I love challenges."

Donatella, listening with every fiber of her being, was cast back to the first days with the Knights of St. Clement.

"I worked you hard-mercilessly-and never once did you or Ivo complain. Instead, you worked all the harder, slept standing, ate in quick, ravenous mouthfuls, and returned to your training as eagerly as pups."

"You gave us something to live for," Donatella said thickly. "It was the only gift anyone ever gave us."

One hand released her shoulder, the long fingers tangling in her hair until she groaned.

"One day Ivo came to me. He was sick of training, he said, tired of-how did he put it? oh, yes-tired of performing like a circus animal. 'I am like an arrow,' he told me, 'whose point has been sharpened to a razor edge, but has never been nocked into a bow.' And, you know, Donatella, he was right. That was the genesis of your first mission. Do you remember it?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He caressed her. "How could you not? You were almost killed and I-I was almost undone by an enemy from inside the Knights. Ivo saved us both, didn't he, yes." The fingers pulled lightly, lovingly on her hair. "I never forgot the service he did me that day, now it is time to repay him."

Gently but powerfully he pulled her to her feet, turned her around to face him. "Leave Ivo to me, Donatella. I will bury him with the honor he deserves. No, no." He shook her a little as she fought him. "Listen to me, you have your quarry to think of, you have Ivo's murder to avenge."

She looked into the eyes she knew so well. "But our orders were to capture Braverman Shaw, not kill him. You were quite clear about the matter."

"That was before Shaw murdered Ivo." His thin lips curled into a chilly smile. "Go now. You are loosed upon our enemy a` outrance."

"I've waited a long time for this," Dexter Shaw said. "I never for a moment doubted it would come."

He looked older to Bravo, his beard whitened, longer, the lines on his faced etched more deeply, but then again Bravo himself was a child of eight or nine. Father and son sat on the porch of a shingled house-a place, it seemed to Bravo, that only existed in his dreams. It was late autumn, because the light, vivid and clear, filtered through a mare's nest of bare branches on the perfectly symmetrical beeches. But curiously, he felt no chill. They might have been inside for all the air that stirred. And beyond the trees there was a haze that obscured everything, so that it was impossible for him to tell if there might be houses or fields, brooks or mountains, or even if there were clouds in the sky.

"I killed a man, Dad. I had no other choice."

"Then why blame yourself?" Dexter Shaw said.

"A life is still a life."

"Do you think that, or do you think you should be thinking it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Very much. Haven't I taught you not to fool yourself? You're in a war, Bravo, that's what the Voire Dei is all about-it has been from the beginning. In war there are casualties and there are victors, there's no room for doubt, and believe me when I tell you that semantics breeds doubt. In order to prevail you must cast out all doubt."

Bravo looked bleakly at the figure next to him. My father is dead, he told himself. What am I doing here in this strange place having a conversation with him? He was about to ask his father this question when Dexter Shaw spoke.

"You're one of us now, Bravo, as it was meant to be from the moment of your conception. Your mother knew this, of course, and it terrified her. To be honest, it drove a wedge between us that I was never able to dislodge. She never wanted you to be a part of the Order. 'It's only your belief, Dex,' she'd say, 'only your stupid, stubborn belief. If you love me, you'll promise to keep our baby safe.' No matter what I said, I couldn't make her understand that it wasn't a matter of what she wanted or even of what I wanted. She never forgave me for that, not even at the end."

"You were only doing what you needed to do, Dad," Bravo said. "She had to have known that. And, in your own way, you were doing what you could to keep me safe. I need every bit of the training you forced on me. I wish I'd understood that sooner."

Dexter Shaw sighed. "So do I, Bravo, but there was no way to tell you before now. I don't mean to say that I haven't made mistakes in my life-I have regrets, plenty of them, but I have faith. In you I know I'll find my redemption…"

Head bowed, hunched over, Bravo shivered with the last echo of his father's voice. It was just as well that he was sitting, because he might otherwise have collapsed onto the floor.

"The weakness and vertigo will pass quickly," Jenny said, speaking of the cupping.