“The two grooms were slaughtered!”

“I am aware of it. What do you suggest we do?”

“Find their killer. It is the only way to protect ourselves.”

“You cannot,” insisted Svenson. “If these people see you rampaging back and forth, their every suspicion will seem to be confirmed. They'll burn us all for witches!”

“So I should stay indoors while you hunt the killer? Or should we give the task to Mrs. Dujong?”

“Do not be ridiculous—”

The rest of Svenson's words were torn away by the wind. Chang turned on his heel, striding away, his white face even paler with rage.

MISS TEMPLE lay on her side, turned away from the door, hair dark in the dim room and sticking to her throat where it was damp with sweat. One bare arm lay outside the woolen blanket, fingers—shorter and slimmer than he had recalled—clenched feebly. Chang tugged the glove from his right hand and reached out, hooking the curls from her face and tucking them behind her ear, the back of his fingers brushing across her cheek. He looked down at the thin scored plum line above her ear that tucking the hair back had revealed… if the bullet had flown but half an inch to the side… he could easily imagine the bone-shattering damage, her crumpled body, the gasps as she expired—how different everything might have been…

He heard footsteps outside, Elöise and Svenson talking. With a sudden darting move Cardinal Chang leaned down, brushed his lips across Miss Temple's cheek, and stalked out of the room.

“Cardinal Chang—” began Elöise, startled by his sudden appearance. Chang strode past her to the door.

“Cardinal Chang,” said Elöise again, “please—”

“I require some air.”

In seconds he was down the steps and marching away into the trees, the calls behind him like the cries of crows.

FOR THE first minutes he did not mark where he walked at all—generally south through the trees, away from the village. But the farther he went, the closer he came to the flooded part of the forest. He cursed aloud at the effort required to pull his boot free of the sucking mud, and shifted his course toward the shore.

Chang had not been to this part of the woods before. He leapt a rushing watercourse and climbed a small rise, beyond which he expected to see the ocean. With a bitter smile, he realized that once on the other side he would be happily hidden from any prying villager's eye.

But just before his head cleared the crest, Chang stopped. His hand twitched with an instinctive urge to draw a weapon, but he had none. He dropped to a crouch. He was certain he'd heard the snuffle of a horse.

It would have been difficult to steal a horse from the stables and remain unseen, especially with the flooding. Apparently someone had done it… but who? Chang raised his head over the bracken and was surprised to see, their long necks rising up from the foliage, not one horse, but two, and saddled as if their masters were ready to ride. Chang waited, and was rewarded by a sharp hiss and then, his eyes turning toward where it had come, a faint curl of ash in the air. Some one had just thrown water on a skillfully made fire whose smoke he had not noticed, even ten yards away.

A man with a shaven head stood struggling into a dark greatcoat. Near his stocking feet were travel bags, a grey blanket tied into a tight roll, and a pair of leather boots. Chang appreciated the variety of people's personal habits, yet knew from experience how incalculably stupid it was to leave one's footwear for last when dressing, especially in a dangerous forest. He launched himself into a dead run as the man lifted his left foot to its boot-top.

The bald man heard the rustling leaves but only turned in time for Chang's right forearm to catch him square on the jaw and send him sprawling by the fire. Chang wheeled around for a second man—why else would the other horse be saddled?—but saw nothing. The bald man swept a snubbed pepperbox pistol from his coat, but Chang kicked the weapon into the underbrush. Another kick landed just below the man's rib cage, doubling him onto his side, and a third, lower still, had him gasping. Chang placed a foot hard on the man's face, pinning it to the earth, scanning around him again, unable to hear any sound over the stamping, startled horses.

“Who are you?” he asked, not bothering to wait for a reply before grinding down with his boot. He relaxed the pressure and asked again. The man spat dirt from his lips and coughed.

“My name is Josephs—I'm a hunter…”

Chang noticed for the first time the long leather holsters slung near each saddle. “Those are carbines.”

“No,” the man said hastily. “You can't hit deer with a carbine.”

“I agree,” said Chang. “Only men. Where's your friend?”

“What friend?”

Chang pressed again with his boot. The other man must be near, he had to assume it… he had to assume he carried a pistol as well.

He stepped away from Josephs and toward the horses, untying their leads.

“What are you doing?” gasped Josephs.

“Where is your friend?” repeated Chang.

“In the village! Buying coffee.”

“You'll find the Pope before you'll find coffee there,” muttered Chang, stepping between the beasts and drawing a carbine from its sheath. He opened the chamber to confirm it held a shell, and slammed it home.

“If you want the horses, take them,” wheezed Josephs.

“I will. And you with them, back to the stables.”

“What stables?”

Chang raised the carbine to his shoulder, taking aim. “It is the last time I will ask. Where is your friend?”

Chang's thought in standing between the horses was to protect himself from being shot, but now he wheeled awkwardly at a rustle of leaves, lifting the carbine barrel to clear the horse's neck, and realized too late that the sound had come from a stone being thrown. At once Chang dropped between the horses—he hated horses—and threw himself toward the rustling, reasoning it to be his one safe refuge. He rolled downhill, then came up to his knees and raised the carbine, but no one was there. Josephs had taken the horses, pulling them so the animals blocked his body from Chang's aim.

Where was the second man? Chang charged in a circle to the left, boots digging in the soft earth, crouching low. It was a risk—he was running either into safety or straight into a bullet—but the second man must be on the opposite side. Josephs hauled at the horses, but the animals were confused and Chang rushed forward, bursting out of the leaves and outflanking Josephs completely.

Josephs dropped the reins and stumbled back, a wide-bladed hunting knife in his hand.

“It is him!” he cried over his shoulder. “The criminal!”

Chang reversed the carbine in his hands—shots would alert the villagers. Josephs’ lips twisted into a satisfied grimace, as if he were perfectly happy to weigh his knife against the carbine butt. The man was near as tall as Chang and quite a bit more solid. Josephs came at him with a snarl.

Why did the second man hold back?

The knife required Josephs to close quickly, to reach Chang with the blade and render the swinging carbine useless, and so Chang fell back against the charge, swiping once at Josephs’ knife hand to slow him down. Josephs paused, feinted at Chang's abdomen, and then slashed at his face. Like most deadly grapples, this would be over in an instant—Josephs would land his blow or die.

Chang whipped the carbine against Josephs’ forearm, cracking it hard and driving the knife stroke wide—by perhaps an inch—which threw Josephs off balance. Chang spun and drove a knee hard into his back, near the kidney, staggering the man enough for Chang to spin again, this time with room to swing the carbine. The blow caught Josephs across the jaw and dropped him flat. At once Chang flipped the carbine again and jammed the barrel into the gagging man's soft throat. Chang looked around him in the trees.