Prologue

       England, April 1390

      Night fell swiftly in this wild corner of the Peaks District, snuffing out the gray day and turning the hills black as the maws of hell. The wind rose, bearing with it a hint of rain, its chill fingers tugging at the shabby band of riders working their way down the rutted track between the mountains.

      Gowain de Crecy hunched his shoulders beneath his threadbare tunic and rusted armor, his body’s instinctive reaction to the cold his brain was too preoccupied to note.

      Riding beside him, Darcy Beaufort, his second in command, sighed, weariness mixing with exasperation. Gowain was a born leader, wise beyond his six-and-twenty years, brave and possessed of tremendous willpower. He was the sort of man other men would follow into hell itself. If Gowain had a failing, it was that he sometimes forgot others were not as strong and invincible as he. “Dammit, man, do you never tire?” Darcy grumbled.

      “What?” Worn leather creaked as Gowain turned and raised the visor of his helmet. Within its shadowed depths, his eyes glowed like green fire, but his chiseled features were as stark and forbidding as this rugged land of his birth.

      Silently Darcy cursed the woman whose betrayal had turned this idealistic man into a hard, driven one. “How much farther?”

      “Eastham lies just around the next bend.”

      “Good. For I don’t think the others could ride much longer.”

      Startled, Gowain looked back at the rest of his troop. Thirty soldiers, veterans of the wars in France and used to long, hard marches. Yet even they were drooping with fatigue from the desperate pace he’d been forced to set when they took the babe and fled from Blanche’s home. Alarmed, Gowain sought the nursemaid riding in their midst.

      Ruby’s thin frame was swamped beneath Gowain’s cloak, her shoulders bent as she shielded wee Enid from the elements. If the girl faltered, there’d be none to care for the two-year-old.

      For an instant, remorse pierced Gowain’s icy reserve. “I could call a brief halt so she might rest”.

      “Nay, we all need more than a few moments’ respite, and we dare not tarry that long in the open.”

      Gowain nodded and looked forward. “We’ll have rest and a safe haven, if we can just hold out for another league.” Or so he hoped. A shiver of foreboding raced down his spine. He was even tempted to pray, though he knew God did not heed him.

      “Are you certain your father will welcome us? It’s been some years, and you said you didn’t part on good terms.”

      “Warren de Crecy is not one to hold a grudge, especially against a wild lad too much like himself. He did not like it that I left Eastham, but he understood that I was young and hot-tempered, a second son determined to earn his fortune in France.”

      “And Ranulf?” Darcy asked. “Your wicked half brother?”

      His head came around sharply. “I never called him that.”

      “Not in so many words, mayhap…” Darcy hesitated recalling whispered words exchanged in the black hell of a French prison, dark confidences shared by men who’d never expected to see light or freedom again. Yet they had, thanks to Gowain’s sacrifice. “You told me your older “brother resented you and your mother. If he made your early years unbearable, he’ll doubtless not welcome us warmly. Mayhap we should bypass Eastham and press on.”

      “There is nowhere else to go,” Gowain said flatly. The search for Enid had exhausted his funds. They had little food left, and no other hope of shelter. Damn, he hated returning home a failure, his dreams dashed, but needs must “We will not stay long. I only want a place where we can rest for a few days, a week at most, and to ask my mother for the use of Malpas, her dower property. She offered it to me before…before I left Eastham…but I was too proud to take what was not mine.”

      “You will swallow your pride?”

      “To save wee Enid, gladly.” He’d sold his soul to save her, now he’d barter his pride, beg, if necessary, to provide his little daughter with food, shelter and, most important, a place where she could heal. Gowain lifted his face to the cold breeze, but the fresh air, smelling of earth and home, didn’t scour away the past. “I wish I had written to them to find out how matters stood at Eastham. If they have not prospered, I’d not inflict an additional burden on them by appearing like beggars at the gate.”

      “Always you think of others instead of yourself.”

      “If I had thought at all, I’d not be in this mess,” Gowain snapped. “God rue the day I took up with Blanche.”

      Darcy’s broad face, weathered beyond his eight-andtwenty years, softened. “If you hadn’t, there’d have been no Enid.”

      Gowain’s chest constricted with pain and guilt. Enid, the child he’d got on Blanche a short time before he was captured by the French. The babe born while he was in prison and presumed dead. Poor Enid, born after Blanche wed another. They’d cast Enid out like soiled goods, Blanche and her noble husband. God, when he thought of the hovel where he’d found his daughter—

      “Enid is only two,” Darcy said slowly. “She’ll forget.”

      “Forget!” Gowain snarled. “How can you say that, when she wakes screaming every night? You’ve heard her. Jesu, what can those beasts have done to make my babe so terrified? If only she would tell us what happened, mayhap I could help.”

      “Don’t!” Darcy said. “Don’t torture yourself, Gowain. None of this is your fault.”

      “I’d speak of it no more,” Gowain said gruffly. He shoved the anguish to the back of his mind and shut the door on it. A skill he’d mastered as a child and perfected over the years. He didn’t just hide his emotions, he ceased to feel them. ‘Twas the only way he’d survived the French prison and Blanche’s betrayal.

      “Is that Eastham?” Darcy asked, pointing ahead.

      “Aye.” A sense of relief swept through Gowain as his weary eyes traced the familiar lines of his birthplace.

      Set atop a rocky promontory, Eastham Castle’s twin towers rose defiantly against the rapidly darkening sky. Strong and stalwart as an ancient warrior, it cast a long, protective shadow over the village huddled at its base. After all that had happened to him of late, Gowain had half feared he’d return to find Eastham shattered along with his other dreams and hopes.

      “Do we bypass the village or ride through it?” Darcy asked.

      “Through. The way is shorter.” But as they approached the low wall of rocks surrounding the village, Gowain’s unease returned. The wall looked unkempt, the cottages neglected.

      “This place looks deserted,” Darcy muttered.

      “Hmm.” Gowain leaned from the saddle to examine the road in the fading light. The track showed signs of recent traffic. “It could be