“I already know everything I care to know about him. He is cruel, vicious, and utterly without honour.”
“Lucien told me you once asked him why I did not complete my vows to the church,” he said quietly.
Servanne held her patience in check, wondering what earthly—or heavenly-connection this had to the subject at hand.
“He would never tell you, but perhaps I should. I was but a few days from making my final vows,” he continued, and fingered the gold crucifix that hung from a chain around his waist. “I was assigned to attend the comforts of the bishop who had come to officiate at the ceremonies, and it was in the course of seeing to some minor oversight I stumbled across the bishop and the abbess from the neighbouring convent seeing to a late-night oversight of their own. The breaking of vows of celibacy is nothing new or shocking in either a monastery or a convent; that was not what I found the most disturbing. It was the fact that they were using a young and unwilling novitiate the abbess had chosen for the special occasion, and the fact that when they had finished with her, they intended to carve her up like some sacrificial offering.
“I stepped in barely in time to save the girl’s life, but in the process, the knife somehow found its way into the bishop’s chest. Before I knew it, I was in chains and being brought to trial for devil worship and murder. It was the word of the abbess against mine, you see. The tribunal consisted of churchmen—none of whom would dare admit to the macabre practices of their bishop.”
“What about the girl? You said you were in time to save her; surely she could have testified on your behalf?”
“She was in shock and half dead. It was almost three years before she spoke again, and then only because Lucien spared no expense in finding the best physicians in Normandy to care for her.”
“Lucien? He was involved?”
“He was present at the tribunal as the queen’s representative. He had no authority over the proceedings, but he watched and he listened, and … the day I was slated for final judgment, he came riding in out of nowhere, and slew the half-dozen Knights Templar who objected to his aiding my escape. The queen, whose land bordered the abbey, was not pleased, as you might imagine. But at the risk of his life and reputation, Lucien scoured the countryside, applying his own particular brand of persuasion to tongues that had, until then, remained silent against the bishop’s peculiar perversions. As it turned out, there were bodies of other mutilated girls discovered in places the bishop had frequented.
“Solely due to Lucien’s efforts, I was cleared of the charge of murder—and mine is not the only such tale to be told. All of the men who follow him—Sparrow, Robert, Mutter and Stutter—all of them owe him a debt of trust and loyalty which can never be repaid. Even Gil, stubborn as she is, would never have been accepted into the band if not for Lucien.”
Servanne halted him with a frown. “She? Gil Golden is a woman?”
Friar cursed the slip, but after a moment, nodded. “As pigheaded as any man I have ever laid an eye to, but aye, she’s a woman.”
Servanne was beyond reacting to any more surprises. “So. He saved your life, became the benefactor for a band of misfits and recalcitrants, and lives a life of assured comfort in service to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. All applaudable achievements, sirrah, but despoiled nonetheless by his current misdeeds.”
“Granted, his methods are sometimes … questionable, to say the least, but he is as honest and honourable a man as I have ever come across, and loyal to the death to people who matter to him.”
Servanne challenged the softened tone of his voice. “Are you trying to tell me I matter to him?”
“Mock me for a fool if you like, my lady, but I would go so far as to suggest the heartless rogue is in love with you.”
“Your jest is cruel, m’sieur,” Servanne said, her cheeks flaming hotly. “He is in love with no one save himself. If he were … if he were at all concerned for my welfare, why did he not send me away from this place instead of handing me over like a platter of rare meat?”
“Why does any man cut off his nose to spite his face? If he kept you