stand against her son's death. How could he tell her now what she demanded to know? It would destroy her. If she knew the truth of it, she too would bear that burden to her grave. Knowledge of sin devours the soul as voraciously as the sin itself. He couldn't bear to see her love and respect for Gerard shaken for even an instant. She must go on believing that he was a good and honourable man, as in truth he was and would now remain so for ever.
Raffe turned his face away and felt the grasp on his arm slacken. Anne had known him long enough to realize that there were some things not even she could command.
She gently lifted her son's cold limp hand and slid the pearl ring from his finger. She fumbled for Raffe's hand and before he realized what she was doing, she pushed the gold band on to his finger.
'No, no, m'lady, I cannot . . .' Raffe protested, trying to pull it off.
But she folded his fingers around the ring. 'It belonged to Gerard's father and, when he died, to Gerard, but he has no son to wear it in his memory. His lineage dies with him. You have been more than a brother to Gerard. That makes you my son. Take the ring. Wear it in memory of them both. They would want you to have it.'
Raffe felt as if the gold ring had tightened on his finger, burning into it, like a red-hot copper mask that is bolted on to the face of a traitor. Nothing, nothing she could have done could have caused him more misery and guilt than this and yet he knew it was being done innocently in love and gratitude.
Lady Anne softly caressed the cheek of her dead son, as if he was again an infant sleeping in a cradle.
'Tell me this, Raffaele,' she whispered. 'Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that the girl will be able to carry this sin without causing harm to herself and her family?'
'She doesn't know what she carries,' Raffe answered dully. 'It will be no burden to her. She is a virgin. Just as when, in the ordeal by fire, the hand of the guiltless is unwrapped and is found to be unharmed, so the sin-eater cannot be tainted by the sin, not if that person is pure.'
'And if Elena is not a virgin?' Lady Anne persisted.
'She is!' Raffe's assertion came out more vehemently than he intended. Lowering his voice, he added, You heard her say so herself, m'lady. Besides, it was for the soul of your son that we did this, your son and my friend. Is the life and soul of a villein worth more to you than that?'
Lady Anne gazed down at her son's wasted face. As she looked up at Raffe once more, he saw the same ferocity of passion in her own eyes as he had once seen in her son's.
'I swear to you, Raffaele, there is nothing I would not give in this world or the next, and nothing I would not do, to save my son from the fires of hell, even to the damnation of my own soul.'
He thought of the copper-haired girl running away from him down the steps. Although she didn't know it, Elena was bound to him now. No marriage blessing, no consummation could tie them closer than this. Marriage was only until death; together they would carry this sin to the grave and into the life beyond.
Quarter Day of the Waxing Moon,
December 1210
Mistletoe — which some call All-heal, Muslin-hush or Kiss and go. It is hung in houses all year round to bring peace and fertility, and to ward off thunder and lightning, evil spirits, demons and the faerie folk. If it is hung over the entrance to a house or above a hearth, a guest knows that his hosts bear him no malice and he may enter with their pledge for his safety. If mortal enemies find themselves under a tree which bears it, they can fight no more that day.
Mistletoe is cut on Christmas Eve and hung on Christmas Day when the old sprig is burnt. But if new sprigs are cut before Christmas Eve it brings ill fortune, and if it is hung in the house before Christmas Day, a member of that household shall surely die before the next Christmas. It may also be cut on the Eve of Samhain or All Hallows, when