The Execution

By Sharon Cramer

THE EXECUTION ~ First book in The Wintergrave Chronicles

Parallel lives are fated to collide in The Execution, a medieval, fantasy thriller, dark adventure, and tragic love story set in fourteenth century France.

A young priest enters the prison cell of a condemned mercenary and is shocked to see the face of this murderer is his own—a mirror image of himself. Unknown to each other until now, the twins form a bond of brotherhood, sealed with their darkest secrets.

But with only hours until the execution, the priest questions which man should truly be condemned. Should it be the ruthless killer—a boy from an orphanage who suffered the unimaginable—or himself, the man of God whose own tormented desires ended in tragedy?

As the sun rises, the young priest knows what he must do. But can he make the ultimate sacrifice, and free them both?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Cramer
• Release date: Jun 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9780983943747

Sharon Cramer

Sharon Cramer is an aspiring time-traveler, alien princess, and master painter of Halloween faces. In the meantime, she writes from a dank, dark cave, somewhere in Washington State. She is currently working on a Sci-Fi/fantasy series called THE CERULEAN STAR, and has a breakthrough, medieval paranormal novel series—The Wintergrave Chronicles—beloved by an amazingly loyal following. When not painting monsters and planning historical ruin and perfectly crushed hearts, Sharon can be found wandering the woods of Eastern Washington, talking to herself. Driven by sleeplessness and a seemingly endless draw to the keyboard (and the occasional extra strong coffee) she is inspired by unorthodox friends and extreme weather. Mother to three sons, a good horse, and an assortment of fish (most of which have names), she is married to a man who surely has won the Nobel Prize for Extreme Tolerance.

Book preview

†

Tomorrow…he would be dead.

* * *

Wax ran down the candle and dripped off the table onto the floor, lengthening the many tiny, hardened rivers that already collected there. Hunching over the table, a cowled priest—fingers blackened from ink—failed to notice, so intent was he on his writing. This was a task of the most urgent sort, and he mumbled as he wrote, inaudible snatches of words he had spoken many times before.

"I will. You said it would be so, but the red…"

Scratching feverishly on the parchment, he paused, sweeping a sleeve across his dry lips before continuing. Suddenly, casting the quill aside, he seized the parchment and crumpled it, flinging it aside before picking up the quill and starting again with a fresh parchment and even greater intent.

Down the hallway, another’s footsteps could be heard, or perhaps not, as someone approached and stopped…outside his door.

D’ata! Son, are you in there?

The stranger knocked softly on the heavy door, but the priest ignored him, much too occupied to be bothered by the unwelcome visitor. He scribbled on and mumbled more things.

But the knocking returned, more urgently this time, and the priest flinched as the older voice asked, "D’ata, have you seen the prisoner? It’s late, son. He must be seen."

The hunched form halted his scribbling and stayed like this, suspended over his work as though frozen. It was as he had imagined it sometime as a child—if you don’t move, the monsters can’t see you….

D’ata, may I come in? the kind voice asked, and when it was not answered, the door creaked open. An older, considerably larger priest entered, licking his lips. Father Leoceonne cleared his throat. "The prisoner; you must see him, D’ata. You know it is the path back."

The young priest dropped his head and sighed heavily. Very deliberately, he crumpled the parchment, replaced the quill and pushed himself heavily to his feet. With head bowed, he skirted Father Leoceonne and moved toward and out the door.

Father Leoceonne, a growing look of concern on his face, watched long enough to see the lone figure retreat down the hallway and disappear in the darkness. Pulling back into the tiny room, his eyes widened as he glanced about the floor, rather the absence of much of it—so obscured was it with crumpled bits of parchment.

Picking up one of the discarded notes, he flattened it out alongside the one left on the desk so that he could read them both. His worry compounded as he saw…on both parchments, Please forgive me. Please forgive me. Please forgive me….

CHAPTER ONE

†

D’ata

Pronunciation: Dee-yah-duh

Origin: Latin as in ‘given’

The Dungeon: Eight p.m.

Mediterranean France in November was dismal. It was a time of short gray days and long black nights.

The priest’s robes hung in heavy woolen folds, damp from the fog as he made his way along the muddied streets of the sleeping town of Toulon. The village sat on the coast and was beautiful in the summer, if you ignored the nature of those who gravitated toward it for business. However, it was summer nevermore for this one.

The cotton underlinen clung uncomfortably to his body, and his collar chafed the back of his neck. It was a despicable feeling, and tonight his whole outlook was miserable. D’ata wished for the Marseille. Really, he wished for the oblivion of his childhood in the Marseille, but wishing was not praying, and even prayers seemed to go unheard as of late. But that did not matter tonight. He had something to attend to before he could get back to matters of greater importance—his writing.

A moth, drawn to the light of a street lamp, spiraled downward into the miniature lake left by another’s footstep. D’ata watched as it thrashed upside down, tacked to the surface of the muddy water. The puddle took on a rainbow color as the dust slowly eroded from the moth’s wings—color in a dismally gray world. But D’ata did not see color anymore, save one…red.

Stepping on the insect, he impaled it into the muck, finishing its fate. It was a gesture of mercy, a mercy killing. Stunned by how violent an act of kindness could be, he paused and on some level begrudged the insect its oblivion, sanctuary, precious nothingness.

He scratched at his neck. It would be good to finish this undesirable business. Afterward, he would go back to the stable behind the church where he could shed the godforsaken robes. An evil trick it was, to make a holy man dress so. Then, perhaps, he could escape between the rare, worn, handwritten pages of other lands—volumes borrowed from the papal library in Avignon. Often, he would awaken later with his hand resting upon a still-open volume…not one step closer to redemption.

The others judged this one. While he read, the older priests slept, having eaten too much—fat bastards. It was, he thought, obscene how much they could eat given how widespread famine was.

The stable room was his only sanctuary, away from the huge stone structure of the cathedral and his writing. Such a wretched task it was and one he hoped to be done with before too long. He seemed to be so close to finishing.

The church was magnificent, its colossal stone tower pointing elegant and cold to the sky, to the one…who looked away. D’ata preferred the stable. His room used to be the tack room and still smelled of old leather and oil, and this appealed to him, reminded him of…someone. Now, there were no fine horses, just one old nag, which except for the attentions of the young priest gained no attention at all.

D’ata kept his door barred at night and lit a single candle to read by. In the summer he stretched out naked on top of the blankets, allowing the cool night breezes to caress his skin after the torture of wearing the heavy robes all day. He did not believe in the shame of nakedness to the eyes of God. He did not believe in many things now, for he was not like the others. Perhaps that was why his sleep was so often disturbed. Satan is a trickster, and if the sleeping mind of a persecuted soul becomes the Devil’s playground, then D’ata’s was the carnival insane.

Sometimes the older priests peered in on his emaciated nakedness, scowling, their faces drawn as though in futile envy. They must have missed the horrible melancholy on the sad face of the youngest priest as he slept, murmuring aloud his heartbroken dreams.

Tonight, he made his way slowly through the darkness, watching his feet as he went. Along the muddied street, which had just that day been busy with townspeople scurrying about, preparing for the next day’s big events, there was only ghostly silence. The fog lamps were still lit, left burning for an unfortunate traveler or one so disturbed as to be out on such a dreadful night. They sizzled as icy drops of rain began to fall. Hiss, the town seemed to whisper. Listen—we have a terrible story to tell….

The buildings closed in on him like unwelcome echoes in the night, and D’ata was careful not to look at the storefronts and cottages. He knew they only pretended to be sleeping, their shuttered eyes closed. But really they watched, judging the wretched man forced to finish his wretched task.

Wavering from one side of the street to the other, he connected the lights like a black widow weaving its crooked web. To a passerby he must appear drunk, and this might have amused him, except that his heart wandered upon the edge of despair, for he could no longer escape the darkness that enveloped his soul.

Turning the corner, he looked beyond the smithery. In the distance, the looming outline of a castle rose beyond the town square. It was black and ominous, and appeared as though it did not belong in the tiny French village.

The feudal family who had once lived there had been brutally murdered. They were nobility—tragic casualties of the ever-profitable business of war. The adults had been drawn and quartered, their bowels doused with molten wax and lit on fire. Such a gruesome act it had been, and particularly creative, even for late fourteenth-century justice.

Even more terrible were the tidal waves of Black Death. When they surged, mankind suffered like never before. Even the earlier starvation of the crop failures was preferable to the plague.

On the edge of Toulon, it had taken sixty years to raise the stones of the church. In the grand scheme of things, that was very efficient. Monumental structures such as these normally required close to a hundred years to complete, like the monastery in Bordeaux. But to D’ata, it was not serfdom that had raised the magnificent church but the work of medieval society, a society possessive of its things, very possessive of…him.

Mankind was leaping forward, or so they believed. Universities were popping up everywhere. The compass and mechanical clock were invented, and Marco Polo had traveled to China. Dante penned his incredibly tragic tale of human fate, and religion was bloody chaos. On one hand society boasted the teachings of the gentle St. Francis while on the other it blessed the barbarism of the Inquisition.

France was the most powerful country in Europe, but in the name of faith, constant war plunged it into rivers of blood and carnage, and the plague, casting its ruthless cloud at intervals, eventually consumed one-third of France’s population. Death was everywhere—a wicked lover that invited all to its arms as it peered into every window, whispering, ready to kiss the lips of any who dared to live.

The hearts and minds of men were not right; humanity was given to hopeless thoughts and desperate deeds. D’ata frowned. These were woeful thoughts, but let them have their death and despair—he had enough of his own.

The mucked-up streets gave way to cobbled stone as the priest approached the small township square. He kicked his feet, slinging the mud from his boots as the mire gave way to more solid ground.

Looking up, D’ata saw the black outline of the castle rising high above in the distance. Its towers stretched like arms into the sky as though it would swoop him up and dash him into the rocky sea beyond. The castle housed the criminals of the state for five townships. Tonight it was also the end-stage of his holy pilgrimage. He dreaded this visit, had put it off all day.

As he walked past the square, the gallows scaffolding stood skeleton-like, gaunt and spindly. The timbers were giant—an unholy mantis poised in the night, waiting to behead its prey. He squinted….

Why…was she standing there? Unspeaking, she was reaching for him! From the platform of the gallows!

Rubbing furiously at his eyes, D’ata blinked, but the vision was gone—just a figment of the fog. He moved with heavy feet to the other side of the street, away from it.

There had been a flurry of activity to raise the platform for the executions. It had been almost festive. Eat, drink…and watch.

Three men were to be beheaded. One was to be hanged. It was certain to be a lively, social affair. The vendors and gawkers would be out en masse, profiting as always from the macabre curiosity of horrible things.

Curious how human nature draws more to a death than a birth. Let a child be born and a few significant loved ones will gather, but let a man die? Even his most remote acquaintance will attend.

D’ata was expected to attend the executions—some ridiculous notion left unspoken that the presence of a holy man would secure the inevitable will of God. He thought it a freakish barter at best and hated it.

He had already seen the pathetic unfortunates scheduled to lose their heads. They were pitiless creatures, belching and scratching their genitals while he offered them confession. They had led lives of petty disregard, their sins carnal and selfish, without the notion of consequence or redemption. Did they deserve to die? Only God knew…. They were most likely victims of these miserable, chaotic times. No matter, for tomorrow their eyes would look briefly up at their decapitated bodies. They would gaze in surprise as the awareness of their final moments dimmed, like the moth, flailing, staring up at the street lamp before being smashed into Dante’s Heaven or Hell.

D’ata trudged on. Only one remained to be seen—the murderer, the one to be hung, the evil one. Yet the necessity of absolution was divine law, was it not? No matter the crimes, all men might seek absolution and with forgiveness, or enough gold, could enter the kingdom of God.

He breathed in deeply of the damp night air, dreading again his task. But if he did God’s bidding, perhaps there would be mercy and he would not have to write anymore; perhaps then…at last, he would be granted his final indulgence.

For some reason, this gave him no peace tonight, and his mood blackened, for he knew that to wish for the passage of time was dangerous. The soul lives to experience the moment. To bleed is to live. A terrible color, though, red…if he could just forget that color.

Pausing, he reached up and gently touched his right temple with the first two fingers of his hand. He was uncomfortable, his thoughts tormented him, and his feet stuck in place. It seemed that his heart sagged in his chest; it was like that fall-too-fast feeling which happens when, as a child, you jump from too high a spot and your body outruns your heart. It was intensely disagreeable, and he tried unsuccessfully to shrug the feeling off.

Glancing back, he thought he saw someone behind him, but the shadow turned out to be only another vapor in the night, disappearing into thin air. He shrugged, his feet broke free, and he walked on.

For now, there was no escaping the job ahead of him. He detested laying eyes upon those miserable creatures, smelling their filth and half-listening to their confessions, blasphemies, and complaints. It disrespected humanity, and…it disrespected her.

A pang of guilt stabbed at him. God would disapprove of his lack of compassion. He made a mental note to include this in his evening prayers and Saturday confessions. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned…again. And, just like that, there it was….

He took a deep breath as the shame of his past snuck into his wandering thoughts, and he groaned aloud. Peculiar how he did that—softly, involuntarily, but definitely a groan. It always happened when the unthinkable would lay siege to his subconscious and claim a thought for itself.

Bringing his clenched fists to his forehead, he remained like this for some time. He needed the parchment and the pen…. Please, God. Make the memories go away—if you will just take them away.

Finally, grasping the tenuous fringe of sanity, D’ata pulled himself back, forcing the thoughts away. It is better here, he told himself. The morbid present was always better than the horrible past.

He breathed in deeply, his feet started to move again, and his journey continued, up the long hill to the castle. As he crossed the portcullis and approached the enormous facade, he paused to touch it, allowing his hand to pass over the rough, cold stones. They appeared to weep in the dampness of the night, perhaps for the unfortunate men they imprisoned.

Climbing the steps of the fortress-like entry, he lifted the heavy wooden knocker, pounding twice on the soggy door. The dull hammering echoed behind, causing him to glance over his shoulder again.

He shivered, squinting into the distance. The fog was pushing in, rolling down the streets, claiming for itself the space from which the rain had withdrawn. Toulon was a beautiful town on a sunny day, if you weren’t murdered. Tonight, however, D’ata hardly recognized it.

Looking up, he tried to make out the stars, briefly considering that others must look at the stars just as he did—other people in other towns, watching the very same sky. Sometimes it was his way of escaping, by thinking about those people so far away. His problems did not exist where they were. If only he could find his way there. Of course, he had tried that once…with devastating consequences.

He scowled and tried to make out the sea beyond, but the fog forbade him tonight.

The massive door creaked on its hinges, yanking him abruptly from his far-away thoughts. A middle-aged guard with disheveled hair, his cheek deeply wrinkled from his slumber, finally answered the summons. His breath was a putrid mix of ale and sloth, and D’ata turned his head away from the stench.

Waving the priest in, his wrist disjointed and floppy with his drunkenness, the guard guided the holy man through a maze of corridors. Mumbling about the ungodly hour, though it was barely past supper, he led D’ata to one of the two towers adjacent to the donjon.

They passed through another heavy, wooden door that moaned a rusty objection as the guard heaved it open. Then they wandered a ways along an alarmingly narrow hall. The confinement quickened the priest’s heart, and he was annoyed that this happened every time at this same, particular spot.

The stones wept inside as well as out, though the walls were a good twelve feet thick. It was cold and gloomy, and D’ata’s mood paled even more.

Lighting a second oilcloth, the guard shoved it at the priest, coming dangerously close to lighting his own hair. Then he fumbled with a key, finally unlocking the entryway to a portal, and nodded toward what appeared to be a dark, bottomless hole.

Holding the torch with both hands in front, like a crucifix, D’ata allowed his eyes to adjust to the black maw before him. The circling steps were sadly familiar as they fell away into apparent nothingness. It shortened his breath, and he tried to swallow spit that was not there. He knew that to venture farther would command that he step beneath the surface of humanity into the abyss of heartlessness.

The guard turned away as though he coveted the liquor that would lure him back to sleep. He’s a wretched one, Father, and you shouldn’t be wasting your time on him. He’ll be Satan’s whore by tomorrow night, and God be rid of him. He barked a stilted laugh, handed over the spare dungeon key, and slammed the door, locking the priest on the other side.

D’ata stood in merciless silence. Clearing his throat, the noise echoed, uninviting to his ears. He held his breath, forcing himself to exhale slowly.

Why does it seem so foreboding tonight?

Lifting the oilcloth upward, he lit the first of many lamps to guide his way down the spiraling flight of stone steps. They seemed to sink away forever, and he squinted, pushing the heavy hood from his head. The warm light from the fire washed golden across his face.

Giotto, the painter, would have cried to behold this one.

D’ata refused to believe the rumors some whispered, that his was a tormented and lovely face. They said it carried the weight of tragedy—a beautiful affliction—much too thin and with heartbreaking eyes. Those eyes, framed with thick, long lashes, only seemed to betray his sorrow. Even she, at one time, had mentioned that his eyes had a habit of changing. They could turn from a deep chocolate-brown to a blue so dark that they appeared as indigo as a moonlit sea.

However, when D’ata studied his face in the faded looking glass at the monastery, he did not see these things. Anymore, he did not recognize the man who stared back.

Who is this? he sometimes wondered, peering at the cheekbones that rose so sharply. Sometimes he forgot entirely whom he had once been, with lips that were once so full and wide, curling up gently at the sides as though they held a forbidden secret. But there were no more secrets now, and…his lips no longer smiled.

Monsignor Leopold scolded him, demanding he shave his locks, leaving the skullcap that marked his diocese. But the nights were so long and cold, and he was filled with such a bitter and incurable despair, that he had allowed his hair to grow long. It curled thick and soft around the nape of his neck and swept across his face when he bowed his head, shielding him from the prying eyes of others in the congregation.

Here lay his greatest shame. The story was well known, though seldom spoken of, and he tried desperately to recall it only in his dreams.

Strange, how one can drown repeatedly in one’s dreams.

D’ata peered into the darkness, which threatened and invited him all at once. The calling was what gave him pause just now.

The prisoner should be seen. No man should face death without the opportunity to confess, to make his peace with the creator or spit his final insult. It just seemed that so often these men cared neither for their acts nor their fates. He frowned. Life was piteous and unpredictable, and it was not hard to imagine caring so little that the prospect of death seemed almost…enviable.

The water dripped in sleepy rivulets down the stone walls, and D’ata stared at it. He had seen the lifeblood of the beheaded drip just so, after the initial geyser following the executioner’s blade. He wondered if the soul left in the same manner—an initial rush before dragging behind it the final droplets of what a man truly was.

The stone steps were enormous—a good fourteen inches vertical—as though the castle had been built for giants. He ventured onward, and the rats scurried away from the unwelcome light as he lit the lamps one by one. The steps seemed to go on forever, and D’ata was overcome with the sensation of descending into the bowels of the earth, the way station for travelers on their way to Hell. He forced himself to concentrate on the steps, counting them as down, down he went, farther into the belly of the beast.

Finally, the steps ended and he halted, breathing hard, not from exertion but from the anxiety that wrapped thickly around him like the damnable robes. His spit was hard to swallow, and he had the sensation of being trapped, as though he was as much a prisoner as the creatures held here.

D’ata stepped onto the flat stones of the dungeon floor and swallowed twice to pop his ears. The dampness reeked as an unlikely breeze greeted his nostrils. It was rank and repulsive, and he thought it must come from the very rock beneath his feet.

He could make out the dark rows of cells, two of them, like long, black fingers stretching from the hand of the devil himself. The unfortunate men who were cast in here were miserable souls, most of them truly evil with dreadful crimes to share their nature. Sometimes, though, they were just unlucky or enemies to the wrong power. Nevertheless, they held something in common with him—misery.

D’ata made his way down the left row of the dungeons. The stench drifting out from the holds was overwhelming, a vile mix of rotting death and of the nearly dead. He shuddered. Sometimes the maggots invaded even before the end came.

He fought the overwhelming urge to vomit, to abandon his mission and flee, and tried not to look into the cells as he walked by. The groans from within seemed inhuman, and the unmistakable affront of a wretched, naked form evacuating his bowels gave him barely a moment’s pause.

The moans and gasps hurried him along, and his stare remained fixed to the floor in front of him. An outstretched hand lay extended, grisly and mutilated, from a cell and startled him. He knew the horrid torture of slowly crushing the digits of a man’s extremity, and D’ata was not at all certain the hand was even attached to an arm. He stepped over it carefully, maintaining his direction, bent upon his purpose. Replacing his cloak, he kept his head down, knowing well enough where he must stop.

The priest must have appeared the dark angel that he was, passing over death and despair as he made his way to the last cell, the solitary dungeon with its massive bars and heavily bolted door.

Holding the oilcloth up, he thought at first that no one was in the hold. Squinting, he swung the torch carefully to and fro, searching the cell while commanding his eyes to stop their tricks. Finally, he made out a wretched form in the far corner.

The man was wrapped in the clothing of a mercenary, although the armor was gone and what was left was soiled and shredded. He huddled as far from the door as possible, burrowed into the straw like a miserable animal as though to gain what warmth he could. From the cell door, he looked fragile and small. The flesh that showed was bruised and scraped. D’ata knew this was because the prisoner had been subjected to torture before his sentencing. The man possessed an evil history, and it was the way of things.

If they were loathed, the prisoners suffered horrible fates. Men were castrated by suspension until the weight of their bodies tore the delicate orbs from them. If they were adulterous, they were sodomized by the guards. If, however, they were feared, they were beaten, but no hand would touch them directly. It was believed that the truly evil in life could spite one in death, and there was a respectful cruelty reserved for prisoners such as this one.

D’ata drew a deep breath. For a moment, he thought the prisoner dead. He thought he might be too late, but as his eyes better adjusted, he saw the slow, shallow rise and fall of the mercenary’s breathing.

You, there, it is I, D’ata, the priest. I have come to hear your confession.

There was no response, and the creature remained unmoving.

I am here with the seventh sacrament. Do you wish salvation?

Still, no response.

Unlocking the gate, D’ata moved into the cell. He locked it quickly and hid the key on his sash, between the folds of his robes. I give you the chance to seek the forgiveness of our Father, to go to your death in peace.

The prisoner remained terribly still.

Holding the torch up, the cell appeared larger than at first—a good size, nearly five long paces square. Most of the floor was bare stone, stained with the blood and decay from past prisoners, layered with old and moldy straw. The air was unmoving and heavy.

Kneeling next to the man, D’ata stretched his hand out to touch the huddled form, thinking the prisoner might be sleeping or unconscious. At such a close range, he became aware that the creature was not a wretched withered shape after all, not as he appeared from outside the cell. The murderer was a stalwartly man, perhaps over four cubits tall, like himself. He paused, having expected less—a pitiless fragment of a man. Surely it must be so since the crime was worthy of only ugliness and weakness. He was a taker of life, and now his would be taken.

The priest’s eyes sharpened as he noticed the folds of lean muscle layered over the bare ribs; this probably protected them from breaking during the beatings. He saw the strong sinews of an exposed thigh, the knees folded for warmth under an unmoving body. A ragged scar of an obvious impalement marked the thigh. There were many scars upon this one—this man was cruelly battle-worn.

He next observed the broadness of the shoulders, wisps of straw clinging here and there. There was nothing weak about this man, but D’ata sensed that the prisoner was indeed forsaken. He swallowed. Perhaps they were not so different after all.

The head of the condemned man was completely buried beneath the straw, arms clasped around it as though to protect it.

D’ata considered the gentle rise and fall of the man’s breathing, soft and sincere like a child’s. I have bread and wine for you, he whispered kindly.

He had hidden the loaf and flask from the guard. It was forbidden to bring other than spiritual relief to the condemned, but D’ata was not unkind and always carried these few comforts to share.

Perhaps the prisoner was deaf from the beatings or maybe unable to move—his back broken as sometimes happened with the tortures. He had seen the guards drag a man to the gallows, unable to carry himself to his own death.

Hesitating, he reached his hand out, the stark cleanliness of it strangely corrupt against the filth of the bare shoulder. He did not shake the man but instead gently pressed his fingers around the collarbone. It startled him when he felt muscle glide over sinew as the form groaned and stirred.

Yanking his hand away, he rocked back on his heels…and waited.

The man struggled as he pushed his bruised body to his knees, his head hanging loosely. It was just about then that the priest became more acutely aware of the significance of the prisoner’s frame—the lean but muscled form and sheer size of the man. He recalled that this was a barbarian and briefly wondered at his own lack of good sense, coming into the cell as he had.

The man groaned, his battered body moving in agonizing jerks. D’ata watched silently as the man fought, willing his body to move, like a marionette coming strangely to life.

Drawing several short, torturous breaths, the prisoner crouched with his head still hanging. He wrenched his hands to the sides of his head as though he might stop the explosion that was sure to occur. Finally, the gasping stopped and the man’s breathing became deep and regular, his hands falling heavily to his knees.

The prisoner slowly raised his head to peer at his antagonist. He squinted, blinking from beneath thick, tangled locks as the meager light from the oilcloth seemed to offend his eyes. D’ata knew prisoners would frequently sit in darkness for long spells, sometimes for days.

The man looked strangely like a medusa with a dozen or so long straws clinging to his tangled mane. He focused on the face of the young priest who had stirred him so rudely from his sleep.

With a gasp, D’ata fell away from the prisoner, the torch almost falling into the straw. Scrambling to right it and regain his balance, he leaned forward, bringing their faces but inches apart.

He moved the fire closer, passing the flame back and forth slowly to see the man’s features more clearly. He scanned the forehead and then the jaw, so thickly bearded. He noticed the sharp cheekbones and the full mouth, finally coming to rest upon the eyes—those deep, black eyes.

Oh my God, the eyes, D’ata stammered, I seem to have—you are… Holy mother of God! His mouth dropped open as he reached up, roughly brushing the long hair away from the prisoner’s face. He could more clearly see the nose—long and angular—the slope of the cheek, and the lean, square jaw.

The mouth, full and wide, broke slowly into a lopsided grin. The prisoner’s thick lashes and black brows framed dancing eyes, defiant despite their current wretched state of affairs. The right eye was swollen, cruelly beaten and likely broken. A deep and ragged scar over the left brow further defiled the tragically beautiful face.

His eyes, however, were quite the most disturbing, for as D’ata stared, transfixed by them, he knew them—knew them unmistakably. Under the blood and the grime, beaten and forsaken as it was, the face was his own—a mirror image of himself.

Both stared in silence, as each beheld…his twin.

The deep, hollow laughter from the prisoner drifted up the dungeon stairs, out the window slots, and beckoned all moths before it was swallowed up by the thick fog of the night.

CHAPTER TWO

†

The Orphanage

Ravan, twelve years before…

The orphanage sat nestled between two hills so that the dirt road into it popped abruptly over the crest of the eastern ridge, giving little notice of an impending visitor. Most of the country was intermittently wooded, but the two hills were bare. Today, their greenness was strangely brilliant against the gloomy, rain-sodden sky.

The great house, as it was called, was really just a cottage with a sod and clay roof. It did, however, have an enormous kitchen that the children spent much time in, especially on the coldest of days.

Sometimes, if a child was ill, he or she would spend the entire day snuggled next to the big cook stove because it was always burning. There was a small bed beside the kindling box reserved for sick ones, and sometimes two or three could be found nestled there together. When a child left the sick bed, it was not always back into their own. Consequently, a small cemetery lay just over the hill, next to the forest, with a smattering of tiny crosses adorned with modest treasures.

The kitchen had a warmth to it beyond the heat—a warmth from the eternal presence of the small ones. It was here the children gathered for nourishment, for their bodies somewhat but a great deal more for their souls.

Behind the house were the barracks, a sort of dormitory fashioned from an old fowl barn. There were no windows in the barracks; glass was much too expensive. Neither was there any heat source beyond the simple fire chamber at one end—a roughly mortared compilation of rocks with an escape vent. As it seemed the winters were colder lately, the children pressed more clay between the cracks of the building to windproof the little structure.

The modest building had a low roof, and inside there were rows of little beds, each with its own wool or rag and feather blanket. The children gathered what few feathers they could from the fowl houses to add to pillows or blankets. In the summer, they collected thistle down from along the river for the mattresses. Mostly, however, they stuffed the blankets with dried grass and straw.

The beds were littered with tokens that identified each child—a particularly lovely stone, a piece of sealing wax, a bird’s tail feather. These were taken special care of in the fashion that only a child can, and proudly displayed, giving the appearance of rows of blessed shrines. Should a child die, the treasures accompanied the child to the gravesite, buried carefully with them or left dangling upon the cross.

Recently, the orphanage was full, as the plague had left many young ones. A good third of the population between India and Iceland had already succumbed to the Black Death, but making it to the orphanage as the feeble survivor of a decimated family did not guarantee a child’s survival. However, at the orphanage, dying was accepted as part of the ritual of life, and illness was treated with love and dignity until death arrived or mercifully passed by.

Ravan was aware that his days here were numbered. He knew older children were not easily adopted. In truth, no child was easily adopted, but as he was approaching thirteen, his choices were limited. It was possible he would be chosen as an apprentice if he was fortunate, or a laborer if he was not. No options were ignored. Change was in the wind, and room must be made.

Times had not been easy in France. With the plague, many were left without sons. Families shifted, died, were restructured. Children were shuffled, abandoned, forgotten—frequently the least of adult concern, it seemed to Ravan. He had seen his fair share of such disregard, and so he was naturally skeptical of the motivation that grownups sometimes had. This was exactly his mindset as he watched closely the stranger and the big woman as they argued with the orphanage’s caretaker—the Old One.

Life at the orphanage had always been meager, but the Old One and his granddaughter had been kind. They taught the children how to garden and to keep a small lot of pigs, a scraggly cluster of chickens, an on and off dry cow, and a few easily offended sheep.

The children quickly fit into the treadmill of survival. Few townspeople interrupted or even noticed the daily comings and goings at the orphanage. It was an island, and few would care if it were swallowed up altogether.

The children, however, grew to recognize the orphanage as the salvation it was, and each inarguably did their part to survive. The smallest ones tended the chickens, hauled kindling, and helped with the constant mountain of