Our party slowed to a walk.

Finally, Anne motioned for me.

I rode up, fearing that any minute, Baldwin ’s soldiers might come out of the woods to murder me.

“Here is your answer, fool,” she said with a taut face. “If we encounter what I am told we will in this village, I think on the way back we will all be in great need of mirth.”

Chapter 64

I RELAXED, but only for an instant. The first thing that hit me was the smell. The stench of putrefaction… the rot of death.

Then ahead, wisps of white smoke rose above the trees. The leaves themselves were singed with the stomach-turning char of roasted flesh.

My mind brought me back instantly… Civetot.

Anne rode ahead, seemingly unfazed by the repugnant stench. I felt no danger to myself now, only that this was something awful we were nearing.

The road widened. A clearing. Then a stone bridge. We were at the outskirts of a town. But there was no town. Only what had once been huts and other dwellings, their thatched roofs caved in from fire, the smoke from cinders still rising in the air.

And people sitting around numbly, blank expressions on their sooty faces, as if mimicking the still silence of the dead.

We rode into the village. Every single dwelling seemed to have been burned to the ground. Most had tall stakes driven into the ground in front of them. On them, spitted, were charred mounds, unrecognizable. The strange mix of smells turned my stomach-burned hair, flesh, blood. The stakes looked like pagan warnings, gutted animals to ward off demons from the homes that were no more.

[198] “What are they?” Anne inquired as she trotted by.

Gilles, the captain of the guard, sucked in a breath. “They are children, my lady.”

The color drained from her face and Anne pulled her mount to a stop. She leaned over and stared at the mounds, and for a moment I thought she would teeter. But then Anne righted herself. Her face became composed again. She called out firmly to the townspeople, “What has happened here?”

No one answered. The people just stared. I actually feared someone might have taken out all of their tongues.

The captain called, “Lady Anne of Borée speaks to you. What has happened here?”

At that, the fiercest howl rang out from behind. All heads turned to see a large man clothed in a tattered hide, hurtling toward us with an ax.

When he was no more than a few feet away, a soldier took out his legs with a lance and the assailant crashed to the earth. Two other soldiers pounced on him immediately, one putting a sword to the neck of the fallen man and looking up at Anne for the word.

A woman screamed and ran to him, but was held back. The man did not turn to her, just glared at Anne with grief-filled eyes.

“He has lost his son,” a voice called out, “his home…” It came from a gaunt, white-haired man in blackened and tattered clothes.

The soldier was about to kill the large man, but Anne shook her head. “Let him be.”

The man was yanked to his feet. Anne’s guards pushed him forcefully to his grateful wife, where he stayed, breathing heavily, without thanks.

“What has happened here? Tell me,” Anne said to the white-haired man.

“They came in the night. Faceless cowards with black crosses. They hid under their masks. They said it was to purify the town for God. That we had stolen from Him.”

[199] “Stolen? Stolen what?” Anne asked.

“Something sacred, a treasure. Something that they could not find. They tore every child from its mother. Put them on spits in front of our eyes. Set them aflame… Their cries still ring in our ears.”

I looked around. This was the work of Baldwin, I knew it. The same savage cruelty that had taken my wife, tossed my son into the flames. Yet this carnage seemed even greater than Baldwin could be responsible for. Norcross was dead, but this hell continued.

“And what did they find, these killers?” Anne asked.

The man replied, ashen faced. “I do not know. They torched us and left. I am the mayor of this town. The mayor of nothing, now. Maybe you should ask Arnaud. Yes, ask Arnaud.”

Anne dismounted. She walked directly up to the mayor and looked in his eyes. “Who is this Arnaud?”

The mayor snorted a disdainful blast of air. Without replying, he began to walk. Anne set off behind, accompanied by her guards, who ran ahead of her to clear the way.

We wound through the devastated town. The stables, leveled, smoking, reeking of mutilated horses; a mill, more ash than stone. A wooden church, slashed with blood, the only structure left standing.

At a low stone hut the mayor stopped. The entrance was smeared with blood-not randomly, but in large red crosses. A butcher-house smell came from inside.

Holding our breath, we stepped in. Anne gasped.

The place was ravaged. What scant furniture there was had been split like firewood, the ground beneath it ripped up. Two bodies hung by the arms, a man and a woman, their torsos flayed of flesh. Beneath their dangling legs lay their severed heads.

My body recoiled in horror. I could not breathe. I had seen these horrible things before. Heads severed and roasted, bodies stripped of skin. I had seen them, but I didn’t want to remember. [200] My mind hurtled backward regardless: Nico, Robert … the bloodbath of Antioch. I turned away.

“Go ahead, ask Arnaud.” The mayor smirked. “Maybe he will answer your questions, duchess.”

We stood in horror.

“Arnaud was born here and always called it his home. He was the bravest man any of us knew, a knight at the court of Toulouse. Yet they carved him up like a pig. They cut out his wife’s womb, looking for some treasure. ‘Stolen from God,’ they said. He had just returned from fighting abroad.”

“From fighting where?” Gilles, the captain, asked.

I knew. I had seen such horror before. I knew, but I could not answer.

“The Crusade,” the mayor spat.

Chapter 65

I WALKED FROM THE HUT and tried to clear the repulsive sights from my mind. I had seen it all before. Men and women hung and flayed, body parts scattered as if the murders meant nothing at all.

Civetot. Antioch. The Crusade …

These riders in the dead of night who wore no colors and would not show their faces. The towns burned, savagery. Were these acts Baldwin ’s? Norcross was dead. Could his men still be running free, terrorizing villages? What precious treasure did they seek?

Put it together, I told myself. What does the puzzle signify? Why can’t I solve it?

The Crusade… Suddenly it resonated everywhere. Arnaud had just returned from there. Adhémar too, whose horrible death I had heard of at Baldwin ’s court. Their villages were ransacked and destroyed-just like my inn.

Dread shot down my spine. These faceless riders who killed with the savagery of Turks… Were they the same ones who murdered my wife and child?

Cold, clammy sweat clung to my back. It all began to fit.

The killers wore no crest or markings, only a black cross.

No one knew where they came from or what they sought. [202] Then I remembered something. Matthew had said it was as if it were my home, our inn only, that the bastards were interested in.

What did they want with me?

During the long ride back, I kept to myself. I racked my brain. What did I have that could connect me with these killings? I had tucked a few worthless baubles into my pouch. The old scabbard with the writing I’d found in the mountains? The cross I had pilfered from the church in Antioch? It didn’t make sense!

I watched Anne riding just ahead. Her face was tight and somber, as if she wrestled with some inner turmoil. Something wasn’t right.