Prologue

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD’S GRACE 1254ARTANE, ENGLAND

Berengaria of Artane stood at the doorway of her small house and stared at the keep rising up in front of her. She had a place inside those walls, of course, a healer’s house she had lived in as a child and been offered again as an old woman. She used it, on occasion, when she felt the need of secure walls wrapped around her. It was comforting and safe, that place inside the castle.

But today, she needed to breathe.

She looked to her left. The view was glorious, for her small stone house overlooked the sea. The sea air was good for her lungs and her house sturdy enough to withstand almost any gale. The lord of the keep up the way tended to insist that she come inside the keep when the storms became too fierce, but he was that sort of lad. She would know, having been acquainted with him since he’d been a wee thing. His children were just as solicitous, especially the eldest and heir. Then again, chivalry was particularly important to that one—

“Ah, by all the saints Magda, there is no hope for you!”

Berengaria smiled to herself. The sea breezes also provided her house with a steady flow of cleansing air. Given her companions’ business, that seemed positively providential, though she supposed that the sighing that was going on behind her might have seen to that with enough time. Obviously there was trouble afoot. She turned and looked at the two white-haired, very seasoned women who were peering into a blackened cooking pot hanging over a robust fire.

“And I was so close this time,” Magda said, looking wistfully at the tar-like substance that clung to her spoon with a tenacity better suited to an alewife clinging to a coin.

Nemain, her companion and chief haranguer, scooped up her own bit of blackened ruination and scowled at it. “Close is optimistic,” she said briskly. “I despair of you making anything that isn’t better used for daub.”

Berengaria refrained from comment, for that same conversation had been going on for as long as she could remember. There was no sense in interrupting its course now. She turned back to her contemplation of the castle in front of her. A banner fluttered against one of the walls, black, with a lion rampant. It belonged to the father, but would eventually belong to the eldest son. It snapped in the wind, so fiercely that Berengaria almost stepped forward to stop it from being ripped away and sent flying places she wouldn’t be able to go.

That was ridiculous, of course. The banner was flying high on the battlements, and she was well outside the walls. That and she knew she couldn’t control the fate of either men or their cloth.

Well, perhaps she could, but she knew she shouldn’t.

She leaned back against her doorway and pulled her cloak more closely around her. There was a change in the wind, something that felt long overdue. She considered for whom that change might have come calling, though in truth she didn’t have to think about it overlong.

Phillip of Artane had best be steeling himself for what the wind would blow his way.

He was in residence at his father’s keep. She knew this because she’d seen him not a pair of days earlier. He never returned from his attempts to find marital bliss in the north without stopping by her hearth for something strengthening. He was a good lad, that one: sober, well aware of his duties to his family, possessing endless amounts of patience. He was going to need a great deal of that last bit given the path he’d put his foot to.

He had been betrothed to a lass from over the border for several years. Berengaria had wondered at the match, though she had acknowledged the practicality of it. The girl brought a rich holding and the promise of a bit of peace between warring neighbors. She was a Scot, which was troubling, but what could be done? Phillip was driven by duty. If peace needed to be made, he would do what was needful to assure it.

“My thumb bone is gone!”

“I only used a pinch, Nemain.”

“A pinch was all I had left!”

“The potion called for it, so what else was I to do? I’m intending to make something special for Lord Phillip to use on his bride.”

“’Twill take something far stronger than anything you might put in a pot,” Nemain said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll need to be manning the spoon, obviously.”

“Perhaps so,” Magda said hesitantly. “But what about your thumb bone?”

“I’ll need to be off to look for another one. My goodly work is never done, or so it seems. Berengaria, you’ll come, of course.”

Berengaria looked up at the banner fluttering black against the gray walls. She didn’t like to meddle, for in the end she couldn’t control the fate of either men or their cloth. But perhaps she could offer something tasty along with a bit of advice should anyone come to her cooking fire looking for either. She glanced over her shoulder.

“Aye, of course I’ll come. In a day or two.”

“I’ll go pack,” Nemain said briskly. “Never too early to have your gear gathered.”

Berengaria had already gathered what she needed and was ready to leave when the time was right. But before she did, she had business to see to, a conversation or two to have, and patience to exercise as she watched events unfold. She glanced one more time at the keep, then turned to watch the sea and its endless waves.

Aye, she would wait. She could do nothing else.