"Is this really necessary?" Luke asked Faithe, whispering the question in her ear so that the many onlookers-nearly the entire population of Hauekleah-wouldn't hear.

He'd been quiet but observant all morning, as the villagers walked Hauekleah's perimeter in the annual ceremony that seared the borders into the memories of the next generation. Faithe had wondered what his reaction would be.

"The boys must be made to remember where our land ends and the neighbors' begins," she pointed out as Baldric pried Bram's hands from his face and gave him his ritual slap.

"Why? Why not just record the boundaries in writing?"

"There is a written charter," Faithe patiently explained, "but none of these people can understand it. Orrik and I are the only people at Hauekleah who can read and write."

"I can... to some extent."

"Yes," she said quickly. "I meant the three of us."

A lie, of course. In truth, although a fortnight had pa.s.sed since her marriage to Luke, Faithe still had trouble thinking of him as the master of Hauekleah. Not that he hadn't made every effort to establish himself as such. He spent his days exploring the village and surrounding countryside, introducing himself to his new villeins and questioning them at length about the work they did and how they lived. He studied everything there was to study and inspected everything there was to inspect. He pored over Orrik's books detailing harvest yields, demesne production, rents, taxes, and fines. From all appearances, he embraced his new role with the greatest of zeal.

Still, Faithe couldn't help but feel that his enthusiasm would surely wane. Her Danish grandfather, Thorgeirr, had been much the same at first, according to Grandmother Hlynn. Setting aside his tools of war, he'd seemed devoted to Hauekleah. He'd even torn down the old, dark manor house and build enormous, sunny Hauekleah Hall in its place. But by the end of the summer, boredom had set in, and his hand had itched for the weight of the sword. One rainy September morning, he saddled up his warhorse and rode away, without so much as a word of farewell to his pregnant wife.

Soldiers are ill suited to farm life, Hlynn had explained to Faithe many times over the years. Agents of death have no patience for making things grow.

As a child, Faithe used to imagine an "agent of death" as a hulking, mail-clad brute with a horned helmet and a b.l.o.o.d.y sword in each fist. A fanciful image, to be sure. What, she wondered, did a real agent of death look like?

She contemplated her husband discreetly as he watched one boy after another accept his slap. Luke's gray tunic, though of good Sicilian wool, was simply cut and devoid of ornamentation. He wore no snippet of lambskin nor sword to indicate his rank, and although he was clean-shaven, his braided hair was as long as that of his Saxon villeins. He looked nothing like a Norman n.o.bleman, but neither could he be mistaken for an Englishman. Like her, he didn't seem to fit neatly into any one world.

He stood with arms crossed, one hand resting across his mouth, his expression reflective as he observed the proceedings. When he grimaced, Faithe turned toward the boulder to see what had affected him so. Little Felix stood up there, his legs quaking as Baldric pried his hands off his face.

The quick slap seemed to momentarily stun the child, and then he burst into tears and held his arms out, crying, "Mummy! Mummy!" His mother scooped him up and patted his back as he sniffled wetly.

"Look at the baby!" Alfrith jeered. The other boys joined in, taunting little Felix with their usual insults. Felix was seven years old, but small for his age, and of a quiet and cautious nature. To make matters worse, after his father's death last year, he'd become strongly attached to his mother, causing the other boys to view him as infantile. They wanted nothing to do with him, except as an object of scorn. He was friendless and fatherless, and his dependence on his mother grew daily, inviting yet more ridicule-a vicious circle.

As Felix's crying worsened and the derision escalated, Luke regarded Faithe with a reproachful expression.

"I doubt he'll soon forget the northern boundary of Hauekleah," she said, but without much enthusiasm.

Luke just sighed and shook his head.

The huge a.s.sembly--over two hundred people-turned and walked in a southwesterly direction, toward the north curve of the river. Luke remained at her side, taking her hand at one point to help her over a fallen log. His touch made her heart race like a bird's. When she was safely past the obstruction, he released her. Could he sense her disappointment? Did it amuse him?

True to his word, he'd taken to sleeping on the floor of their bedchamber, wrapped up in a blanket in the rushes. They never again discussed that awful night; it was as if her misbegotten attempt to seduce him had been entirely forgotten, which was all for the good. It shamed her that she'd a.s.signed such base motives to his reluctance to consummate the marriage.

If she was to believe him, he wouldn't accept her in his bed until she was unreservedly willing-no residual fear, no ambivalence. She had to care for him. She had to trust him. The paradox, of course, was that his refusal to bed her made it all that much harder to trust him, inasmuch as a platonic marriage could be readily annulled.

Nevertheless, Faithe knew that, in all likelihood, he'd never had any intention of casting her aside. She could remain at Hauekleah. But would he remain here with her? She had a hard time believing that someone like Luke de Perigueux could be happy spending the rest of his life on a farm. Agents of death have no patience for making things grow...

Would she lower her guard and learn to care for him, only to wake up one morning and find him gone, like Thorgeirr? Perhaps she could trust him not to steal Hauekleah from her, but could she trust him to be here next year, and the year after?

How ironic. Before he'd arrived, she'd prayed that the Black Dragon would tire quickly of farm life and leave her in peace. Now, she found that possibility troubling.

When they got to the river, Faithe and Luke joined Orrik and Baldric on the wooden bridge next to the mill, while the rest of the villagers watched from the north bank.

Orrik called Alfrith onto the bridge. "Where are we, boy?"

Alfrith licked his lips nervously. "The western edge of Hauekleah, master."

The boy flinched as Baldric's hand neared him. "Relax, boy," Orrik soothed. "He's not going to hit you."

Alfrith's expression of grat.i.tude was swiftly replaced by shock as Baldric laughingly lifted him in the air and hurled him over the side of the bridge. The boy sailed, screaming, into the water, landing with a loud splash and sinking like a stone.

A few long moments pa.s.sed. Luke leaned over the edge of the bridge. "Is he all right?"

Alfrith bobbed to the surface, sputtering and thrashing his arms and legs, and awkwardly made his way ash.o.r.e to the cheers of the spectators.

Bram had to be dragged onto the bridge, but he didn't resist when Baldric lifted him up, merely sucked in a giant breath and pinched his nose closed. As he was helped out of the water, a high-pitched shrieking commenced.

"Oh, dear," Faithe murmured as Felix's white-faced mother carried her writhing son toward the bridge.

"No!" the boy wailed. "No, Mummy, please! No! No! No!" The other boys laughed uproariously in the face of Felix's terror.

"Bring him forward," Orrik ordered the woman.

"If you please, Master Orrik," she said, "my Felix can't swim."

"Neither can the others."

"But he's just a wee thing, master, and he's so scared."

"All the better," Orrik said. "'Twill fix this spot in his memory. Now, give him over."

Baldric wrested the frantic child out of his mother's arms and hauled him, flailing and screaming, onto the bridge.

"Oh, for pity's sake." Luke let go of Faithe's hand and held out his arms. "Give him here."

Baldric looked for guidance to Orrik, who glowered at his new master. "He'll do no such-"

"Yes, he will, Orrik," Lady Faithe said quietly, in Latin. "Don't force me to discipline you in front of the villagers."

Orrik's face flooded with purple. He barked a command at Baldric, who thrust the squirming Felix at Luke. Ducking his head, Luke settled the child on his broad shoulders. Felix became quiet and alert.

"Felix," Luke said gravely as he grasped the boy's feet, hanging down on either side of his chest.

"Aye, milord."

"I command you to remember, in future years, the morning when you were the tallest person in Hauekleah."

Felix gazed around at the mult.i.tude of faces looking up at him-including the other boys, clearly awed-and smiled.

"And when you remember this morning," Luke instructed, "you are to remember that this bridge marks the westernmost boundary of Hauekleah. Can you remember that?"

"Aye, milord!"

"Will you remember it always?"

"Forever, milord!"

"That suits me," Luke said, "if it suits my lady wife."

Faithe smiled broadly, disarmed, despite her misgivings about Luke, by his compa.s.sion for a terrified little boy. "It suits me quite well, my lord husband."

Something meltingly intimate glimmered in his eyes, and he almost smiled. "Good." He patted the boy's foot. "Are you hungry, Felix?"

"That I am, sire."

"Would you care to join me at my table for the noon meal?"

Felix gasped with astonished pleasure as the other boys exchanged looks of incredulity. "Can Mummy come?"

"Of course."

The boy leaned over to look Luke in the face and whispered, "Will you make me eat any turnips?"

"Felix!" his mother scolded.

"'Tis a fair question," Luke told her. "I can't bear turnips myself," he a.s.sured Felix, "and I wouldn't dream of inflicting them on you. I understand there's to be some sort of sweetmeat for dessert, though. You might be called upon to eat some of that."

"I wouldn't mind that," the child confided.

"Excellent." With Felix on his shoulders and his hand held out to her, Luke looked the very ant.i.thesis of an agent of death. Faithe took his hand and let him lead her back toward Hauekleah Hall.

When she glanced behind her, she saw the rest of the villagers dispersing... except for Orrik, who stood alone on the bridge, glowering into the water.

"I don't quite know what to make of your brother," Faithe told Alex as she knelt that afternoon at the edge of her kitchen garden with her dibble and her seedlip full of beans.

Alex leaned forward on the bench, elbows on knees, twirling his cane between his palms. "You wouldn't be alone in that."

Faithe jabbed the dibble into the soil, plucked a bean from the curved basket, and dropped it in the hole. "He's so..." She shook her head.

The young man chuckled. "Aye, he is that."

She planted three more beans. "It's just that I can't help wondering how... interested he's going to be in Hauekleah this time next year."

"Ah. You're afraid this is just a pa.s.sing fancy of his. You still think he's planning on seeking an annulment, don't you?"

"Nay. That is, I'm almost certain he has no such plans." She couldn't be completely sure until he bedded her, but she had no intention of discussing these details with her brother by marriage.

Leaning over, Alex stuck his cane into the earth in the exact spot Faithe was going to dibble next. "Thank you," she said, and plunked in a bean.

"Why do you plant beans in your kitchen garden," he asked, using his cane to make a row of holes for her, "when you have furlongs devoted to them in your demesne field?"

"These beans are from the plants that were most productive last year," she explained. "I use this garden to experiment with different strains in the hope of producing better yields."

He chuckled as he sc.r.a.ped the dirt-encrusted tip of his cane on his boot. "Have I mentioned that I think my brother is a very lucky man?"

Faithe ducked her head so the brim of her straw hat would hide her blush. "Constantly."

"He knows it, too. He's grateful to have you."

"Has he told you this?"

"Nay. He hasn't had to. He's completely transparent to me."

"Transparent? Luke?" Faithe had never known a man more locked up inside himself.

"To me he is. I've known him all my life. Well, from the time I was six, at any rate."

Having finished that row of beans, Faithe moved back and started another one. "I don't understand. He's six years older than you. Why didn't you know him before then?"

"Oh, I knew him, of course, but not well. I only saw him twice a year or so, when he was on holiday from the abbey."

She looked up.

"You didn't know he was brought up in a monastery?"

"Nay, I... we don't talk much."

"Evidently not." Alex sat back, his arms draped over the cane, which he balanced on his shoulders. "Luke was the second son, and as such, he was naturally destined for holy orders, just as I was destined for soldiering. Our father sent him to the abbey at Aurillac when he was very young so that he could get a good monastic education."

Faithe sat back on her heels. "I had no idea. Why didn't he become a priest, then? Or a monk?"

Alex grinned. "He hadn't quite the temperament for it. He had little patience for his lessons, and less for the holy offices. He had a disconcerting habit of breaking the rules, and rules are the backbone of cloistered life. He'd sleep through matins, skip Ma.s.s, sneak away and eat his meals in the fields..."

"Was he punished?"

"Not badly. Our father was a very powerful knight, and he'd made generous contributions to the abbey in return for Luke's education. It got to the point, though, where the abbot wrote to Father and gently suggested that perhaps Luke would be happier pursuing a secular vocation. And so, he was called home at the age of twelve, and trained in the arts of war alongside me. I concentrated on swordplay." Grinning, Alex held his cane by the handle and executed a series of thrusts and slashes that looked to be well practiced. "Luke preferred the crossbow. 'Tis a more impersonal method of killing. One doesn't have to look one's target in the eye. He never had the natural interest in soldiering that I did, but he embraced it as a preferable alternative to the Church."

"He seems to have embraced it very well," Faithe said, bending her head once more to her work, "to have become known as the Black Dragon."

After a pause, Alex said, "Luke is the type of person who, if he bothers to do something, wants to do it well. Look how he's thrown himself into the management of this farm. Your villeins respect him already-I can see it in their att.i.tudes. Except for your bailiff, of course."

Faithe sighed. "I don't know if Orrik will ever accept a Norman as his master."

Alex tapped his cane thoughtfully on the ground. "I don't know as he has much choice, if he wants to remain bailiff here. I can't imagine Luke will put up with his insolence forever."

Faithe bit her lip. She'd not permit herself to contemplate the possibility that Luke might want to relieve Orrik of his duties. Orrik had served her family since long before she was born. He'd become a kind of father to her after her own father had succ.u.mbed to his chronic lung ailments. Orrik was mulish and frequently quarrelsome, but she loved him, in a way, and would be loath to replace him. She sincerely hoped he didn't persist in trying Luke's patience.

"Except for Orrik," Alex said, "I believe Luke finds life here quite agreeable. I don't think I've ever seen him so content." Leaning forward, he added, with a smile, "It seems to me his happiness must be at least partly due to his lovely wife."

"Don't be so sure," Faithe said, thinking about Luke rolled up in his blanket in the rushes night after night.