I shrugged. "My father had a cousin. In Gascogne."

"Does he have a name?"

"The viscount of something or other." My father had always shaken his head when he said it. Always wondered why the good fortune of his cousin Henri couldn't have been shared by the rest of the family. "Henri. His name is Henri."

"If you decide to come into town, you can sleep by the church, as long as you don't mind the cemetery. There's a big, sheltering tree there."

I'd already been sleeping beside the dead for seven years. He could offer me nothing more than I already had.

I stayed outside that cave, continuing to live there for at least another month. That's where the viscount of Souboscq and his men had found me: living outside a blocked-up cave, dressed in the rags I called my clothes. I heard them coming long before I saw them-horses' feet battering the earth, the leather of their saddles creaking. He and his retinue rode right up to me. "Are you Nicolas Girard's son?"

"I am."

"Then I'm your cousin. Of a sort."

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

"Where's Nicolas?"

I gestured behind me to the cave.

His gaze traveled the distance from me to the cave. Then it traveled back. "We shall leave him there in peace. Now then. You're to come home with me. We can't have a cousin of the Leforts living in the forest as if he's no better than a beggar."

No better than a beggar.

It had never occurred to me that I was better than anything at all. It took six years under the viscount's tutelage before I considered myself truly a part of his family, even though he never treated me otherwise. And even then, it had seemed as if I was acting. As if, at any moment, someone might come and tear the mask of respectability from my face and recognize me for the leper's son.

The day Lisette's father led my horse into the courtyard of his chateau at Souboscq, I slipped from the horse's back, touching the sand-colored earth of Gascogne for the very first time. Lisette had run into the courtyard. A little bit of a girl of the age of four, all bouncing curls and excited squeals. Her father caught her up in an embrace. He had kissed her and then turned, introducing her to me.

She grabbed him about the neck, whispering in a voice much too loud not to carry. "Does he have a name?"

"His name is Alexandre. He's your cousin."

"I've never had a cousin before." She wriggled from his grasp, slid from his arms, and ran toward me.

I put up my hands, more to keep her from touching me than to catch her. But she ran right through them, threw herself into my arms, and kissed me on the cheek.

She kissed me.

I had never been touched before. Not that I could remember. Everyone was afraid to touch the leper's son. But she kissed me on the cheek. And it made me feel as if everything would be all right. As if I would be all right. Right there, in the middle of the yard, she had redeemed me.

Chapter 8.

Katharina Martens Lendelmolen, Flanders In the morning, after prayers and after the taking of bread, we washed.

We washed our faces and our hands. Scrubbed at them: forehands, palms, fingertips. Especially our fingertips. We washed three times a day. Three times a day to protect the lace from ourselves. To keep it from being corrupted.

We held them up to Sister for inspection.

Mathild was stopped.

The Sister frowned. Spoke two words: Chilblains. Go.

I grimaced at the pronouncement. It would not do to have an ulcer rupture all over the lace.

Mathild left my side and soon disappeared down the hall in the direction of the infirmary. I had been there only once. It was a room filled with warmth and all manner of good smells, but it was not a room I wanted to visit often. Too many visits there and soon, one did not return. There had been many over the years who had not come back: Elizabeth, Aleit, Johanna. Beatrix, Jacquemine, and Martina. I did not know what had happened to them.

Their names had never been spoken, but their absence had been noted. And with each disappearance, there always fell a sort of...dread.

The rest of us left the shelter of the abbey and walked through the wind and rain, water sloshing into our clogs along the way.

Once inside, we passed the cows and the pigs. Secure in their pens on the ground level, they munched on hay and slops. We climbed the tall, narrow steps to the loft, elbows pointed toward the soiled, daub walls in case of stumbling. We were forbidden to touch anything with our hands. Least not until we sat with our pillows and put our bobbins to work.

I could touch my lace but once, and that was during the creation of it. The completion of each twist and each cross meant the stitch was mine no longer. The smallest speck of dust could mark it. The slightest smear of dirt could stain it. At all costs, I had to save it from myself. Yet for the time I worked on it, while I created it, the lace was mine. It was mine until it spilled over the edge of my pillow and disappeared into the silk pouch where it was collected.

As we ascended that steep stair, the odor of our animal neighbors grew...but so did the warmth of the air. Without them we might have frozen to death on our benches as we worked. There could be no fire in the fireplace. Ever. A fire produced smoke and ashes, and a hint of either would soil the lace. Far better to risk chilblains, lung fever, or worse than to risk a single ash from one sole fire.

We worked all morning as the sun's light crept through the tall, narrow windows. I could feel it warm my face. Our hands kept their own rhythm, bobbins clicking. Our clogs scraped the floor now and then as we wriggled our toes to try to keep them warm. Across the room, I could hear Sister chant a rhyme for the children, for those learning what it meant to be a lace maker, those who still sat on a bench without hunching over a pillow. But soon...soon...they would know. And soon they would become entranced by the dance of the bobbin, enslaved by the emerging pattern of lace.

Needle pin, needle pin Stitch upon stitch, Work the old lady out of the ditch If she is not out as soon as I A rap on the knuckles will come by and by A horse to carry my lady about Must not look off till twenty are out.

I set my own dance to the rhythm of the chant, but I went about it twice as quickly.

After a while, Sister walked over to me. I felt tension pull at the lace as I heard her draw it forth from its silk pouch. "Lovely."

Oh, there was such joy to be had in the pronouncement of Sister's one word. Lovely. It would live in my memory forever. It was the highest compliment I had ever been paid.

"When will it be done? Two weeks? Three, perhaps?"

I straightened. Or tried to. "...three. Weeks." My voice it seemed had gone rusty from disuse.

She nodded.

My heart thrilled. I could feel it thumping in my throat. She had spoken to me. And I had a second reason for happiness this day. Today, my sister would walk the four hours from Kortrijk to come and visit.

I worked as quickly as I could until the noon meal. When Sister clapped, I noted in my memory the place in my pattern and then rose from the lace and followed the others down the stairs. This time, we could put our hands to the walls. It mattered not if we soiled them on the way to the refectory. They would only get dirtied with food. After, we would wash them once more before we returned to our work.

We ate quickly, as was expected in the ten minutes provided. It had been difficult to learn to eat so swiftly when I had first come, but a hollow stomach is an effective teacher. Far better to spend our time washing. Once washed, our hands were inspected. I looked for Mathild, thinking she might join us, but she did not.

Perhaps tomorrow.

Back at the workshop, I worked through one petal. Then a second. A third. And then it was time to begin my deceit. I raised my hand.

"Ja?"

I inclined my head toward the stairs.

"Go."

I arranged my bobbins to mark my place before rising and laying my pillow on the bench. I descended the stairs, hands out. Without others in front of me, it was difficult to know where the stairs were. It would not do to stumble to my knees.

Hands could be washed.

Aprons could not... least not so easily.

I peered out the door, though in truth, if someone was watching from the abbey, I would not have known it. Swiftly, I walked toward the privy house. And then, once I had reached its door, I walked beyond it, behind it, and lowered my head to a gap in the stones.

"Heilwich? Are you there?"

There was only silence. And then some shouting. That woman accusing Pieter of making a mess of things again.

"Heilwich?"

Nothing.

I waited.

"Heilwich?"

The woman had done with her shouting. A door scraped. A dog barked. But no steps came near across the cobbles. No cough sounded to let me know she was there. I waited some moments more, standing in the rain, and then I walked around to the front of the privy house and washed my hands with water from a pail. But before I returned to the workshop, I bent to the gap again and spoke her name one time more.

"Heilwich?"

"Ja."

"You are there!"

"Is it not Tuesday? And do I not always come on Tuesday?"

"Thank you. For coming."

"Here. Take this." A hunk of bread pressed against my nose. I inhaled its moist, yeasty scent for a moment, and then I stood and pulled out my prize.

"And there's an egg pushed up inside it."

"Thank you!"

"You're the thanking-est girl I've ever known. Just eat it."

"I am." Or I would when I discovered where the egg was. I probed at the bread with my fingers then held it up to my nose to see it better.

"Let me have a look at you, then."

I bent once more and pressed my face to the gap.

"I want to see more than just your eye. Stand away."

"But then I can't see you." And seeing her face was one of my greatest treasures. It enlivened the words she spoke to me. I recalled them together, her words and her face, in the days between her visits.

"For shame. Of course you can."

I could see a shadow where I presumed her face to be, but I could not truly see her, not when I stood away. Not clearly enough to distinguish her features.

"Can't you?"

"I can tell you're there."

"And what color are my sleeves?"

"They blend...with the color of the stones." There now, when she moved, I could see them.

"With the stones? For shame, they do not! Eat now and leave me to think a minute."

I ate. And with pleasure. The last egg I had eaten was the one she had brought me the week before. During her weekly clandestine visits, I always told her I had no wish for anything, having eaten so recently, but in truth, I discovered I could. When she pushed her bundles through the wall for me, my stomach never failed to cramp with hunger.

"Why haven't you told me your eyes have gotten worse? Stand away and let me see you from the side."

Though I ate, I did as I was bid.

"You look shorter than last I saw you. Stand up straight."

I lifted my shoulders and uncoiled my spine.

"I meant straight. As a pin."

"I am."

"You're bent as a shepherd's crook."

I was? But I was standing as straight as I could.

"Come here. Come toward me. Put your eye to the gap."