Sure enough, he bit. He went for my knees. I shoved against his shoulders, pushing myself back, That made him madder; he charged forward, trying to catch my knee like a donkey going after the carrot that's hanging from the pole. But he only took a couple of steps before he went for my crotch and arm, trying to hoist me. That meant he was coming up; I stepped back just long enough for his momentum to take him up far enough so that I could grab his tunic, lifting him a little bit as I hooked a leg behind his, and pushed as I kicked back.

He fell-harder this time, since I wasn't trying to break his fall for him. He scrambled up, eyes blazing, and sent a fist shooting toward my face.

Oh, so he wanted to box. I blocked, and the blow went wide as I counterpunched. He hit my shoulder, and pain jolted the joint, but nothing big. On my other hand, his head rocked back, and I brought the left down, fingers stiffened, and jabbed him in the solar plexus.

That took the fight out of him, along with the breath and the legs.

He folded around a center of agony, fighting for breath. I relaxed with a sigh of distaste-I really didn't like doing this to anybody, but especially not to a guy who really hadn't had a chance to fight back. Then I stepped around behind him, massaging his back and sides right opposite where I'd hit. The ring of men let out a shout of outrage, but the biggest guy held up a hand. "Nay. He but seeks to give aid to a fallen foe." He turned to me. "Yet give over, good man-let us tend to him."

"No," I said, "I don't think you know the technique. I broke it, I'll fix it." I heard a hiss of breath below me and looked down at Gilbert.

"You okay now?"

"I will mend," he gasped. "You are a doughty fighter."

"Just had a little training," I assured him. "You're very strong, did you know that?"

"Strength is not enough," he groaned.

"True." I grasped his arm and pulled. He followed and came to his feet. From the heft of that biceps, I knew I'd done right to try to stay away from him. It was a good thing he had used that bear hug to throw me; if he'd just kept squeezing, I'd have been out like a light.

"You have fought bravely," the commander assured him, and beckoned a couple of other squires. "See to him."

They took him away, one on either side, and the ring of men began to break up as they turned back to their tasks, eagerly discussing the bout-what there had been of it. I noticed several guarded glances in my direction, but none of them seemed contemptuous.

I sighed. It was the same old story all over again. just win a few fights, and they'll accept you. Wasn't there anything more to a man than his fists?

"You are welcome among us now," the commander assured me.

Of course.

But he was still watching me warily.

"Thanks for your hospitality," I said wryly. "I assure you, I won't start attacking without an invitation."

He shrugged the comment away. "We have swords enough. As to this wrestling, 'tis a peasant's sport-yet you do it well."

"Maybe too well?" I hazarded, from the look on his face.

"Mayhap." He turned, glowering. " 'Tis a most strange manner of wrestling. Where did you learn it?"

"In the East," I said. Okay, so America was west of here, assuming I was in Europe; but Japan was west of America, wasn't it?

And it was the East. So I had learned it in America, but it was Japanese, and America was east of Japan, so I had learned it in the East.

"All." His face cleared; he nodded grimly. "The land of the paynim. Any rarities might come thence."

He meant the Near East, I was pretty sure-but Muslim culture was just different enough from his that, for all he knew, anything, but anything, might be there. It struck me with sudden inspiration-an excellent means of explaining any way in which I didn't fit in. "I lived in the distant land for many years," I said. "I'm a scholar, and not terribly interested in the things of this world-but their wise men taught me that training of the body has to come before any really advanced training of the mind."

"There is truth in that," he allowed. "With what weapons were you trained?"

"Only the staff," I said. "They drew their scholarship from holy men, who taught that it was wrong to use edged weapons."

"As do ours." The commander nodded. "Save for we few who are sworn to defend the True Faith by force of arms."

"I was wondering about that," I said. "You have tonsures. Are you monks, or knights?"

He frowned more closely at me. "How long have you been away from Christian lands?"

"Since I was very young," I admitted. After all, the American public schools fit that description, these days.

His face cleared. "Small wonder, then. Know that we are knights of the Order of Saint Moncaire-yet monks, also."

Well, now, that rocked me. I mean, I'd learned about the Knights Templars in school and read about them in Ivanhoe, and been thoroughly scandalized by the mere notion that a man who is purportedly dedicated to God could also be dedicating himself to smashing up his fellow human beings with a Clydesdale and a mace. But I tried to be tactful. "Uh ... isn't that kind of a contradiction in terms?"

Instantly, the frown was back. "Why, how mean you?"

"Why," I said, "a monk is dedicated to love of his fellow human beings, and to upholding the Commandments-including 'Thou shalt not kill,' and 'Love one another.' But a knight is dedicated to hurting those same people."

"Assuredly, you cannot mean it!" He paled, and I could have sworn he was genuinely shocked. "Do you truly know so little of your own faith?"

"Of my own civilization, you mean." I frowned up at him. "You forget I've spent most of my life in a foreign land."

"Aye, I had forgot." He gathered composure around him, but still seemed rather shaken. "Know, then, young man, that we, as knights, are dedicated to the protecting of God's people from those who worship evil. And they who are dedicated to evil, scruple not to kill and maim in their lust to capture all that they can. It is therefore necessary to take arms against the minions of Satan; only major force can stay them."

I braced myself and tried to smile. I was hearing the rationalization that had allowed medieval Christians to mount a crusade against their own countrymen, for no better reason than that they had come up with a different version of Christianity.

The commander turned away and began to stroll through the camp, glancing around him to see all was in order-but he was still talking, so I tagged along. "Know, too," he said, "that in these lands of Christendom, many folk have fallen under the sway of Satan and his minions. Allustria, where we are now, is sunk in the bog of corruption; it is ruled by a sorcerer-queen. lbile is only lately freed from a similar fate, and Merovence is free only because a most powerful wizard came to the aid of the heir, Queen Alisande, and fought off the evil spells of the usurper's sorcerer, so that her armies might cleanse the land of the false king Astaulf and his twisted knights."

Well, usurpation I could understand, even if it was saturated with superstition. "I take it you come from this, uh, Merovence?"

"In truth, we have."

"Ibile"-that had a familiar ring. The Iberian peninsula? if so, the "reign of evil" would probably have been nothing more than the Moorish Empire-to medieval Spaniards, the Muslim Moors seemed like pagans, therefore worshipping false gods. So I took the rest of it with a grain of salt. "Allustria" sounded like "Austria" with a couple f Is thrown in-maybe "Allemagne," which was Germany, combined with Austria? I knew of a pretty demonic figure in recent history who had tried to do just that-but he wasn't medieval. So I decided to reserve judgment on the evilness of Allustria's queen. But Merovence-would that be France, or Italy? Or maybe Poland or Russia? At a guess it was the land of the Merovingians, which would have been France.

Why not ask? "I'm kind of turned around," I said. "Which way is Merovence? " "Why, ahead of you," said the commander, surprised.

"You are near its border. Did you not know you had come out of Allustria?"

Suddenly, the business about Allustria being under the reign of an evil queen gained credence-at least, judging by the reception I'd had there, and the things Sobaka had said. "I hadn't known," I said.

"Wherever it was, though, I was trying to get out of it."

"In that, you succeeded. Know that you have come into the mountains, and even though the queen of Allustria claims them, her writ does not truly run-though she has folk stationed in pretense of goy ernance. if these hills are held by anyone, they are held by the mountaineers who call themselves Switzers."

Suddenly the geography clicked into place, and I frowned. "But aren't you kind of going the long way around? To go through Switzerland to get into Allustria?"

The commander nodded. " 'Tis even so. Yet there is no other way to come upon the minions of Queen Suettay unawares. Even coming down from the mountains, we may be espied."

"I think not," I said slowly. "If you go down through the pass I came from, you may find that the functionary who's supposed to watch that crossing point may not have been replaced yet."

He glanced at me keenly. "Have you slain him, then?"

"Her," I corrected, "and no, I didn't do any killing. Persuaded her to see the error of her ways, you might say." I didn't like the way he looked at me then, and I added quickly, "Don't get any ideas.

I'm not a missionary."

"You must have a silvered tongue, then, to have so swayed one of Queen Suettay's liege men!"

I noticed my correction about gender hadn't taken, and I wasn't surprised. People tend to see what they want to see, and the Middle Ages kind of locked people into certain expectations, blinding them to anything they hadn't been taught. I recognized this whole business about needing to take arms against evil as just another excuse for doing what Christianity forbade, which amounted to hypocrisy.

I wasn't about to say that out loud, though. Standing for truth is one thing, but saying it when you haven't been asked is another. I had no desire to get pummeled, or to become the subject of an impromptu beheading.

But I was still kind of dazed by the notion of an order of military monks. I wondered what their monastery looked like. Did it have a gate, or a portcullis?

"Strange that you know so little of your own land," the commander sighed, "from sojourning so long among the paynim. Yet you are a scholar, and therefore also a gentleman-though you know not the weapons of honor."

Again, I nodded. I knew something of late medieval society. A gentleman was below the aristocracy, but above the peasantry-upper middle class, in my own day's terms. Knights qualified, but by the eighteenth century, so did squires, even if they never became knights.

They owned enough land to have several tenant farmers, and generally had more education than most. At this point in historyassuming it to be about 1350; I didn't dare ask, for fear of betraying ignorance that might make me suspect-that meant being able to read and write, and knowing table manners and strict rules of protocol.

Not that these boys seemed all that big on class distinctions, though-I saw knights in their gambesons, fetching buckets of water and lighting campfires, right along with their squires. "Uh," I said.

And, "I notice that your men are fetching and carrying, right along with their squires."

"Aye," he said. " 'Tis a lesson in humility."

"But," I said, "when I came up, you said all I was good for was fetching and carrying."

"Aye, and I regret the haste of my words-yet by your appearance, who was to know your quality? Still, friend, though peasants may be fit only for hewing wood and drawing water, a knight is fit for any task, short of those fit only for royal blood, or appropriate to a monk."

"But knights can draw water and gather wood, too, eh?" I nodded; it made sense, within their worldview. You can always do less than you're able-and to them, it was a gesture of humility-but you can't do more. The idea raised my hackles, especially since I knew damn well that any man could learn to ride or swing a broadsword-though I would have been the first to admit that some can learn it better than others.

It was just that my enlightened age believes that every task is as honorable as any other-or tries to, anyway. "But you're monks, too."

"Aye, and like other monks, we labor at menial tasks as well as great, to make us mindful that we, too, are only mortal, and must strive lifelong if we would become saints in Heaven."

Something about that struck a faint resonance of rightness within me. I tried to ignore it. "Meaning that all people are equal in God's eyes? " He stared at me as if I had spoken treason. "Nay, nay! Only that all may become saints, after death!"

But some saints were greater than others, no doubt. I had a vision of Heaven with everyone walking around with different sizes of halos, and smaller houses for the peasant-saints but bigger houses for the gentry-saints, and of course palaces for the aristocratsaints. My mouth quirked, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing, then speak quickly to cover up. "In that case, do you mind if I help? " The commander smiled slowly. "Why, how is this?

Will you now freely offer to do what you refused, when commanded?"

I looked up at him, amused. "Kind of answered your own question, haven't you? "

The commander laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "Aye, you are indeed a gentleman! We will be glad of your aid.', "And I'm glad of your hospitality," I rejoined, "for which, my thanks. Even with the opening wrestling match, you're a lot more friendly than the last bunch I ran into."

The tension was back, suddenly; he was alert all over again. "Who were they, and where?"

"A knight and his men-at-arms," I answered slowly. "Don't know their names, but his shield had a torch turned upside down and mashed flat. "Sir Hohle of the Tarn," he said, his face grim. "I know him by repute, and all of it is evil. Where did you meet him?"

"On the other side of the pass, and a long way down, before the climbing became really steep."

" 'Tis well; his horses could not follow. What manner of welcome did they give you?"

"None at all; they used me for a punching bag, until I got mad and started hitting back."

"Mad? You are a berserker, then?"

"No, no!" I closed my eyes, then looked up at him with a forced smile. "I meant 'angry.' I knocked down a couple of them, and the knight decided to flatten me-but his horse crumpled underneath him, and the fall knocked him out' "Sheer happenstance?" The commander frowned. "I trust it not.

What spirit wards you?"

That brought a chill trickle of familiarity through my vitals, but I shrugged and said, "Just the usual guardian angel, as far as I know.

" "Then it must have been something you said," the commander mused.

"Are you a wizard?"

Again, that cold trickle-I couldn't think why. "Not as far as I know." I didn't bother mentioning what had happened to Sobaka; surely that must have been my guardian angel at work. Or my hallucination ...

Hallucinations that happen to somebody else?

"It may be that you have an inborn talent for magic," the commander said, brooding. "If so, walk very carefully! The merest misstep might cast you into the power of the Evil One-for folk who have such gifts draw either on the power of Satan, or the power of God, though they know it not. Beware, lest you evoke a power you wish not to worship."

That got my back up. I wasn't about to worship any source of power, no matter where it came from. After all, who'd worship Niagara Falls, just because it produced electricity? "Thanks for the advice,"

I said, though. I've always tried to be polite, but at the moment, I had extra reasons.

" 'Tis scarcely a matter for astonishment, that you had so ill a greeting," he said, "since you were coming out of Allustria. In truth, I am amazed you could walk through that benighted land with no i-nore unpleasantness than such as they gave." He stopped by a stack of leather buckets and handed me a couple. I braced for another scene, but he picked up two himself and started walking toward the stream that was gurgling nearby.

Mollified, I followed. "I wasn't in Allustria very long." That much, at least, was true.

He nodded. "You came through the Balkans, then?"

I didn't want to tell a real lie, so I said, "I wasn't about to ask for hospitality there." I looked up sharply at a sudden thought.

"Wait a minute! That's why you insisted on that wrestling match, wasn't it?

To see if I'd pull any tricks!"

"We did test you," he admitted. "Think not harshly of us, I prithee. You were coming from Allustria-we marked you as soon as you came forth from the pass-and you wear outlandish garments .

Who knew but you might be a sorcerer come amongst us?"

I stopped, frowning. "How do you know I'm not?"

"Why, a sorcerer would have used foul magics to best his opponent, before ever the man had struck him-or, at least, would have used foul blows and no slightest mercy. You accorded your opponent first strike and did what you could to lessen the impact of his fall."