CHAPTER 6

Damien did not even know her name. And yet he felt as if he had lost a treasured friend, or probably even more than that. It was as if a part of his own soul had just been brutally murdered in the town square.

Her surname was Thompson, he had heard that much when the people muttered in the streets. More than that he did not know about her. And now he might never know.

"I tried," he whispered. "God knows I tried," he kept on muttering.

He had been deeply moved. He had been moved beyond all reason, all logic, when he had heard her strong, deep voice and the courage in it, as it rang out over the spectators, shaming them as they should well be shamed. And he had known then that he had to try. Though he had no idea now what he could have done, even had the security let him pass. Even had he reached her again. Perhaps he had been a bit mad.

Perhaps she truly was a witch and had cast some spell, some allurement, over his heart while being there on the gallows. He did not know. He knew only one thing that something had possessed him; some sudden, violent, desperate need to just save her.

And he had failed, there.

She swung slowly from the end of a rope beside her mother, her life snuffed out far too soon. And he realized, by the cold dampness seeping through his robes and chilling his legs, that he knelt now, before the gallows. He seemed to have fallen right where he had been standing when the trapdoor had jerked away from beneath the beautiful girl. And he remained there still kneeling in the snow.

He then got to his feet, but his legs felt weak, and an unknown hollowness had crept into his chest. Staggering forward, he snatched a blade from a local man's belt as he passed the man. Ignoring the fellow's outcry, he moved beneath the gallows, to gather the young woman's body into his arms. He held her tight to him as he sawed at the rope until it gave way. Her weight fell upon him, head resting on his shoulder like a lover's. Her satin-soft hair was snow-damp and fragrant, while they brushed against his cheek. He closed his arms around her body and turned his face full into that hair to inhale it and to feel it and to preserve it to his memory, as well as to hide the incomprehensible tears that welled up in his eyes. Her face was so warm, against his skin. So much as if she were only sleeping.

"What might you have been to me?" he asked her, his voice a subdued whisper. "What might we have been to each other?"

But he spoke to death, and death did not answer.

"Thought it makes no sense, girl, my heart is broken. I did not know you at all, and yet it feels so very much as if I did know you. As if I always have." He kept on speaking to the girl's dead body. He rocked her in his arms, and a sob choked him. "Can you hear me? Are you out there, somewhere, listening, lass? I will give you a proper burial, I vow it. And your dear mother, too."

He held her close, enveloped in a pang of sadness he could not explain and a new certainty about the path he would walk in this life. And he owed her thanks for that if nothing else, he realized.

A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder. "What sort of spectacle do you wish to make of yourself, boy?"

Damien turned to see the murderer himself, Nicholas Davenport, his own trusted mentor. "Do you reckon what you have done today? Damien asked him.

Nicholas's eyes narrowed, and he signaled to someone with a flick of his wrist. Immediately four men rushed forward to tear the beauty from Damien's arms, as he cried out in protest. They bore her away, dumping her body on the back of a rickety wagon where her mother's body already lay. The man in the driver's seat snapped the reins, and the wagon turned away.

"Where are they taking her?" Damien demanded, addressing Davenport but keeping his gaze fixed to that wagon, to her, until it rounded a curve and disappeared from sight.

"To the pit beyond the town. Best to get their kind as far from the decent folk as possible, lad. You will understand one day. This was for the best," Davenport replied.

"It was a gruesome murder," Damien spat out, "and a sin of the most despicable sort!" Damien glared at Nicholas Davenport now that the wagon was gone from his sight. "I cannot continue under the tutorship of a man who would approve it. My studies end here, today, Nicholas. I want no part of your priesthood, for you have shown it to be one of purest evil."

Nicholas's cloudy blue eyes narrowed, but not in anger, and he did not shout 'Blasphemy!' as Damien had expected.

Nicholas simply said, "I would control my tongue, were I in your place, Damien. You have no idea what sorts of forces you are dealing with."

"I will not control my tongue. I cannot!" Damien said.

Nicholas shook his head slowly. "You know the teachings of the Church. The elimination of witches is our duty as Christians, Damien. It is absolutely compelling that we wipe them from existence, and rid the world of the infliction of witchery."

Damien searched the old man's face. He had been close to him once, thought of him almost as fondly as he did his own father. No more. "And what will you do next, Nicholas, when you have murdered them all? What will your next mission be? To rid the world of anyone else whose beliefs differ from your own?"

Nicholas smiled. "The Crusades attempted to do that and failed. I simply seek to do my duty, Damien. And it will be a service to all Christians if I succeed, in my mission."

"No," Damien said. "Not all." And he turned away from the man, feeling nothing now but hatred for him; a man he had once thought to be closer to God than anyone he had ever known. But Damien realized now that Nicholas was nothing. Less than nothing, in fact. He was a killer who actually seemed to enjoy his work.

"Where are you going?" Nicholas demanded. "Do not turn your back on me, boy! Answer my question!"

With a glance over his shoulder and an awareness of the people looking on, listening in, Damien replied, "I am going to gather my things, Nicholas. And then I am going to see those two women get a proper burial. After that, I only know I will be going as far away from you and your kind as I can. You are no man of God, but a fraud, and a killer. And I cannot abide being in the same village as you."

Then Damien continued on his way without another word, hearing the gasps and whispers of the townspeople as he passed.