Faisal arched his brows. 'Your wife has a sister?'

'A half-sister. Gisele was the fruit of Rolf's legal marriage. Julitta was born to his Saxon mistress.'

'Mistress?' Faisal frowned, the word evading him.

'Concubine… although she was more like a wife.'

'Ah.'

Silence descended again and persisted for several minutes. Then Benedict drew a shuddering breath. To speak of Julitta was difficult, although she dwelt in his memory far more brightly than did Gisele. 'She used to follow me round when I was a boy, chattering nineteen to the dozen, being a nuisance as little girls are — I am four years older. On one occasion, I rescued her from a vicious gander, and from that day forth I became her hero. She was funny and high-spirited, always into mischief— and not much of that has changed,' he added wryly. 'I tolerated her, treated her like a little sister.'

Faisal sucked his teeth. 'You are going to tell me that this changed as you grew up.'

'There was a gap of many years when we did not see each other. Julitta's circumstances changed, and when I did meet her again, she was just turning into a woman, and I had been betrothed for more than eight years to Gisele. The gap had been too long; I could not see her as my sister any more.' His expression grew bleak as he told the silent Faisal the remainder of the tale. 'I thought that perhaps this journey with Gisele would bring us together as husband and wife… You can see where it brought us.'

Faisal looked thoughtful. 'To a crossroads,' he said, 'from which you go on alone with your burdens. The time will come when you will shed them, I think, but for now, you must bear them as best you can.'

'The wisdom of the prophet?' Benedict blinked moisture from his eyes. Self-pity would only weigh him down farther. He wondered if Faisal knew that in the Frankish lands, crossroads were places where the dead and the living were reputed to be able to meet.

'No, the words of a friend.'

Benedict managed a tight smile. 'Inshallah,' he said, murmuring the customary Arabic words of protection. 'If God wills it.'

'Inshallah,' Faisal responded gravely, his hands together in a gesture of prayer.

Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, better known as 'El Cid', looked every inch his title. He was tall, with the wide shoulders and narrow hips of an athlete. His tanned face was wide at the brow, with a long, powerful jaw, and prominent cheekbones. Swept-back silver-black hair was trimmed just above the collar of a crimson silk tunic crusted with gold embroidery. It was court dress and not at all customary. Faisal and Benedict could as easily have found him wearing a warrior's quilted gambeson and his swordbelt.

Benedict stared around the great hall as they were led by an equerry towards Lord Rodrigo. It was not so different from the hall at home; although larger and more sumptuous, The architecture was similar, but the painted designs on the plasterwork were bolder and bore a Moorish influence, and on the dais, a brightly coloured rug had been spread on top of the rushes.

Two white and gold Balearic hounds with broad hunting collars trotted up to Benedict, and sniffed him thoroughly. Faisal they accepted with wagging tails and a joyful dance of paws. Faisal laughed and fussed the dogs, sending them into wriggles of ecstasy.

The Lord Rodrigo glanced up from his business on the dais, saw the physician and, with a smile, beckoned him forward to the high table.

Benedict hung back out of courtesy, but Faisal took him by the arm and drew him to the dais. The dogs gambolled underfoot, making it difficult for the men to walk, and a squire hastened to grab the animals by their collars and bring them to heel.

'Well,' said the Lord Rodrigo as Faisal and Benedict bowed the knee before his ornate chair. 'You have finally decided to return, eh? I give you leave to gather herbs in the mountains and attend a sick friend, and you disappear from the face of the world.'

The tone was strong and controlled, bearing no particular inflection. Benedict risked a glance from beneath his lids to see if Rodrigo was angry, and was reassured to perceive a glimmer of dry humour in the dark, almost black eyes.

'It grieves me deeply not to have been here sooner, but there were grave doings that kept me from your court, my lord.' Faisal bowed even further, almost as he did when he faced the east to pray to Allah.

Rodrigo looked down and concern coloured his next words. 'Lord Pedro is well, I trust?'

'I left him in good health, my lord. His chest will always pain him somewhat, but I have given him a medicine to take every day, and if he obeys, he will yet live out a long life.'

Rodrigo's expression softened. 'Then it is well. Both of you, rise and sit by me a while.' He indicated the cushioned bench beside his carved chair. A squire was summoned. Food and drink were brought, and while Rodrigo finished his business with his officials, Faisal and Benedict ate and drank.

Benedict had not had much appetite these last few days on the road. Wrestling with his thoughts and his conscience had left very little room to be concerned for bodily sustenance. Now he realised, as he dipped his bread in a bowl of seasoned olive oil, that he was ravenous. He forced himself to chew and swallow at a measured pace and not to overeat, although that was difficult, since the food was the best he had tasted in a long time — succulent roast lamb with mountain herbs, pigeons served with a peppery sauce of wine and garlic, biblical fruits, and small, sweet fritters.

Lord Rodrigo finished his business and turned his attention to the diners, helping himself to a fig from the bowl of fruit. 'Now, then,' he said with a sharp glance at Benedict, 'to grave doings. Your name is?'

Benedict hastily swallowed his mouthful of fritter. 'Benedict de Remy, my lord, from Rouen in Normandy.'

'We came across him almost dead from exposure and arrow wounds,' Faisal explained. 'He was the only one of his pilgrim group to survive. It was an organised attack by Basque hill men. His wife was among the dead. I have been caring for him these past few weeks, and now I bring him to you.'

The Lord Rodrigo's face had turned to stone as Faisal spoke of mountain robbers. 'Such men are beneath mercy,' he said, his lips curling back from his large, white teeth. 'To rob and murder pilgrims bound upon errands of prayer is an act beyond salvation.' He looked at Benedict with anger and compassion. 'I am sorry that you should bear such a burden of grief. Rest assured, I will pursue this matter. The mountains are beyond the reach of my writ, but I will do what I can to influence those who do have jurisdiction.'

'Thank you, my lord.'

'I know it is small comfort to you. The loss of your wife must be a great sorrow.'

Benedict lowered his eyes and said nothing. He did not want to talk about Gisele. He had said enough to Faisal. Nor did he wish to speak of the attack. He remembered very little except the horror of the vultures settling to feed, and Gisele's dead weight stirring back and forth against him in the water's current.

'Do you continue on to Compostella?'

'In time, my lord.' Benedict relaxed slightly. 'It was my wife's intention to pray at the shrine, and I will do so to honour her. But I also came to your country to buy horses. My father-by-marriage is a famed breeder of destriers in Normandy and England. Iberian bloodstock would enhance his reputation even more… and mine.'

Rodrigo looked him up and down. He saw a young man, handsome and slender. The eyes were careworn, the mouth held in the tight line of recent suffering, the hands lean and clever. A horse breeder of repute, so he said, and yet he scarcely looked old enough to grow a beard. Rodrigo could imagine him dallying in the company of women with a harp and pretty love songs, but not assessing warhorses in a dusty tiltyard. Appearances could be deceptive, and Faisal certainly seemed to have taken to the pilgrim, but Rodrigo had learned from bitter experience never to take anyone by word alone.

'I can find you horses,' he said. 'When you are rested, I will show you the herds on my own estates.'

The weariness lifted slightly from the young man's expression. A spark kindled in his eyes and he thanked his host in a tone less dull than his previous exchanges.

Rodrigo shrugged his powerful shoulders. 'It will be my pleasure,' he said, and perused Benedict once more. 'Are you a fighting man? Have you ever been trained to arms?'

Benedict pinched his upper lip between forefinger and thumb and considered the reply. 'I am not sure how to answer, my lord. I know the rudiments of sword play and I can use a spear and shield as well as any footsoldier, and I am competent with both on horseback. I have to be for testing how a particular horse will respond to the weight of an armed man on his back. Not every animal of destrier stock is suitable to become a warhorse.'

Rodrigo nodded. Deceptive appearances again. Perhaps a deceptive tongue too. He reserved his judgement.

The young stallion's hide flowed like molten-bronze, rippling over powerful muscles and strong bones. His mane and tail were an attractive contrast of silver-blond, the latter sweeping to the ground.

Rodrigo smiled inside his mouth at the rapt, almost stunned expression on Benedict de Remy's face as a groom led the animal up and down. 'He is yours,' he said. 'A gift to replace the mount you lost when you were robbed.'

Benedict stared at the vision before him, and was mute with longing, delight, and awe. Cylu, beloved even though he had been, would have fetched only half the worth of this horse in trade. 'My lord, I can never repay you,' he said huskily. 'I know many a lord in Normandy who would give his teeth for a such a horse to use in the hunt.'