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or
cut down the tangled thickets grown like a ring of thorns around
the island. Only the barest of necessities inside the domicile were
restored. The great hall was swept clean of rot and filth, the
tower rooms were made habitable, the cook house was restocked with
ironware and clay pots. And wine. The alehouse was pressed into
service almost at once for it was a rare night in those early
months that the lord of the keep did not drink himself into a
stupor and have to be carried to his bedchamber by the tall, hooded
seneschal.
    The only
cheerful face amongst the new residents was the squire, Roland, who
went to great pains to assure the villagers that his lord was not
the devil and that the cowled albino, named Marak, was not a
follower of Beelzebub. Roland himself was a distant cousin to Lord
Tamberlane, who was in turn the nephew of William de Glanville,
brother to the late chief justiciar of England, Ranulf de
Glanville, who had died while fighting alongside his king at the
siege of Acre.
    Once Lord
Tamberlane’s name was revealed, it was whispered with mixed emotion
by the villagers who, even though they abided in the farthest
corner of God’s green earth, had heard the tales and feats
attributed to one of Christendom’s mightiest crusaders. It was said
the Lionheart had dubbed him Dragonslayer for his ferocity in
battle, and that he was one of only two knights who had survived
the slaughter at the Battle of Hattin, where over two thousand
Christian soldiers had been captured and beheaded. It was said he
fought at Richard’s right hand side, that he had saved the king’s
life when Saladin had sent his assassins into the Christian camp in
the dead of night.
    But then there
were the other whispered tales. Rumors of cowardice, of disobeying
orders, of spitting on the Beauseant—the holy banner of the
Templars. It was said he deserted the king's army in Arsuf, that he
wandered the desert and lived with the paynims for several months
before he presented himself before the Grand Master and faced the
charges against him.
    Returning
pilgrims told of a great trial wherein the Dragonslayer was
condemned to death and only spared at the last possible moment by
the king himself. In the end, the punishment meted out to the
knight was to be stripped of his secular mantle, excommunicated for
his sins and cast from the Order of priestly warriors.
    Defrocked and
disgraced, he had returned quietly to England, where his presence
had been commanded before his uncle and while the meeting was held
in private, with not the keenest of ears able to hear what was
said, a month later he had arrived at Taniere Castle to take up
residence in a solitude likened to exile.
    Not everyone
agreed with the charges, and not everyone obeyed the tribunal's
edict to shun and ostracize. Over the ensuing weeks, it was not
just the villagers who crossed the drawbridge to Taniere to take up
service to their new liege, but soldiers and men at arms. Knights
who had served with Tamberlane in Outremer and disdained the
accusation of cowardice began to appear at the gates, kissing a
ring he did not offer willingly, pledging loyalty with vows he did
not actively seek. Some came marked by a weariness of bloodshed and
war. Others simply carried too many nightmares in their heads and
needed the peace and tranquillity of Taniere’s isolation to grapple
their demons to ground.
    The villagers
who worked inside the castle were also able, eventually, to
overcome their fear of the tall, robed seneschal who, while he
could still chill blood on a mere turning of his cowled head,
proved to be a practiced healer. A maid who had burned her arm
horribly with a spill of boiling oil was treated with a thick
unguent that not only took the pain away upon the instant, but
within days had soothed the blisters and encouraged fresh new skin
to grow over the wound. Similarly, a young boy with a caul over his
eye was made to see again. A miller with a scrofulous boil on his
neck was healed