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hand and slid the pearl ring from his finger.
She fumbled for Raffe's hand and before he realized what she was doing, she
pushed the gold band on to his finger.
        'No,
no, m'lady, I cannot . . .' Raffe protested, trying to pull it off.
        But
she folded his fingers around the ring. 'It belonged to Gerard's father and,
when he died, to Gerard, but he has no son to wear it in his memory. His
lineage dies with him. You have been more than a brother to Gerard. That makes
you my son. Take the ring. Wear it in memory of them both. They would want you
to have it.'
        Raffe
felt as if the gold ring had tightened on his finger, burning into it, like a
red-hot copper mask that is bolted on to the face of a traitor. Nothing,
nothing she could have done could have caused him more misery and guilt than
this and yet he knew it was being done innocently in love and gratitude.
        Lady
Anne softly caressed the cheek of her dead son, as if he was again an infant
sleeping in a cradle.
        'Tell
me this, Raffaele,' she whispered. 'Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that
the girl will be able to carry this sin without causing harm to herself and her
family?'
        'She
doesn't know what she carries,' Raffe answered dully. 'It will be no burden to
her. She is a virgin. Just as when, in the ordeal by fire, the hand of the
guiltless is unwrapped and is found to be unharmed, so the sin-eater cannot be
tainted by the sin, not if that person is pure.'
        'And
if Elena is not a virgin?' Lady Anne persisted.
        'She
is!' Raffe's assertion came out more vehemently than he intended. Lowering his
voice, he added, You heard her say so herself, m'lady. Besides, it was for the
soul of your son that we did this, your son and my friend. Is the life and soul
of a villein worth more to you than that?'
        Lady
Anne gazed down at her son's wasted face. As she looked up at Raffe once more,
he saw the same ferocity of passion in her own eyes as he had once seen in her
son's.
        'I
swear to you, Raffaele, there is nothing I would not give in this world or the
next, and nothing I would not do, to save my son from the fires of hell, even
to the damnation of my own soul.'
        He
thought of the copper-haired girl running away from him down the steps.
Although she didn't know it, Elena was bound to him now. No marriage blessing,
no consummation could tie them closer than this. Marriage was only until death;
together they would carry this sin to the grave and into the life beyond.

 
     
        

    Quarter Day of the Waxing Moon,
    December 1210
        
         Mistletoe — which some call All-heal, Muslin-hush or Kiss and go. It is
hung in houses all year round to bring peace and fertility, and to ward off
thunder and lightning, evil spirits, demons and the faerie folk. If it is hung
over the entrance to a house or above a hearth, a guest knows that his hosts
bear him no malice and he may enter with their pledge for his safety. If mortal
enemies find themselves under a tree which bears it, they can fight no more
that day.
        Mistletoe
is cut on Christmas Eve and hung on Christmas Day when the old sprig is burnt.
But if new sprigs are cut before Christmas Eve it brings ill fortune, and if it
is hung in the house before Christmas Day, a member of that household shall
surely die before the next Christmas. It may also be cut on the Eve of Samhain
or All Hallows, when a sprig is worn about the neck to keep the mortal safe from
witches. But to cut it then, the mortal must circle the oak three times and cut
the sprig with a new dagger, never before used.
        Some
call its twin berries the testicles of Uranus, which were severed and fell into
the sea, becoming the blood and white foam from which Aphrodite was born.
Thereafter men have kissed maids under the mistletoe, removing one berry for
each kiss they have stolen, till no berries remain and kissing must cease.
        But
beware: if a