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Battle of the Standard, Ralf made Bernard promise that he would look after me if aught should happen to him.”
    Hugh’s face was bleak as he said these words. As Nigel and Cristen knew, Ralf Corbaille had been killed at the Battle of the Standard. It was in the aftermath of that very battle that Nigel had first laid eyes upon Hugh and marked his resemblance to the lost heir of the de Leons.
    Cristen said thoughtfully, “It looks as if someone murdered Lord Gilbert and arranged to throw the blame on Bernard.”
    “That is certainly what it looks like,” Hugh agreed.
    “You had better go to Lincoln and look into the matter,” she said briskly. “This knight would not have traveled so long a way to fetch you if things did not look bad for Bernard.”
    Hugh met her eyes, his face very somber.
    She looked back, her brown eyes clear and calm. “You have to go, Hugh,” she said. “You know that.”
    Nigel looked from his daughter to Hugh, then back again to his daughter. They were looking at each other as if he were not there.
    “Perhaps you can take the opportunity to pay a visit to Keal,” Cristen suggested. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check on your chief manor while you are in Lincolnshire. You can make certain that everything is as it should be.”
    At her words, a faint smile touched Hugh’s mouth. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he agreed.
    As too often happened, Nigel had the uneasy feeling that the two young people were communicating in a way that he couldn’t comprehend.
    He scowled and said crossly, “It’s time for bed.”
    Two pairs of eyes, gray and brown, regarded him with tolerant affection.
    “Aye, Father,” Cristen said. “It is important for you to get your rest. You have still not regained all of your strength.”
    Nigel folded his arms and did not move. “I will go to bed when the two of you do.”
    Hugh got promptly to his feet. “I am going, sir. I need my rest also if I am going to ride for Lincolnshire in the morning.”
    Cristen came and slipped a hand under her father’s elbow. “Come along, Father. I will find William and send him to help you undress.”
    Nigel didn’t know why he felt so grumpy. “Oh, all right,” he said, and stumped off to his bedroom.
    Cristen and Hugh looked at each other.
    Later , they told each other silently.
    The dogs, who had got up when Cristen did, came to press against her skirts. She turned to bring them into the great hall, so that Brian could take them for their last outing before sleep.

4
    T he cold weather lifted the morning that Hugh left Somerford with John Melan. Instad of jarring their legs on iron-hard roads, the horses had to wade through a sea of mud for the several days it took for them to accomplish the journey to Lincoln.
    Ever since the days when the Roman legions had ruled Britain, a city had been set on the limestone ridge where the River Witham bent sharply east toward the sea. The old Roman fortifications still formed the walls of twelfth-century Lincoln, although the Roman streets, sewers, and buildings had mostly disappeared.
    As Hugh rode along the Fosse Way, his mind turned back to the time he had first come to Lincoln. He had been eight years old and running away from the men who had kidnapped him from his home. Until a few months ago, his first memory of his life had been of Ralf dragging him out of his hiding place on a bitter January night and taking him home to Adela.
    On this last day of January when Hugh and John Melan rode their mud-splattered horses toward Lincoln, the weather was humid and warm, not frigid as it had been on that night thirteen years before when Ralf had rescued Hugh. And Hugh was twenty-one now, not eight. But as he stared at the towering heights of Lincoln Castle, perched so intimidatingly on its limestone ridge, he felt once again all the desolation of an abandoned child.
    He still missed them. He would always miss them: Ralf and Adela, the parents of his heart.
    He shut his eyes, and