Norcross leaned against the wheel for the longest time. An anguished plea rose from the crowd, “Please … let the boy up. Let him up.”I clenched my fist, counting the beats that Alo remained under. Twenty … thirty … forty.

Then Norcross’s face split into an amused smile. “Goodness… do I forget the time?”

He slowly raised the wheel. When Alo broke the surface, the boy’s face was bloated and wide-eyed. His small jaw hung open, lifeless.

Marie screamed and Georges began to sob.

“What a shame.” Norcross sighed, leaving the wheel aloft and Alo’s lifeless body suspended high. “It seems he wasn’t cut out for the miller’s life after all.”

A silence ensued, a terrible moment that was empty and gnawing. It was broken only by Aimée’s whimpers as she emerged weak-kneed from the mill.

“Let us go.” Norcross gathered his knights. “I think the duke’s point is adequately driven home.”

As he made his way back across the square, he stopped over me where I still lay and hovered. Then he pressed his heavy boot into my neck. “Do not forget your pledge, carrot-top. I will be looking especially for your tax payment.”

Chapter 5

THAT TERRIBLE AFTERNOON changed my life. That night, as Sophie and I lay in bed, I couldn’t hold back the truth from her. She and I had always shared everything, good and bad. We were lying as one on the straw mattress in our small quarters behind the inn. I gently stroked her long blond hair, which fell all the way down her back. Every time she moved, every twitch of her nose, reminded me how much I loved her, how I had since the first time I had set eyes on her.

It was love at first sight for us. At ten!

I had spent my youth traveling with a band of itinerant goliards, given to them at a young age when my mother died, the mistress of a cleric who could no longer hide my presence.