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that he
would feel obliged to hie to his lord’s side, she ignored his question and
tugged him after her. “Quickly,” she commanded on impulse. “Follow me!” If his
face had been revealed to her within the tapestry of her dream, she would have
known the futility of altering its course. But it had not been, and Stefan was
far too young to die!
    “My lady!” he protested. He cringed as the sword
Count Phillipe had so recently presented to him shaved the wall. “My lord...”
    “I spoke to him just now,” she lied. “He said you
were to come with me to the chapel!” It was only a small lie, she reasoned.
Surely God would forgive it.
    “My lady?” He tried freeing his arm from her
frenzied grip, but Elienor clutched it all the more fiercely. “Did you not
realize that my lord has gone to Pa—”
    “Please!” Elienor appealed. “Heed me—if only
this once!”
    Stefan dug in his heels stubbornly.
    There were no torches burning in the great hall at
this late hour, and the muted light came from the single torch that graced the
stairwell behind them. As Elienor turned to face him, tears shone in her eyes.
“Stefan,” she cried. “I beg you!”
    His shoulders slumped in frustration and his brow
furrowed, but he nodded. Elienor nearly wept her relief.
    Clasping his hand firmly, she drew him at once out
of the hall, into the narrow pentice, which provided them with a covered
passage from the hall to the kitchens. Once in the kitchen, certain that in
scant moments the donjon would be overrun with the Northmen, she ran across the
smoke-permeated room, to the far doors. It was the quickest route, she knew,
and there was no time to waste. Count Phillipe’s small numbers were simply no
match for the scourge of the north!
    As they left the kitchen and entered another
narrow walkway between buildings, she pulled the boy to her protectively.
Stefan recoiled at once. “My lady, please! I’ve no need of such coddling. I am
elevated to squire! Aide to my lord!” he protested.
    “Hush, Stefan! Instruct me to your heart’s content
once we are safe in the chapel!” Elienor grimaced, recalling the enemy. Since
when had the Northmen regarded the Church as hallowed ground? Mother Heloise
had said that the fiends never spared castle or monastery, whether Roman,
French, or English. Their pillaging of Grande Bretagne’s Jarrow and Wearmouth
was well renown, as well as the numerous parishes of her homeland! It was true
that their reign of terror had subsided of late, but only now that most of
northern Francia was at last under their barbarian rule!
    The chapel door stood ajar a scant few feet away,
the dark interior a greater beacon to her now than the brightest of lights, and
she prayed, asking for God’s mercy and aid—not for herself, but for young
Stefan.
    Let us reach the chapel—please, please, please!
    Tonight, she would live, as the dream foretold...
but Stefan? There was no time even to make the sign of the cross, or she would
have.
    Within the chapel it was darker even than it had
first appeared, but having spent so many hours within its cobbled walls,
Elienor had no need of candle to light the vestibule. Letting her memory guide
her, she snatched up the wooden bar and placed it within the stout metal rings
on either side of the heavy door, locking the two of them securely within.
    “My lady?” Stefan protested, this time with an
edge of desperation to his voice. He was clearly growing impatient, yet having
no choice, Elienor continued to ignore him. Taking him by the hand once more,
she led him to a place beyond the crossing, well into the chancel, and finally
behind the altar. There she shoved him with all her might onto his haunches.
She shoved again when he resisted until he fell back upon his lean little rump.
    “Bon dieul” Stefan exploded. “Enough, I say! Tell
me what goes here! Why do you bar the door when you know I must—”
    From the donjon, shouts of ambush abruptly could
be heard, and after