Hugh woke with a sore, throbbing head. It was no worse than he had endured after a night of strong ale, so he counted himself as fortunate. Better yet, the bishop’s guards had filched his gold and brooches, and his dagger with the fine hilt, but they had reckoned him a drunk of quality. He had been brought to the donjon.

Had Joanna seen him brought in? Was she safe? Had he been hauled before Bishop Thomas and then dragged up the tower staircase? His back and knees ached as if the devil himself had thrust long spikes into him. He could feel huge bruises on his arms and legs. His captors had not troubled to carry him much. He checked his teeth with his tongue: all there, which was a pity. He fancied having Joanna fuss over him with a gap-toothed mouth. He was still wearing the stacked boots, and his dyed chestnut hair must still be just as red; with that and his mazed head, he felt a stranger to himself.

But he was in!

He was inside the bailey of the bishop and inside the stone tower. A new hostage for Thomas, someone rich and foolish, for whom a noble family would pay handsomely. The plan was working: he had not been recognized as Hugh Manhill.

If only Thomas knew.

Hugh smirked, then regretted moving any part of his face as the thunderstorm in his brain shot lightning bolts up and down his body.

“Lie quiet,” said a voice he knew, close to his ear. “The guard is yet within the chamber and he thinks you still dead to this world.”

Hugh half opened his eyes and the dim light clawed at him. He was sprawled on a rough heap of bedding. Yes, the guards certainly thought him quality: they would have dropped a poor man onto the floor timbers in a corner. David, the brother who did not know him yet, was sitting on a stool beside his pallet, playing dice on top of another stool. Where was Joanna’s father? And Joanna herself?

He tried to open his eyes a little more and decided it was easier for the moment to keep them closed.

“Davey.” He whispered the name he had called his brother when they were boys. He could hear the faint rattle of the dice. “Davey.”

David dropped the dice into the rushes between them. Scrabbling there gave him the chance to come closer.

“How do you know my name? Are you a brother?”

Hugh sensed his wary interest, but it pierced him that David should think him a fellow Templar, rather than a brother in true blood.

“As a boy, you feared the moon would fall on your head. Nigel told you the moon was white because it needed blood and it was looking for a boy with golden curls to crush for blood. We both had light hair then.”

He forced himself to open his eyes. “I am your other brother.”

David looked as moon-crushed as any gold-haired lad. He looked as flattened as a beetle under a boot. With widening eyes and a gaping mouth, he pointed at Hugh’s hair, his padded cheeks, and reddened face.

“My brother is not so tall, either!”

“I have pads in my boots and Joanna changed the rest. Good, eh?”

David swore some oath in Arabic and lurched to his feet. Hugh could feel the anger and despair of his brother pouring from him like smoke from a fire. He braced himself for more blows, hissing urgently, “’Tis no grief to me, what you cannot understand, Davey, but what of Joanna? How is she?”

“Oh God.” David put his head in his hands. “God forgive me.”

“What have you done?” Hugh demanded. His head pounded, feeling as if it was about to explode like an old cracked pot. His brother had done something: he had that closed-in, guilty look from boyhood. “David?”

David lurched away, tottering as if he were the one who had been beaten. Sweating with alarm, trembling in every limb, Hugh forced his legs off the pallet, forced his body to rise, and promptly lost all sense again.