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convent and knights serving the Order.”
    “And how come you to be within the borders of Masovia?”
    “We serve our duty to God and the pope.”
    “We all do, Brother Heinrich. What enemy did you face to be so ill-treated?”
    “We are not permitted to say.”
    Telek paced in front of the line of Heinrich’s men. “These are not your lands, Brother Heinrich, and we aren’t some Prussian serfs subject to your authority. My uncle has the right and the duty, granted by the Duke of Masovia, to dispatch any invading forces as he sees fit. As yet he has no quarrel with you, but blood has been shed here. How? And with whom?”
    “I can only say that it was an enemy of God and the Church—”
    “You try my uncle’s patience. We’re quite aware that whomever the Order decides to raise a sword against is an enemy of God and the Church. I suggest that you answer my question, lest you find yourself an enemy of Wojewoda Bolesław and the Duchy of Masovia.”
    Maria felt the tension even from where she stood on the hillside. The air between Brother Heinrich and Rycerz Telek seemed so charged that she felt as if the sod between their feet were in danger of bursting into flame.
    Brother Heinrich lowered his head and said, “I am bound by my vows.”
    “As are we.” Rycerz Telek placed a hand on the pommel of his sword, and Maria felt her breath catch in her throat. It had been almost ten years since the end of open war between the Poles and the Order, and she was about to see it start all over again.
    “But,” Brother Heinrich said so quietly that Maria barely made out the word.
    Telek lowered his hand and repeated, “But?”
    “Grant us a bishop for our confessor, and he can give us leave to speak of what we fight.”
    “A bishop?” Telek raised an eyebrow. “Not a cardinal? Or the pope himself?”
    “Any of those could release our vow not to speak of our mission. However, a bishop will suffice.”
    Telek gestured and his men dismounted. Two came forward and walked up to the Germans while Telek said, “Then if you’re to grant us the honor of accepting the hospitality of Gród Narew, I expect you to surrender your arms to us for safekeeping.”

III
    R ycerz Telek Rydz herbu Bojcza watched his men relieve the Teutonic invaders of their weaponry. With each sword taken, a small weight was lifted off him, though he exercised as much restraint in hiding his relief as he had earlier in hiding his apprehension. Despite the forced joviality he projected, he knew that no good thing could come from the presence of the Order’s knights in Masovia. Christ only knew what carnage they had wrought on the far side of the river, or to what end.
    But the last thing he wanted—the last thing his uncle wanted, and, for that matter, the last thing Duke Siemowit III wanted—would be a convent of dead knights giving the Order a pretext to resume the hostilities that had ended a decade ago, breaking a peace that had only just been ratified by a treaty between the Order and the Duke’s brother, Casimir.
    Whatever horror these knights had wrought across the river from Gród Narew, he couldn’t help but think that the men he saw had fared worse than their opponent. The stench of defeat hung upon them like a shroud, and the fact that Brother Heinrich had come here and surrendered was testament to how badly things had gone.
    Without direct confirmation from Brother Heinrich—andTelek supposed he would have to wait for a bishop to receive that—he estimated Heinrich’s original party as numbering at least a score of mounted knights. If Brother Heinrich had originally had a full convent of warrior monks with him, that would have accounted for about twelve of that number. The rest would be either probationary members who had not yet taken their final vows as monks, or more secular knights looking to buy a way to Heaven with the tip of a sword—though those were more often seen in the Order’s periodic crusades against the pagan