y being the Count
de Gobignon?"

"My mother and Roland say no, but I do not think they are very good
Christians. They are full of pagan ideas. I am Count Amalric's only male
heir. And the blood of the house of Gobignon does flow in my veins. I am
not the son of Count Amalric de Gobignon, but I am the grandson of his
father, Count Stephen de Gobignon."

Friar Mathieu clapped his hand to his forehead. "I am lost in the tangle
of bloodlines. What in heaven's name do you mean?"

Simon's entire body burned with shame as he thought how accursed his
family would seem to anyone hearing this for the first time. The bastard
son of a bastard son. The usurper of his half uncle's title. Tangled,
indeed. Twisted was a better word for it.

In his agony he whispered the words. "Roland de Vency, my true father,
is the bastard son of Count Stephen de Gobignon, sired by rape in
Languedoc. Roland and Count Amalric were half brothers."

"God's mercy!" exclaimed Friar Mathieu. "But then you do have some claim
by blood to the title. To whom else could it go?"

"I suppose the fiefdom could go to my oldest sister, Isabelle, and her
husband. He is a landless knight, a vassal of the Count of Artois. My
three sisters married far beneath their stations--because of what Count
Amalric did."

Friar Mathieu sighed. "Would any great evil come of it, do you think, if
you were to give up your estate?"

"My mother and father--my true father, Roland de Vency--would be exposed
as adulterers. We would all be charged as criminals, for defrauding the
kingdom and the rightful heirs, whoever they might be." He saw his
mother kneeling with her head on a chopping block, and a chill of horror
went through him.

"Simon, this is no easy question you have set before me this night. The
lives of thousands of people, even the future of the kingdom, could be
determined by who holds the Gobignon domains. I think it is not so
important that the Count de Gobignon be the _rightful_ person as that he
be the _right_ person. Do you take my meaning?"

"I think so," said Simon. What Friar Mathieu was saying gave him a faint
feeling of hope.

"I know you well enough to know that the people of Gobignon are blessed
to have you as their seigneur. When a bad man inherits a title, we say
it must be God's will, and those who owe him obedience are bound to
accept him. Might we not say that when a man like you is invested with a
title, regardless of how he came by it, that is