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When William opened his eyes, he started upright and realized he was not anywhere he recognized. It took him a moment to remember that he was asleep in the guest room Father Harold had been assigned, but when he turned there was nothing but air. As he peered around the room, all of the items which the old chaplain traveled with were gone, including the book which had caused so much trouble.

The friar took a moment to wipe his eyes and find his boots, and then he saw a bit of parchment on a small table where a jug of mead and some hard bread had been laid out for him. Before touching the nourishment, William gathered up the parchment and immediately recognized his chaplain's flourished scratches.

Will,

I have set out to put right the things I have put wrong, and atone for deeds which are unatonable. Should you never hear from me again, there is a chest for you that Father Michael has been keeping safe. Your honor has always been impeccable and your heart has been true. Never allow the faults of this old man to haunt you. My instructions are - complete your mission, then take that young maiden by the hand and go home.

_ _

Father Harold

_ _

P.S. - You talk too much. If that pretty girl tries to kiss you, shut up and let her.

_ And if she is kissing you, don't talk, just kiss her back._

_ _

William could not help but laugh at the post script, but then he found tears forming in his eyes. There was no arguing with his mentor, for the old man knew too much, but in this path he had chosen, the friar knew him to be wrong. Whatever was happening, the old man needed help. Whatever sins he had committed, Brother William knew that the only way to walk the most difficult paths in life were arm-in-arm with those whom one trusted. Like a soldier on the battlefield, Father Harold needed his comrades.

Folding the parchment neatly, the friar put it into his travel pouch and then checked what he had brought with him. There was an extreme lack of anything useful inside of it, especially if he was going to battle the forces of darkness. While Father Harold would disagree in his assessment, what he really felt like he needed came from a rougher time in his life when the path he saw before him was completely different from the one he now pursued.

Take that young maiden by the hand and go home, Brother William thought and then a small smile creased his lips. Taking a moment to right himself at the mirror, the friar reached for the door, only to jump back when someone knocked from the other side.

"Brother William?" called the sweet voice of the young maiden he had just been thinking of. All the air left his lungs like he had been punched in the gut and he could suddenly not feel his feet. A hundred responses crossed his mind in an instant but they were all rejected, and he decided he would have to wing it. A deep breath finally managed to fight its way into his body and then he opened the door.

"Maid Marion," he said with only a slight crackle to his voice, so he cleared his throat.

"I have prepared your master's horse," the maid told him, "and I have prepared you some food for the road."

"Thank you so much," William managed without sounding like a fool in his ears, "but I am afraid I must decline."

"Forgive me, Brother," the maid said sternly, "but your master was quite clear in his instructions."

Her words pinched at his ribs and invoked a glum sort of despair. Of course he left instructions like these ... he has been my mentor and my friend for a decade ... he knows my heart all too well.

"He is my mentor, not my master," William said in an attempt to sound brave. "It is because I love him so that I cannot do as he says."

"Because you wish to help him?" the maid said suddenly. "Please, Brother, you must know you cannot help unless he wishes it. If you fight against his will you will only bring his wrath upon you and then you will be in a place far worse that you had thought possible."

"Please, my lady," he tried again, "I must help him!"

"And what would you do?" she asked with a raised brow. The friar hesitated and then lashed out, snatched the girl's slender wrist, pulled her into the room, and closed the door. "My Lord-" she gasped out of habit and then stopped when she looked at his face.

"What is going on here?" he asked her in a hushed voice. "What type of evil web had the countess trapped him in?" The maid's eyes grew large for a moment and then she looked away. _She knows. _ "Please, my lady ... Father Harold is more than my mentor ... he is like a father to me. He saved me from being killed when the Templars were being rounded up. My family is dead ... and I would already be in ground near their feet if Father Harold had not touched my heart with his teachings and brought me into the light. If I abandon him now ... I will never forgive myself."

"You are asking me to betray my master," the servant said quietly as she still looked away. "How can you ask me?"

"Is the countess your true master?" William asked, and he immediately saw the conflict in her face. "Was there not another? The one you truly served?"

"It is true," the maid said after a moment of silence. "There are good hearts here which that woman has maimed ... and one still who is falling. I need you to protect her."

"I would rather protect you," William heard himself say and then felt like a fool for having said it.

"Yes, I can see that," the maid said as she cast her eyes to the floor. "It is easy to love one like me ... but can you love one who is not so fair? Can you give your love one who is unsightly in the eyes of the masses? Can you help one who is truly in need, as the men of your order are sworn to by oath?"

William's insides twisted themselves in a knot as he thought of the girl who he had seen in the garden. This wonderful maiden was trying to save her mistress ... like a faithful servant. _Will there ever be time for us or are these few moments the only we will ever know? _ "I will need a sword," he finally said.

"It will not be enough," she told him.

"It is a start," he said with concern at her warning.

"How far are you willing to go for your ... friend?" the maid asked. "What pits would you enter? What lines would you cross?"

"If I am truly to be like Jesus," he told her, "I must be willing to lose all but my soul."

"Would you give you indenture your soul in service to another to save those you hold dear?"

The questions were similar to others he had spoken to at the seminary ... but he had never expected to hear them asked by a servant ... much less an uneducated woman. Then William remembered the conversations he had shared with Father Harold and the questions that had often been raised. If the world had been made to test man, then what was he striving to become? Was the world a school for the soul? Was God as perfect as the church pretended him to be? What of the places with ungodly people? Did the men with dark skin all burn in the fire like their pale faced leaders loudly proclaimed?

"Do you know why the clergy are sworn to chastity?" Father Harold had once asked William when they were in the woods attending their campfire.

"We are supposed to be pure," William had answered, "and not corrupt ourselves with lust."

"That is what they tell you," Father Harold had said with a laugh, "but it is untrue. The truth is that woman is more holy than man. She holds the cradle of life in her body and can drive men to madness with a single glance. Compared to them we are but animals."

"Is that why we lust for them so?" William had asked him.

"We lust for them because we are designed to lust for them," Father Harold had told him. "Much like our dear savior, if you find a lowly whore and you enter her life ... she may someday anoint you with oils ... for it is they whom we wish to better ourselves for."

"That is why the church is our mother?" William had asked.

"Yes," Father Harold told him, "and as with all good women in the Good Book, she is also a whore."

It had become their personal code, something William later learned that this creed was part of a specific group within the Templars. Knights whose vows caused them to shatter deep lines no God fearing church goer would dare cross. A strange smile crossed William's lips as he looked at the maid. Could you be one of their order? Are you a descendent of the men who worshiped the mothers whom the church burned at the stake?

"I have indentured my soul to the church," he said as he watched her features. "And though the church is my mother ... my mother is a whore." Those words caused something to shift in the young woman's face and William could tell she was thinking hard about whether to say what she felt she must. "If what I suspect is true, then the surviving Templars will be coming in the morning to put all in this house to the sword and then burn it to the ground. I do not believe in such zealotrous justice or the black and white of blind faith. If we are truly to understand this world and our souls, we must be willing to step into the darkness and cling tightly to our light."

"You a Templar once," the maid stated in a positive tone and William smiled.

"I was a page," he admitted, "but when Father Harold became my mentor, my life was redirected."

"Father Harold is a chaplain?" she asked.

"It is so," William admitted.

"Then perhaps you can help us," the maid told him with fire in her eyes. "You will need to be more than you are! You must let go of your doubt and your fear-"

"You want me to become the dark lover," William said and Marion's face widened in surprise. "I was to be a Templar," he told her. "Though I gave up the sword and became a friar, I still know much of the Templar's secrets."

"But not everything," Marion said.

"I know of Lilith in the garden. I know that Adam and Eve fell to the trickery of a jealous God-"

"No, you are wrong," Marion interrupted him. "It was not a jealous God who was involved, but the Fae."

"Fae," William blinked. "Like ... fairies?"

"Faeries," Marion clarified, "as in the Irish and Celtic traditions. Angels, by your books, which were supposed to raise man as God's replacement and then grant him the fruit of knowledge. But the Fae did not want to be replaced by this lesser race and so they stole his birthright and fed him false fruit. This curse, which is upon man, was something Lilith avoided and she seeks to undo it. But because the garden was poisoned ... so too was the soul of man. It is rare to find a one who is able to see past the falsehoods which the world places before them. You are not pure, but Lilith mixed her blood with the sons of Adam. There might be enough within you to join the court of Lilith and save Mistress Lana from the devils which her mother would sacrifice her to."

There was silence between them as William digested all which he had just heard. There were always gaps in the stories, and this one made more sense than many of the others he had been told. It was strange to him, though, that this girl would be the messenger.

"Who are you really?" he asked, and she bit her lip before speaking again.

"I am ... a servant ... of Lilith," she finally said to him.

"Okay," William said and then remembered what his mentor had asked him to do. "Tell me, is there a reason why Father Harold would want me to go to the temple in the east and get the statue from it?"

"Yes," she told him, though there was clearly more information that she refused to give him.

"Alright," he said and then took a breath. "Can you show me where it is?"

In her eyes he saw a glimmer of hope which she had not felt in a long time. "Will you become the dark lover?"

"If I must," he told her.

"It is the only way," she insisted.

William hesitated. The Dark Lover was something which he had always heard referred to but the stories were incredibly vague. Some said he was a demon who fought for God. Others said he ate women's souls. Others made him out to be some incredible warrior, made of a merging of angel and demon. The truth was ... he had no idea what the dark lover was. But if he was to save his friend ... and that poor girl, then he would need to step deeper into this strange world.

"I will consider the offer," William finally told her, "but I insist that it is you whom shows me the way.

Walls of distrust melted in her eyes, as she saw now an ally where once a stranger had stood. "Follow me," the maid told the friar with a quiet courage which he admired.

Without another word, they moved out into the hall and passed quietly through the shadows until they came to a weapon rack. An impressive collection of different weapons rested upon it and all of the swords rested in scabbards which were ready for a belt. After careful consideration, William selected a bastard sword with a hilt that allowed for one or two-handed use. Nothing but the best for the countess, he thought with admiration as he tested the weapon's weight. A matching scabbard was easily located and it neatly into place on his person.

With the weapon at his side and a maiden to defend, the friar felt more like a knight. He followed her through the manor, and then to the stable where his master's horse waited. There he climbed into the saddle then Marion climbed up behind him. Slight arms slid around his chest and he marveled at the softness of her skin, contrasted by the strength of sleek muscles of her body which pressed against his back. A smile formed on his face, as he led them out of the stable, and with the courage of a knight, he listened to the words which she breathed and rode off into the green wood.