So, as they drove away in the elegant phaeton, Roland experienced a secret sense of disappointment that his father should, through moral carelessness, have allowed himself to be cheated by Jacob, and indeed, that he should have had any dealings with Jacob at all. It was just one more indication, he thought, that his father, though kind, was shallow and lacked any fixed center.

In such circumstances, how was he to find any certainty? Whatever his father’s shortcomings, he himself was still the descendant of crusaders, and of the heroic friend of Charlemagne himself. What life could he follow that would be worthy of those ancestors, and of his mother, too?

There was the Church of course. But he also had a duty to provide heirs for the family. It looked as if providence had chosen that he should follow the path of his pious namesake in the reign of Saint Louis, and attend to the estate and his family. But in some way that might make up, perhaps, for the moral laxity of his father.

He was still brooding about this when, as they reached the foot of the rue du Temple, the coachman took another way home and crossed directly over the bridge to the Île de la Cité. And they were just passing in front of the parvis of Notre Dame when he turned to his father and declared: “I have decided upon my career, Papa.”

“Ah. The law, perhaps?”

“No, Papa. I wish to join the army.”

Chapter Six

•  1307, October  •

Jacob ben Jacob had been out all night and half the next day. He’d searched the main road that led toward the south, asked every farmer and passerby. Nothing. He’d searched other roads, farther to the east.

Not a sign. Either his daughter had taken some other way, or they were still hiding in the city. Or, just perhaps, it had all been a mistake, and she had come safely home after all. It could be so. He prayed to God that it was so.

But if not, then he faced a huge problem. How to explain her absence? Could he pretend that she had died? He went over the possibility in his mind. He couldn’t say that she had fallen sick. Quite apart from the fact that no physician had seen her, the two servants in the house would know it wasn’t true. Might she have had an accident outside the city? Could some story be concocted that would satisfy the authorities? Could the little family mourn behind an empty coffin, watch as it was lowered and bury the memory of his daughter safely in the ground?

But what if she came back again?

Yet somehow the business had to be covered up. No one must know what Naomi had done.