When they were stopped by the shrine of San Sebastian, Simon took the lantern and peered down at the Tartars. The stench of wine and vomit hung heavily over their bed of straw, and both of them were snoring loudly. Aside from being in a stupor, they seemed well enough. The stringy black beard of the younger one, Philip, was clotted with bits of half-digested food. Friar Mathieu produced a comb from his robe and cleaned the beard. Simon rode to the head of the party. "What are you and the old monk gabbling about back there?" asked Alain. "He is hearing my confession," said Simon lightly. Alain laughed. "If you have done anything you need to confess, you've been clever about hiding it from me." When they were back on the road, Simon and Friar Mathieu took up their position at the end of the line. "How did you know there was more, Father?" "You asked me to keep what you have told me secret under the seal of the confessional," said Friar Mathieu. "But you have told me nothing that is a sin on your part." Guilt pierced Simon's heart like a sword, twisting in the wound as he thought how he was betraying his true father and his mother. _I have sworn to Nicolette and Roland never to tell this to anyone._ He took a deep breath. _But I may never again have a chance to talk about it with a wise person I can trust._ Another deep breath. And then: "The truth of it is, Amalric de Gobignon was not my father." Friar Mathieu was silent for a moment. "The man who slew Count Amalric. The man your mother married soon after the count was dead." His voice was soft and full of kindness. "Yes," said Simon, almost choking. "And now you know my sin. The world thinks I am the son of a traitor and murderer, which is bad enough. But I am not even that man's son. I am an impostor, a bastard, and I have no right to the title of Count de Gobignon." Simon flicked the reins, and his palfrey started picking her way down the road into the Vallia de Campesito. Mathieu clucked to his donkey and kept pace with him. "Do you believe that you are committing a grave sin by 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.