We traveled the roads by night, stopping daily in small towns across northern France, populated by French country farmers, their wives, their children. I peeked from the curtains of inns in the mid-afternoon, watched women carry wash pails and baskets of fresh bread. Children, covered in dust and mud, walked to and from the town well or the market. Men came home from the fields at midday to eat with their families. Most of these people had never been to Paris, never seen the great bells of the cathedrals, never witnessed the destruction of the Inquisition. I admired their ignorance, blessed as it was. Most of these people, in their lifetimes, would never make it beyond their county seat, let alone to the doorsteps of the King of France. Among them, there might be one pious man, one man who would walk the lonely road of pilgrimage, to the great cathedrals of France. But most of these simple people simply didn't have the time.

I admired them, their dusty faces and wrinkled eyes. The children had rosy cheeks and happy smiles. The women were bosomed and blossoming, like roses in our simple parish garden. They seemed like happy people, happy people born into simplicity and poverty. I'd been born into poverty too, a different kind of poverty. I recalled the sisters, my sisters, and left tears on plain wooden windowsills from Rouen to Calais. Each time Eric packed his bag, giving the sun time to set beneath the horizon, I pitied my own misfortune. Couldn't I trade my life with one of these simple peasants? Couldn't I turn myself over, change my life in their hands?

"Sookie?" Eric spoke gently at my back. I set myself down on the leather seat of the carriage and covered my lap with a scrap of bear fur. I smoothed my fingers through the soft pelt, tucked the ends of the hide around my thighs. I lifted my eyes to him, acknowledging the man that had rescued me, saved me, protected me. It was a quiet night. His pale face shone gloriously, like the shining white moon above our heads.

"You're hobbling, child," he frowned, following me into the carriage. He shut the door and rapped on the ceiling to give signal to the driver. I heard the horse rustle, felt the rumble of the carriage as we sped further toward Calais.

"It's getting better," I frowned awkwardly. The truth was, my leg was getting better but in an unusual way. The knee kicked out in an unusual direction, and the bones hurt at the shin and thigh and hip. Walking was painful and difficult.

"Let me see it, Sookie," Eric urged me. He touched the hide across my legs and pulled it aside. I grasped his hand, surprised by his forwardness. I could only vaguely recall the intimate moments we'd shared, and then, then I had been so much closer to peril. Now I had my wits about me.

"It is all right, Sir, I promise," I whispered, my voice trembling beyond my control. Eric withdrew his hand with some reluctance.

"I am not a knight, Sookie. You do not have to call me "Sir"."

"What is your title?" I asked timidly. It occurred to me that I didn't even know. I wanted to know.

"I am a nobleman, a Baron," Eric said thoughtfully, as if he'd had to think about it for a moment before answering.

"A Lord," I whispered. "So I must call you my Lord,"

"Not when we are alone, child. Only when we are in the company of my staff. Until then, you may simply call me Eric. Now, tell me why you are limping. It shows not only in your gait but in your face. It causes you pain."

"It is gnarled," I murmured, unable to lie to him. I pushed back a corner of the wrap and lifted the dull brown skirt covering my bare legs. My skin was bruised in some places, pink in others.

"You will be crippled, Sookie. After all you have been through," he frowned, touching my hand. I shook my head and a few wisps of yellow fell around my face.

"No. You saved me. I am not crippled, only bent. God has blessed me, leaving only a reminder of my trauma. I am well loved, well looked after. I could not be happier."

"When we arrive in Kent, you will have the best doctors. You will not take my healing, but perhaps you will allow them to work their own magic."

I slept on much of the carriage ride, and when I awakened, we were in the next quaint country town on the road to the sea. He slept like death itself, still and cold, behind black curtains covering heavy glass windows. I thought about magic, the magic of healers and the magic of death. This man, this angel, was magic. What made him work? How did God reconcile this creature of the night?

"How long have you been a creature of the night?" I asked as the carriage scurried away through the long evening.

"Why do you ask?" He smiled at me, his blissful blue eyes twinkling with light.

"I am only curious, my Lord,"

"I have been dead for approximately five hundred years now, Sookie. How old are you?"

"Eighteen years old," I hummed after thinking on the question a moment. We did not celebrate birthdays in the convent, but I knew I was close to that age if not right on it. When I had become the bride of Christ, I was sixteen.

"You really are a child," he chuckled. Waves of his golden wheat hair fell over his shoulder and caught on the barbs of velvet that lined the collar of his doublet.

"How did you come to be a Baron?"

"You are full of questions tonight, Sookie," Eric smiled. He didn't comment on my limitless inquiries again. They seemed to amuse him. I wondered how much he talked about his life, if he ever got the chance. "I assisted the King, that is King Henry VII, with certain military maneuvers. For my services, his Highness awarded me certain lands and a title. I will not stay forever, but it is a pleasant place for now."

"And where did you come from before England?"

"I am a Norseman. I came from the lands to the North. After I left the lands of ice and snow, I journeyed from place to place. I have seen much of the lands beyond Europe, exotic places, the Middle Kingdom."

"What is the Middle Kingdom?" I blinked, stunned by his frankness, his exploration. I had read, only briefly, about explorers from Europe. I knew so little about them.

"It is another magical place, Sookie, full of dragons and mystics and beautiful women." He grinned at me, as though he knew what I looked like under my dress. He did, but I couldn't admit that to myself.

"Why did you come to France?" I felt my cheeks glowing hot, but did not know why.

"I was invited by your king's military advisor. He wished to give me a larger title, a more expensive home, in exchange for my wisdom. I declined his invitation."

"Why?" I stared, shocked.

"Well, for one thing, he was trying to endanger a rather breathtaking young nun," I blushed as he continued. "And for another, I rather like the Isle."

I yawned and stretched my arms in the cab of our small carriage. Eric held out an arm to me and I took it. He pulled me tenderly across the seats and curled me against his side, his chest a pillow for my head.

"Ask more of your questions tomorrow night, my dear. Rest now." He stroked my hair.

"Are we almost there?" I murmured, letting sleep take me.

"Almost," he answered like a dream. "Almost there."

I spent the day awake, thinking about the man slumbering beside me. Though he had answered a few of my questions, I still knew so little about the Baron, Lord Northman. He'd come from lands far away, hundreds of years in our past. What had his life been like when he was alive? Was he a nobleman, a peasant, a slave? Did they have slaves? How old had he been when he met his mortal end? The most important question lingered in my mind like a plague. Why had he come to the church that first night? What had led them to meeting? Had it simply been the hand of God, bringing them together?

"Do you believe in God?" I asked him the next night after I'd settled myself across from him in the carriage. He rapped on the ceiling and the coachman interrupted the dozing of the horses.

"In the Christian God, Sookie? He came long after my time," Eric replied, studying me with his eyes.

"Well, why did you come to service at Saint Jacques that night?"

"Ah," he smiled. "I see. How did we come to meet?"

"Was it God that guided you into the service?"

"Your God rarely intervenes in my life, Sookie. For that matter, my own gods rarely intervene in my life. I was on my way to eat, in the night district." He looked at me knowingly, a savoring sort of look. I knew what the night district was, despite his gaze. That was where certain pleasurable company could be found. They came to our house to confess often. God hears all prayers, even those of the damned. That was what Mother Superior always told us.

"And you came in to listen to the service,"

"I did. But I came back because of you."

"Me?" I gasped, breathless.

"You. Your spirit and your spark attracted me. Even wrapped up in a nun's habit, you are a beautiful woman, Sookie, a remarkable woman."

"I hardly…I…" I stuttered nervously.

"I assure you, my dear," he said, reaching out to touch my chin. He lifted my head, but I kept my eyes rooted to the floor of the coach. "You are a Tudor rose."

We reached Calais at last, five days and nights after leaving Rouen. At the end of it, I was so sick of the inside of the carriage, I wanted to push it over and run away. Instead, Eric got out first and lifted me out second. He brushed a few strands of errant blond hair from my face and tucked them behind my ear for safe-keeping. I leaned upon his arm as we walked up to the shipping office to purchase tickets across the British Channel.

From the ship merchant's office, we walked to the dressmaker. I looked up at the sign above the tailor's door and Eric helped me over the threshold. I had been wearing the same dirty brown dress for weeks, but we wouldn't go across the channel in the same lacking finery. My Lord was a Baron, a loyal military man, and we would appear on English soil in our best dress. At least, that was what I was told. We parted ways at the entrance, as soon as Eric Northman placed a purse of coins in the tailor's outstretched hand. I was escorted away by the gentle hands of a dark-haired French woman and two seamstresses with blisters on their fingers.

The dress was not made for me specifically. After all, the night was late and we had so little time. The ladies retrieved a beautiful burgundy brocade dress from a cabinet. They stripped the brown dress from me and ushered me into a bathing gown and a pool of boiling water. I rarely bathed at the convent. It was a right reserved for the higher ranks of God's servants on Earth. I was usually the one preparing the privilege, not receiving it! I huddled in the water, which smelled of lavender and rose, and let a washing woman comb out my hair and soap my body. She never once commented on the ghastly, deformed flesh of my leg. When I was lifted from the bath, my hair and skin smelled so elegant that I caught myself inhaling the room at every spare moment. A fresh chemise was pulled down over my head, and over it, a tight girdle was tied in place. I could barely feel the boning around my waist, so thin was my abdomen. But the straps lashed around my breasts, pushing my flesh up under my neck. I could barely breathe.

"My Lady, is this…I…" I couldn't think of how to object without declaring myself a nun.

"You will look beautiful, my Lady," the dressmaker smiled, dropping her head as if I were royalty. I flushed. What role was I to be playing? Was I Lord Northman's servant? His Lady? Perhaps his sister? I found my head suddenly start to spin.

She seems so uncertain, this peculiar girl. I wonder what happened to her leg. Is she the Baron's mistress? Maybe his daughter?

These were the thoughts of the women around me, a jumbled mess of thoughts that cuddled up in my head like the skins I had used as blankets on the journey from Rouen. I tried to shut them out, closed my eyes, thought of other things.

"The dress!" I snapped, louder than I should have. Their thoughts were drowned by the sudden gruffness of my tone. I was awash with guilt, for snapping at them, for pretending I was of a higher rank. I let the sullenness show in my eyes, but they never raised their heads to notice. They laced and buttoned me into the gown, cutting seams that would need to be tightened, making crosses on the pattern with chalk.

While the seamstresses worked on the dress, their thoughts buzzing with figures and repeated stitch patterns that numbed my mind and made my eyes water, the dressmaker fitted my braided hair with a French hood. The thin white veil fell over my shoulders, and the jewels in the cap looked peculiar on my head. I was afraid to take it off and attempt sleep, fearful that I might damage her hard work. She'd knotted my hair so tightly, though, that I thought it might never come loose.

Three hours before sunrise, I emerged from the dressmaker's office. The Baron stood opposite me, wearing a stunning blue brocade doublet and a high collared shirt. Over it, he had draped a black velvet cape lined with brilliant black fur. The round black cap on his head stood in stark contrast to the white wheat hair on his head. His dark blue silk galligaskins were worn to the knee and matched his dark blue stockings. He was, in a word, handsome. But it was Lord Northman that dropped his eyes to gaze upon me. I blushed as deeply as the color of my fine dress.

"My Lady, you look…lovely," he smiled.

"My Lord Northman," I whispered, almost hoarse. Despite the beauty of my companion, the voices in my head made me feel sick. The pain in my leg shot up to my hip and back down to my toes. I needed sleep. It had been a wonderful and miserable night. "May we go?"

"Certainly," he nodded to me. The tailor extracted his fee from the black hide purse and handed the rest to the Baron. He lashed the purse to his belt and swept me out of the building. I leaned heavily on his arm until we were outside. There was no one around. The lights had been put out and the city of Calais was drenched with darkness.

We took the first room at the closest inn, and Eric carried me up the stairs. He laid me out upon the bed and my hand went instantly to the lovely French hood atop my head. I couldn't destroy it so soon after putting it on. Eric carefully removed it from my hair, taking the time to unhook its various parts from my intricately styled hair.

"You are ill," he frowned, touching my hand. I looked over his shoulder at the sky. It was already staining with the first tinges of purple daybreak.

"I am just tired, my Lord,"

"Eric," he whispered.

"I need to sleep, as do you. The sun…"

"I can feel it, child. How is your leg?"

"Don't worry about me," I whimpered. I wanted to get up and close the heavy curtains. He eased my shoulder into the mattress.

"Tomorrow morning, we will be on English soil," he murmured, reaching up to stroke my face.

"I am looking forward to it, my Lord,"

"Eric," he grunted, catching my eyes.

"Please, you must close the curtains…" I pointed toward them.

"Eric," he said pointedly.

"Please… I am afraid…" I whimpered, worried about what would happen to him under the light of day. Day hurt his kind. I knew that much.

"If you are afraid, say my name, Sookie."

"Eric," I whispered, yielding to him. "Eric."

"Don't ever be afraid to call my name, Sookie," he said. His voice was dark and deep, penetrating me as the thoughts of the dressmaker had. I could hear his tone vibrating in my flesh.

He closed the drapes and tucked me under the heavy wool blanket. He removed his beautiful doublet and hose and stockings and shirt. I admired his pretty white chemise before letting my eyes fall shut. Tomorrow night, we would be in England. I had never been to England.