THE PATHS OF THE AIR
by Alys Clare
Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye and her friend Sir Josse d’Acquin are caught up in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
John Damianos, a closely hooded and exhausted stranger, appears to be a Saracen servant who’s been abandoned by the returning crusader he was serving. Whoever and whatever he is, Josse can’t turn him away. When Damianos vanishes and a tortured body is found near Hawkenlye, Josse and Helewise want to determine if they are one and the same. The plot thickens when Hawkenlye is visited by three members of the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, led by Thibault of Margat. They claim to be seeking a runaway monk of their order but are closemouthed about their reasons. The next day Josse is visited by two Saracens tasked with recovering a treasure they say Damianos has stolen from their master in Outremer. Even when one of the Hospitallers is killed in a mysterious fire and the other two are badly injured, Thibault still refuses to divulge his real reason for seeking the missing monk. It is up to Josse and Helewise to discover who Damianos really is and why such disparate and dangerous men are on his trail.
Adroitly weaving medieval history into a rousing and mystical tale, the latest in the Hawkenlye series (The Enchanter’s Forest, 2008, etc.) may be Clare’s best yet.