It was on the boar hunt that the Lady Joanna injured her arm - saving a nine-year-old page from the charging beast. And there - in the forest - there was no one to help her...other than the Hermit...He was like no other hermit she had ever seen - he was young, strong and dark - and vowed to silence. His name was Keren, but he was always called the Hermit...And as he touched her arm, and healed it, a bond was forged between them - a hopeless bond, for she was Joanna of Leybourne, ward of the Count, and he was a man sentenced to build a church with his bare hands, as expiation for the crime of murdering his wife...