The Preceptor had hardly given the necessary orders, when he was joined by Conrade Mont-Fitchet, who acquainted him with the Grand Master’s resolution to bring the Jewess to instant trial for sorcery.

“It is surely a dream,” said the Preceptor; “we have many Jewish physicians, and we call them not wizards though they work wonderful cures.”

“The Grand Master thinks otherwise,” said Mont-Fitchet; “and, Albert, I will be upright with thee⁠—wizard or not, it were better that this miserable damsel die, than that Brian de Bois-Guilbert should be lost to the Order, or the Order divided by internal dissension. Thou knowest his high rank, his fame in arms⁠—thou knowest the zeal with which many of our brethren regard him⁠—but all this will not avail him with our Grand Master, should he consider Brian as the accomplice, not the victim, of this Jewess. Were the souls of the twelve tribes in her single body, it were better she suffered alone, than that Bois-Guilbert were partner in her destruction.”