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“Victor, Wyldonna is a myth.”
    Victor nodded, his thin cheeks growing ruddy. “I have heard the tales myself.”
    â€œWyldonna?” Valentine repeated.
    Roman turned to his friend. “My people called it Valdunna. It is a magical island that no one can find, although if one manages to locate it, they never want to leave. It’s populated by fairies, mystical creatures. Merpeople make their homes there when the seas freeze in winter. Shipwrecked sailors wash up on shore and are never heard from again. My mother often told me I would be stolen off to Valdunna if I strayed too far from home of an evening.” Roman sent the abbot an apologetic glance.
    â€œI see,” Valentine said, sitting back in his chair. Adrian thought the Spaniard also looked sorry for the old abbot.
    Instead of sympathy, Adrian felt irritation and disillusionment. Up to this point, he’d thought Victor a man of marked intelligence and cunning, even if he did subscribe to such a thing as religion. Now he couldn’t be sure. “I hope you didn’t tell this woman—who is obviously troubled—that we would assist her in this . . . this . . .” Adrian found himself at a loss for words.
    â€œGoose hunt,” Constantine supplied in an emotionless voice.
    Adrian held his cup toward Constantine’s back in salute. “Thank you, yes. Goose hunt.” He drained his cup. A complete waste of the afternoon, although he wouldn’t admit to himself that he’d nothing else to do any matter.
    Victor was nodding his head. “I thought the same as you all when I first heard her tale. My only concern was who she had received the Chastellet coin from, because whoever had given it to her had used very poor judgment.” Then the abbot pinned Constantine’s bowed head with his gaze. “Until she told me the name of her blackmailer.”
    â€œNo, wait, wait,” Adrian rushed, holding up his right palm. “Allow me to guess: Jack o’ Kent.”
    â€œAdrian,” Constantine chastised in a low tone.
    â€œI wish it was,” Victor whispered to the tabletop. He looked to Valentine for a moment, causing the Spaniard to crease his brow in concern. And then the abbot stretched out his hand and grasped Constantine’s forearm.
    â€œThe man threatening Wyldonna is Glayer Felsteppe.”

Chapter 2
    T he library was tomb silent for several moments as the name of Chastellet’s betrayer and the scourge of the four laymen gathered there sank into the thousands of pages lining the walls and was absorbed, as if the mere mention of it could not withstand the air.
    â€œGlayer Felsteppe is dead,” Valentine said in a quiet voice. “My aim was true. He fell .”
    â€œHe survived,” Victor said softly, his kind gaze still regarding Constantine’s bowed head. “It seems as though the troubles you and Lady Mary gave him at Beckham Hall were enough to incur Henry’s irritation. He has taken on the task of securing Wyldonna for the English king in order to repay the wealth loaned to him from your wife’s estate.”
    Valentine shook his head. “No. He is dead . He must be.”
    â€œIt would not be the first time you had erroneously judged a man to be at the end of his life,” Adrian said sharply, but then felt an uncomfortable welling of regret as the Spaniard dropped his gaze to his hands. It hadn’t been ignorance that prompted Valentine to proclaim Adrian’s impending and inevitable death; by all that was rational and true, Adrian should never have survived the escape from Saladin’s dungeon.
    Even though it had fallen to Valentine to carry back the news of the deaths of Constantine’s wife and son years since that hellish time, at least Valentine had been able to assure his friend that he had personally brought an end to the fiend who had committed the atrocity.
    Now, Constantine Gerard’s family was still dead,