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?”
    “I’ve already eaten, my lady. And the abbot tells me I eat too much as it is.”
    While Brother Barth’s impressive bulk couldn’t provide much argument, Julianna developed an instant dislike of anyone who would criticize the gentle old monk. “The abbot,” she said, reaching for the loaf of bread. “He’ll be coming with us to Fortham Castle , you said.”
    “Aye, my lady. And I’ll be there as well, to assist him.” There wasn’t even a hint of anything in the friar’s voice, and yet Julianna couldn’t rid herself of the notion that the abbot was not a well-beloved soul.
    “He’s a good man, is he not?” she inquired, breaking off a hunk of bread.
    “It is not my place to judge. The abbot is a man of highest principles. Helping him is an honor I never dared hope for.”
    And would gladly do without, she thought. Things were going from bad to worse. “What abbey is this, Brother Barth?” she asked, changing the subject. “I thought I knew every holy order within a few days’ ride from Moncrieff.”
    “We’re a very small, very poor order, my lady, though the abbot has great plans for us. This is the Abbey of the Martyred Saint Hugelina the Dragon.”
    “Saint Hugelina? I don’t remember her,” she admitted. “Was she truly a dragon?”
    “Only after she was devoured by one. It was a blessed miracle.”
    “Indeed,” she said piously, ignoring her own doubts as to the existence of dragons.
    “But nowadays no one pays homage to the old saints. Hugelina dates back almost to Roman times, and people prefer to forget the old ones. They like their saints modern and up to date. We do our poor best to cherish her sacred memory. The abbot has pledged his life to the task of making Saint Hugelina’s Abbey a showplace of modern piety.”
    “God grant him success,” Julianna murmured, wondering how a priest’s ambitions allowed time for an extended stay at Fortham Castle . Indeed, it was none of her business, and she should learn to control her curiosity.
    “The abbot’s easy enough to get along with, my lady,” Brother Barth said. “Just be dutiful and silent, and he’s unlikely even to notice you.”
    “And that would be for the best?”
    Brother Barth’s sad eyes met hers. “Yes, my lady.”
    He would say no more, and she was wise enough not to push. She had been warned, most clearly, and by the time Brother Barth left her, exhaustion and anxiety were taking hold of her.
    It was dark in the cell, with only the one tallow candle to light it, and Julianna lay back in the narrow bed and stared at the stone walls around her, at the wavering candlelight as it cast eerie shadows on the walls. If the abbot were even near as difficult as he sounded, the time spent at Fortham Castle loomed even more unpleasantly. It was bad enough that she was being taken back to bear her mother’s company. Far worse that she came to a household that included a difficult priest and a maddening fool.
    She wondered if the abbot had run afoul of Nicholas yet. And which one of them had triumphed.
    With any luck, she would travel the last day of the journey out of reach of Master Nicholas’s prattling. With any luck, lightning would strike her before she even reached Fortham Castle , and she would no longer have to worry about facing the mother she had once loved more than anyone else in the world.
    She hadn’t thought she would sleep, but she did, soundly and well, until a horrifying sound ripped her into terrified wakefulness sometime in the pitch dark of night. She heard it again—a great, gasping scream, like a soul in eternal torment—and without thinking she tore out of bed, slammed open the thick wooden door, and started out into the dimly lit stone corridor in search of the poor tortured creature.

CHAPTER THREE
      
    The stone floor was icy beneath her bare feet, and her thick linen chemise flapped about her body as she raced down the corridor. It sounded as if some poor creature was being