After two cups of good wine and an hour of conversation, praise, censure, and a hundred introductions, she found that she was exhausted—almost too tired to sleep. While the knights who knew her from the siege carried her from group to group like a prize, introducing her to the monks, priests and nuns of both orders, Katherine and Mary had followed some of the other Thomasine sisters to the women’s house, and Amicia was on the point of asking Ser Michael for directions—she could scarcely keep her eyes open—when a small girl came, curtsied, and said Prior Wishart had summoned her. She found him in the outer yard with two secular knights she didn’t know and she put her hands in her sleeves and stood demurely, waiting. She was afraid she might fall asleep on her feet.

He glanced at her and smiled—a clear confirmation that she was to await him.

She allowed her eyelids to fall, and in the next few beats of her heart received a pulse of apprehension as great as she had ever known.

Something evil.

Her eyes snapped open and she looked around, but the low murmur of voices and the sound of celebration—from the town below them as much as from the yard—spoke only of the feast of Easter.

The prior came and took her hand. “I won’t keep you long,” he said.

He looked as tired as she felt.

“I need you to tell me anything you can,” he said.

“About Ser Gabriel?” she asked, understanding all too well.

“Sister Amicia, we’re teetering on the brink of civil war—or sliding past it.” Prior Wishart took her arm and led her to the abbey walls and then up stone steps to the crenellations. In the distance, on the edge of the dark horizon, there was a glow. And the smell of smoke was no longer hidden by incense.

“Where is my duty now?” he asked.

She didn’t think he was asking her.

“Can I trust him?” the Prior asked her.

She put her hands to her mouth. She almost giggled—a reaction of fatigue. “Yes,” she said.

Prior Wishart peered at her from the darkness. “You have a—hmm—relationship with him,” he said.

“I have not slept with him,” she said a little too quickly.

“Sister, I have been a soldier and a priest for a long time.” He looked out into the night. “If I thought you had then I would not curse you, but neither would I look to you for guidance. Some men—more men every day…” He paused. “They wonder if the man who is called the Red Knight—” He shrugged. “If he is the King’s bastard son. I have heard it said many times now. And I have a report that his mother, the duchess, is suggesting the north should make its own king.”

Amicia put her whole weight against one of the merlons. “Isn’t our Order supposed to be above this sort of thing?” she asked.