“I know my duty. I follow you, as my family has for generations,” Bogo said unhappily.
“But you don’t want to give the cup to King Henry.”
“No.”
Nicholas nodded. “I think, my friend, that we are about to make a very great mistake.”
“What’s that?”
“The cup is Hugelina’s. Let’s leave it for her.”
Bogo stared at him in disbelief. “You’re mad.”
“I’ve often done my best to convince you of that,” he replied in a mild tone. “Let someone else find it and decide where it should go. The king wants it, the abbot wants it, Lord Hugh wants it. As far as I know the only one who doesn’t really want the blasted thing is me.”
“Blessed thing,” Bogo corrected absently.
“So we’ll leave it here, and it’ll be up to Saint Hugelina to see that it gets where it belongs. That stone over there looks close enough to an altar. Set it on there, Bogo.”
Bogo still looked uncertain, but he was warming to the idea. “Do you have a cloth to put it on? I don’t want it scratched on the stone.”
He had a cloth, inside his shirt, pressed against his heart, but he doubted the saint would appreciate that particular sacrifice. It was all he had to remember his lost love by, and he was giving up enough for Saint Hugelina the Dragon.
“It’ll be fine, Bogo,” he said. “Put it up there, and we’ll drink the innkeeper’s wine, which I expect is godawful, and we’ll sleep under the stars, and tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do with the rest of our lives.”
“You’re throwing away everything, my lord,” Bogo warned him.
Nicholas didn’t bother correcting his form of address again. “I did that this morning, my old friend.”
TIME HAD CEASED to hold any meaning for Julianna. The pace they kept was tireless, constant, and through her misery she could only hope they were heading in the wrong direction. But there was no hesitation, no uncertainty in the abbot’s moves, and deep in her heart she knew what they were doing.
It was full dark when they finally stopped, and Julianna slid off the horse, leaning against it, unable to stand by herself. Brother Barth took her arm gently, and his touch was reassuring as nothing else was.
Gilbert and the abbot had disappeared inside a crude structure, and she finally gathered enough energy to look up into Brother Barth’s kindly face. “Let me go,” she pleaded.
“I can’t, my child. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, and you wouldn’t last a day. I’ll protect you from the abbot.”
“How?”
The friar shook his head. “I don’t know. But I won’t let him hurt you.”
“And what will he do to Nicholas if he finds him?”
“Kill him,” Brother Barth said flatly. “Oh, not by his own hand. He’s too righteous for that. But he has any number of ways to get what he wants. We can only hope he doesn’t charge Nicholas with heresy. Burning is a terrible way to die.”
“He won’t find him,” Julianna said, more a prayer than a statement. “He’s too far ahead of us—”
“They’re here!” Father Paulus announced in triumph, stepping from the rough tavern. “Their horses are out back. They’ve climbed the tor to the saint’s ruins, obviously to perform some godless ritual.”
“Bogo is a good man,” Brother Barth protested.
“They’re both villains,” Father Paulus said with an indrawn hiss. “And as such, will face my judgment—”
“The Lord’s judgment,” Brother Barth corrected gently.
“Of course.” He started toward the woods. “Bring the harlot with you.”
“Where?”
“We’re going to retrieve the Blessed Chalice of the Martyred Saint Hugelina the Dragon,” the abbot intoned. “And mete out punishment to the unworthy.”
NICHOLAS WAS quite, quite drunk, and very happy to be so. Of course, being drunk didn’t wipe Julianna from his mind. On the contrary, it made her even more real, the touch, the feel, the way she moved, breathed, looked up at him as if he were God and the devil combined in one lethal package.
But when he was drunk, he didn’t mind. He could lean back against the ruins of Saint Hugelina’s unlikely Roman mansion and sing songs to her beauty, and Bogo was too drunk to pay any attention.
“The answer in my lady’s eyes
Is yes, my lord, both brave and bold
The treasure ’tween my lady’s thighs
Is worth more than the finest gold.”
“She wouldn’t like that,” Bogo murmured. “Too bawdy.”
“You aren’t supposed to be listening,” Nicholas reprimanded him. “I’m talking about my lady love, and you’re too much of a villain to appreciate her.”
“You’re a villain as well, my lord,” Bogo pointed out affably.
“A villain and a lady fair
Would’st never twine, would’st never dare
To taste the nectar of desire
Or land them both in eternal fire.”
“Too many words,” Bogo said.
“By love’s sharp darts, my heart is plucked
By love’s soft flesh, my body’s . . .”
“My lord!” Bogo’s voice was admonishing.
Nicholas sighed, stretching his legs out in front of him. He was never getting on a horse again. He was never making love again either, not unless he could have Julianna, and that was out of the question. So he might as well just lie here on the Saint’s Tor and keep drinking and hope to be struck by a bolt of lightning.
Unfortunately, he’d picked the wrong night for lightning. It was still and clear, and it would take the wrath of