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days?”
    The abbot snapped his fingers, the sharp sound echoing in the circular chamber. “This is a time of prayer and self-purgation and doubt. We should all be dwelling on the final days and reflecting on our sins.”
    Geraint shook his head. “And when dealing with a demon, such doubts help in what way?”
    “We will not agree on this matter,” Abbot Simon responded crisply. “You do not understand.” He sighed deeply as if in profound disappointment. “I should have known at once, when she allowed you to bear the cross. That is one of our most sacred relics, a cross made from the staff of the Magdalene. Kings have prayed before it. Even the holy are reluctant to handle it, for its power is immense and dangerous. Such a rare and priceless thing is not to be hawked from place to place by a common juggler.”
    “No more common than the pardoner who gave it to me,” retorted Geraint, astonishment and wonder raging through him as he appreciated afresh how Yolande had trusted him with the cross, how she had seen his wariness around it as a good sign and one in his favor. “But if it is so great, why not keep it in its reliquary? Even I know of such things, Father. And why send only one cleric with it and a pardoner at that, a man she despises?”
    For an instant the abbot looked older, his face misted with memories and pain. “It had to be swift and secret. I knew I could cow the pardoner and that Yolande could deal with him also, even if she dislikes him.”
    “Ah, that is what you hate about me, is it not? I do not bend my knee to your authority.”
    “You have no respect.”
    “And is a bit of carved wood, however sacred, more precious to you than Yolande?”
    The abbot shifted, making a fist as if he wanted to strike him. “It is the very cross of the Magdalene!”
    Out of temper, although aware he had been deliberately provocative, Geraint swung his pack off his shoulders and recovered the cross in a few brisk movements. He set it upright in the center of the chapter house and stepped back.
    If the abbot loves it so much, he can bend for it.
    “Do you love her?” he asked abruptly. “Yolande. Do you?”
    “It is Christ’s wish that we love all God’s creatures, including man.” The abbot licked the white flecks of spit from the corners of his thin mouth and moved to the crucifix, bearing it aloft and tucking it safely into the crook of one arm.
    Will he sing it a lullaby too?
    Geraint folded his arms across his chest like an angry fish-seller’s wife. It was that or punch an abbot. “And what do you love about Yolande? How her eyelashes curl at the ends? How she puts herself into danger first to protect others? How she never abandons a friend? How she walks all day without a complaint? How she sometimes talks in her sleep because she is so beset? How she laughs and sheds ten years each time she does? Or are such human reasons too earthy for you?”
    He stopped, mainly because he had run out of English words for the moment and his mind was filled with indignant, furious phrases in Welsh. He also wanted to see whether Abbot Simon would answer.
    “These human trifles, as you call them, are irrelevant. It is her soul—”
    “Yes, her soul, hers alone, and unique. Created in the image of God. What do you love about that? Or is the soul of one female exorcist too mean to consider?”
    “Stay away from her!” thundered the abbot. “What do you know of her trials and torments, of what she might need to encounter? If you love her, you should not trouble her. Or would you act upon this love and then abandon her—as is the habit of fleshy, sinful men?”
    “Sorry, no.” Geraint counted off on his fingers. “I will not leave her, no. I will not act upon anything and abandon her, no. I will not trouble her, no. Do I know the trials she has? No, I do not, but then neither do you, my lord abbot, neither do you.”
    Abbot Simon stared at him for so long that Geraint wondered if he had been speaking in