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widely known that Camber had not approved of young Imre’s policies as prince, while his father lived; and still less did he approve, once the young man became king. Camber MacRorie was not a man who could continue to serve a crown whose wearer he did not respect.
    Adding to the complication was the fact that Joram’s older brother Cathan was a friend of Imre, and had, at the new king’s request, stepped in to fill the place left vacant by Camber’s departure. There was no enmity between father and son: Camber well realized that a younger, more flexible man might be better able to temper the king’s rash boldness with reason. In Cathan’s abilities and judgment he had no doubt.
    But Cathan’s entry into the political arena continued the difficulties Joram faced, as the priest must constantly try to curb the natural gift for politicking which he had inherited in full measure from his father. Joram and Rhys had discussed the quandary more than once over a glass of Fianna wine, when the wind howled outside through the long Gwyneddan winter nights.
    For himself, Rhys believed that a physician, like a cleric, should try to remain neutral, despite the temptation to become politically involved. Only now that neutrality was being shaken as never before, by the simple expedient of a dying man’s words and the flash of a silver coin in a priest’s long fingers.
    â€œWhere did you get this?” Joram asked. There was no trace of suspicion in his question—only, perhaps, a certain wistful curiosity.
    â€œNever mind that for now,” Rhys said. “What is it?”
    â€œIt’s a dower coin. They were sometimes given as mementoes to the next of kin of postulants entering the old religious orders. They aren’t made anymore.”
    â€œCan you tell where it’s from?” Rhys tried to keep the impatience from his voice. “I mean, can you tell which monastery?”
    â€œHmm. I have an idea, but I fancy you want something more definite than that. Come on, we’ll look it up.”
    Without a word, Rhys got up and followed Joram into the main portion of the library, past the reading brothers with heads bowed over parchment membranes, past the scrivener monks painstakingly copying texts in their fine majuscule hands. A very aged monk sat atop a high stool behind a reading desk, guardian of a polished oak door barred with a stout beam.
    Joram murmured a few words to the monk, then bowed and raised the bar on the door and opened it. Taking a rushlight from a stand by the monk’s desk, he motioned for Rhys to follow him into the next room.
    It was a small, dark chamber lined with row upon row of open shelves holding rolls of parchment and a few bound volumes. The volumes were massive and ragged-looking, since they had originally been assembled from roll entries cut to fit, and they were secured to the shelves by chains which allowed them to be moved only as far as a small reading stand.
    Handing the rushlight to Rhys to hold aloft, Joram roamed the row in front of them, then pulled down a dusty volume and inspected the cover. With a grunt, he replaced the book and moved farther down the row, where he removed another volume. This one he opened and began scanning, opening his hand to glance at the coin again as Rhys peered over his shoulder.
    â€œHmm. I suspected as much. It was struck at Saint Jarlath’s, which is the mother house of the Ordo Verbi Dei . They’re a cloistered order based at Barwicke, not far from here. Saint Jarlath himself was a sixth-century bishop of Meara—an abbot, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
    Rhys lowered his eyes and was silent for a moment. Then: “Barwicke—you said that’s not far from here. How far?”
    â€œOh, a few hours’ ride. Why are you so interested in Saint Jarlath’s?”
    â€œI—” Rhys paused, then went on cautiously. “An old man died yesterday, Joram. A patient of