Cait stared at the woman in a misery of disbelief as bitter tears came to her eyes. Through every trial she had persevered, hoping against hope that Thea would be found; she had faced death, destruction, and discomfort of every kind only to be told her sister wished to be alone with God. It was beyond her ability to comprehend.

'If you will not help me,' declared Cait, 'I will find her myself!' Turning on her heel, she moved swiftly towards the door.

'Caitriona!' said the abbess sternly. 'Stop!'

To her own amazement she halted, her hand on the latch.

'Think what you are doing,' said Annora. 'If you ever had any feeling for your sister, then I ask you to honour her wishes. She did not enter into this decision lightly, and she will not thank you for interfering now.'

Cait could feel the icy centre of her resolve melting away.

Annora softened. 'Alethea is coming to the end of a period of prayer and fasting in preparation for the ceremony which will take place tonight. Tomorrow, when the ritual is finished, you will be together.'

Unable to make herself reply, Cait merely nodded. The abbess took her hand. 'Come, it is a splendid day. Why not spend it with us? Share our meal, and then I will show you something of our work here, and you will come to know us better.'

Although Cait no longer felt hungry, she allowed herself to be led back into the refectory where she ate a few bites and then gave up as black melancholy overcame her. When the abbess offered to show her the rest of the abbey, she complained of fatigue and asked instead to be shown where she might lie down and rest. The abbess summoned one of the sisters, a woman of similar age and appearance to Cait. 'This is Sister Besa-she will take you to the guest lodge.'

Cait thanked her and followed the sister out across the cobbled yard to one of the cells. 'We have few guests,' the nun told her, 'but we keep a room ready for anyone the Good Lord sends our way. It is this one on the end.' The sister lifted the wooden latch, pushed the door open, and stepped in. 'Oh, it is cold in here, but I will make up the fire and it will soon be warm enough.'

The sister hurried away, leaving Cait to stare at the bleakly simple room: a table large enough to hold a candle, a three-legged stool and neatly stacked logs beside the tiny half-circle hearth, and a straw pallet topped with a rough woollen coverlet. The room's sole adornment was a wooden cross which had obviously been made by one of the nuns; it was fashioned from two bent pine branches, smoothed and bound together with a strap of braided leather, and hung below the tiny round window.

Cait was still standing in the centre of the room when Besa returned with an armful of kindling and some live embers in a small pan. 'I suppose Alethea stayed here,' she said absently.

'Why, yes. For a time.' The sister placed the wood beside the hearth and gently shook the embers from the bowl. 'She has her own cell now.'

Cait waited for her to say more, but the nun proceeded to arrange the wood around the little heap of glowing coals. After a moment, Cait said, 'How long have you been here?'

Besa glanced at her and then quickly away again, as if the question was distracting. 'All my life,' she answered after a moment. 'Or, very nearly.'

'But you are not from Aragon,' Cait suggested.

The sister lowered her face to the heap of kindling and blew on the embers. 'No,' she replied, sitting back on her heels. 'I am not from Aragon. I was born on the other side of the mountains.' She leaned forward and blew on the embers once more. Thin threads of smoke were soon curling up from the hearth as a cluster of yellow flames bloomed among the twigs. 'But this has been my home so long I do not remember any other.'

'You never visit your family?'

'I did once,' replied Sister Besa, rising to her feet. 'But no more.' She smiled wanly, and moved to the door. 'I will leave you in peace now, but if you need anything, my room is next to this one.'

She closed the door quickly behind her and was gone. Cait sat on the stool, watching the flames catch and burn more brightly. When the fire appeared hearty enough, she added several larger chunks of wood from the stack, and then retreated to the bed where she stretched herself out. After gazing petulantly at the age-darkened pine roof beams, she eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep.

She dreamed of hoofprints and felt herself once again on horseback, riding through deep-drifted snow. In her dream she seemed to be fleeing someone-although she twisted in the saddle and craned her neck from time to time, she could not see who it might be. Still, she could feel a disturbing presence gaining ground behind her, and the dull malevolence mounted until she grew afraid to look around anymore.

And then, just as she knew she must confront the swiftly approaching evil, there came the slow tolling of a distant bell. Instantly, she felt the unseen wickedness falter in its onrushing flight. She turned in the saddle, lashed her mount, and raced up the steep mountain trail leading to the abbey. Above the wild drumming of her heart she could hear the rhythmic ringing of the bell.

The sound grew, and seemed to take on a more urgent note and she awoke. It took Cait some time to realize that it was a real bell she had been hearing. As the last sonorous stroke faded into the air she rose and stepped to the window. The fire on the hearth had burned out and the short winter day had ended; it was growing dark outside. She crept to the door, opened it and looked quickly out. There was no one to be seen, but she assumed the bell summoned the sisters to prayer, and so went out-realizing halfway across the yard that she did not know where the chapel might be. She had seen none when coming to the abbey, nor had the abbess mentioned it.

She paused for a moment, looking around. The sky yet held a blush of fading sunset, but the first stars were glowing high overhead. A light wind was blowing down from the surrounding flame-touched peaks, and it made her cold. As she turned to retreat into her cell, she heard the bell again, and decided to follow the sound-which seemed to come from behind the nearby refectory.

She flitted quickly to the end of the building and saw, in the rock curtain rising sheer from the ground, a wide, low entrance cut into the living stone of the mountain. The snow was tracked with dozens of footprints leading into a cave; as Cait followed them to the dark entrance, she heard singing from within.

After the first few paces, the darkness was all but complete. With one hand to the wall beside her, and the other outstretched and waving before her, she edged slowly on, guided by the singing of the nuns. The texture of the wall beneath her fingertips as she felt her way along suggested that the tunnel had been carved into the rock; both the wall and the floor were smooth and fairly even.

The wall ended abruptly and the air suddenly became warmer, and held the slightly musty smell of damp rock. Taking a hesitant step, she entered a larger chamber; a gentle, almost imperceptible breeze blew over her face from left to right. Instinctively, she turned in the direction of the airflow and saw the pale glimmer of candlelight on the rim of another tunnel opening a dozen paces to her left. She reached the tunnel doorway just as the glint of light faded, leaving her in darkness once more.

More confident now, she proceeded down the corridor as before, keeping her hand to the wall beside her. The floor slanted downward; she could feel it tilting away, and the slight cant quickened her step as if in anticipation of what she would find when she reached the end. The singing grew louder.

And then the tunnel opened out wide and she was standing in the high-arched entrance of an enormous chamber. In the near distance Cait saw, as through a gloom-wrapped forest of limbless trees, the shimmering of ghostly lights. The trees, she realized, were the tapering, slightly misshapen shafts of great stone pillars rising from the cavern floor to the unseen roof high above. The light came from candles in the hands of the nuns, whose voices set the vast empty spaces of the chamber reverberating with the rippling music of their song.