From the village.
Of course, it was. There was no other priest closer than York.
Anna’s heart leapt for her throat, then plummeted. Father Ignatius had been priest in the village all of her life. He had baptized Percy and buried her parents. He likely had wedded them and baptized her. There was no soul more likely to recognize her than Father Ignatius.
And no soul with less capacity for deception.
Anna bowed her head, her heart hammering. Surely he would not reveal her? Anna averted her face, that her veil might conceal her features, even as her panic rose. Was it too much to hope that the change in her garb would keep the priest from looking too closely?
Anna feared that it was.
“I do apologize for so troubling you, Father,” Bartholomew said smoothly as the priest sorted through his keys. Father Ignatius carried a ring with five keys of various sizes. What would they open? Anna could account for two. The chapel here in the keep and the village chapel. What of the others? There was no gate on the cemetery and Father Ignatius did not lock the portal to his own home, as a matter of principle. He might have a key to some entrance to the keep.
Did she dare to hope that one key might be for the dungeon?
As her thoughts flew, Bartholomew continued to charm the priest with the false tale of Anna’s background, and her enthusiasm for prayer. “Morning, noon and night,” he confided in the priest. “She prays most frequently.”
“I am not one to find fault with that,” Father Ignatius said with his usual amiability.
“Again, I am sorry to trouble you so late,” Bartholomew said.
“It is no trouble to administer to the faithful, my son. It is my calling.” The priest unlocked the portal, revealing a chapel of simple elegance. It had high windows, though at this hour, no light came through them. The priest strode forward to light beeswax candles. There was clean linen on the altar, but naught else.
Not a relic to be seen.
There must have once been one, to see the chapel blessed. Had it been lost? Stolen? Sold? Or was it hidden here? Perhaps beneath the floor.
There was no other door and the windows were too high to be reached easily from outside. They were also small, undoubtedly due to the cost of the glass.
“Come, come, my child,” Father Ignatius encouraged. “God’s house is always open.”
Anna dropped to her knees before the altar and folded her hands. She did say her prayers, asking first for their safe escape from the hall and the retrieval of Percy, for the future welfare of all of them, and the restoration of the knights’ prize. She was distracted by the possibility of their carrying an item of such value. How would it be retrieved from a locked chapel, even if they could find it?
Was it not wrong to steal from a chapel? She had to think it would be.
She had to think it would be worse yet to deceive Father Ignatius, a man who had only been kind to her.
Bartholomew was on his knees at her right, making every sign of praying himself. Perhaps he was. Father Ignatius knelt on Bartholomew’s right, saying his own prayers. After this had continued long enough for Anna to repeat her prayers three times, Bartholomew nudged her with his foot.
She thought it an accident, but he did it again. Harder.
She was supposed to do something.
Ask for saintly intercession, she supposed.
Bartholomew stood, genuflected and thanked Father Ignatius again. “I leave you to your prayers, my lady,” he said with a bow, then retreated, leaving her alone with Father Ignatius. Anna heard the doors close behind her, and knew that she was supposed to ask after a reliquary, if not find it.
Without knowing what it was.
Without revealing that she fully expected it to be in this chapel.
And she was to trick a man who had only been good to her. Apriest!
Curse Bartholomew again!
*
Anna took a deep breath. “Father,” she said, speaking in a high voice that Father Ignatius might be less likely to recognize. “I would ask for your aid.”
