There was a light knock at the door, and we sprang apart like guilty lovers. I dabbed hastily at my hair, thinking that a monastery, while an excellent convalescent home, lacked something as a romantic retreat.

A lay brother came in at Jamie’s bidding, and dumped a large leather saddlebag on the table. “From MacRannoch of Eldridge Manor,” he said with a grin. “For my lady Broch Tuarach.” He bowed then and left, leaving a faint breath of seawater and cold air behind.

I unbuckled the leather straps, curious to see what MacRannoch might have sent. Inside were three things: a note, unaddressed and unsigned, a small package addressed to Jamie, and the cured skin of a wolf, smelling strongly of the tanner’s arts.

The note read: “For a virtuous woman is a pearl of great price, and her value is greater than rubies.”

Jamie had opened the other parcel. He held something small and glimmering in one hand and was quizzically regarding the wolf pelt.

“A bit odd, that. Sir Marcus has sent ye a wolf pelt, Sassenach, and me a pearl bracelet. Perhaps he’s got his labels mixed?”

The bracelet was a lovely thing, a single row of large baroque pearls, set between twisted gold chains.

“No,” I said, admiring it. “He’s got it right. The bracelet goes with the necklace you gave me when we wed. He gave that to your mother; did you know?”

“No, I didn’t,” he answered softly, touching the pearls. “Father gave them to me for my wife, whoever she was to be” – and a quick smile tugged at his mouth – “but he didna tell me where they came from.”

I remembered Sir Marcus’s help on the night we had burst so unceremoniously into his house, and the look on his face when we had left him next day. I could see from Jamie’s face that he also was remembering the baronet who might have been his father. He reached out and took my hand, fastening the bracelet about my wrist.

“But it’s not for me!” I protested.

“Aye, it is,” he said firmly. “It isna suitable for a man to send jewelry to a respectable married woman, so he gave it to me. But clearly it’s for you.” He looked at me and grinned. “For one thing, it won’t go round my wrist, even scrawny as I am.”

He turned to the bundled wolfskin and shook it out.

“Whyever did MacRannoch send ye this, though?” He draped the shaggy wolfhide about his shoulders and I recoiled with a sharp cry. The head had been carefully skinned and cured as well, and equipped with a pair of yellow glass eyes, it was glaring nastily at me from Jamie’s left shoulder.

“Ugh!” I said. “It looks just like it did when it was alive!”

Jamie, following the direction of my glance, turned his head and found himself suddenly face-to-face with the snarling countenance. With a startled exclamation, he jerked the skin off and flung it across the room.

“Jesus God,” he said, and crossed himself. The skin lay on the floor, glowering balefully in the candlelight.

“What d’ye mean, ‘when it was alive,’ Sassenach? A personal friend, was it?” Jamie asked, eyeing it narrowly.

I told him then the things I had had no chance to tell him; about the wolf, and the other wolves, and Hector, and the snow, and the cottage with the bear, and the argument with Sir Marcus, and the appearance of Murtagh, and the cattle, and the long wait on the hillside in the pink mist of the snow-swept night, waiting to see whether he was dead or alive.

Thin or not, his chest was broad and his arms warm and strong. He pressed my face into his shoulder and rocked me while I sobbed. I tried for a bit to control myself, but he only hugged me harder, and said small and gentle things into the cloud of my hair, and I finally gave up and cried with the complete abandon of a child, until I was worn to utter limpness and hiccupping exhaustion.

“Come to think of it, I’ve a wee giftie for ye, myself, Sassenach,” he said, smoothing my hair. I sniffed and wiped my nose on my skirt, having nothing else handy.

“I’m sorry I haven’t got anything to give you,” I said, watching as he stood up and began to dig through the tumbled bedclothes. Probably looking for a handkerchief, I thought, sniffing some more.

“Aside from such minor gifts as my life, my manhood, and my right hand?” he asked dryly. “They’ll do nicely, mo duinne.” He straightened up with a novice’s robe in one hand. “Undress.”

My mouth fell open. “What?”

“Undress, Sassenach, and put this on.” He handed me the robe, grinning. “Or do ye want me to turn my back first?”

Clutching the rough homespun around me, I followed Jamie down yet another flight of dark stairs. This was the third, and the narrowest yet; the lantern he held lit the stone blocks of walls no more than eighteen inches apart. It felt rather like being swallowed up into the earth, as we went further and further down the narrow black shaft.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked. My voice echoed in the stairwell, but with a curiously muffled sound, as though I were speaking underwater.

“Well, there’s no much chance of taking the wrong turning, now is there?”

We had reached another landing, but true enough, the way ahead lay in only one direction – down.

At the bottom of this flight of steps, though, we came to a door. There was a small landing, carved out of the solid side of a mountain, from the looks of it, and a wide, low door made of oak planks and brass hinging. The planks were grey with age, but still solid, and the landing swept clean. Plainly this part of the monastery was still in use, then. The wine cellar perhaps?

There was a sconce near the door that held a torch, half-burnt from previous use. Jamie paused to light it with a paper spill from the pile that lay ready nearby, then pushed open the unlocked door and ducked beneath the lintel, leaving me to follow.

At first, I could see nothing at all inside but the glow of Jamie’s lantern. Everything was black. The lantern bobbed along, moving away from me. I stood still, following the blob of light with my eyes. Every few feet he would stop, then continue, and a slow flame would rise up in his wake to burn in a small red glow. As my eyes slowly accustomed themselves, the flames became a row of lanterns, situated on rock pillars, shining into the black like beacons.

It was a cave. At first I thought it was a cave of crystals, because of the odd black shimmer beyond the lanterns. But I stepped forward to the first pillar and looked beyond, and then I saw it.

A clear black lake. Transparent water, shimmering like glass over fine black volcanic sand, giving off red reflections in the lantern light. The air was damp and warm, humid with the steam that condensed on the cool cavern walls, running down the ribbed columns of rock.

A hot spring. The faint scent of sulfur bit at my nostrils. A hot mineral spring, then. I remembered Anselm’s mentioning the springs that bubbled up from the ground near the abbey, renowned for their healing powers.

Jamie stood behind me, looking out over the gently steaming expanse of jet and rubies.

“A hot bath,” he said proudly. “Do ye like it?”

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said.

“Oh, ye do,” he said, grinning at the success of his surprise. “Come in, then.”

He dropped his own robe and stood glowing dimly in the darkness, patched with red in the glimmering reflections off the water. The arched ceiling of the cave seemed to swallow the light of the lanterns, so that the glow reached only a few feet before being engulfed.

A little hesitantly, I let the novice’s robe drop from my arms.

“How hot is it?” I asked.

“Hot enough,” he answered. “Dinna worry, it won’t burn ye. But stay over an hour or so, and it might cook the flesh off your bones like soupmeat.”

“What an appealing idea,” I said, discarding the robe.

Following his straight, slender figure, I stepped cautiously into the water. There were steps cut in the stone, leading down underwater, with a knotted rope fastened along the wall to provide handholds.