No Dark Place by Joan Wolf

duties, Hugh thought.
    The high table was already in place for the morning’s breaking fast, but the trestle tables for the lesser folk were still stacked along the walls.
    The room smelled clean. Adela would have approved, Hugh thought.
    “This way,” the squire said, and Hugh put his foot on the sturdy wooden staircase that would take him to the third level of the castle.
    He saw the open door of the chapel as soon as he reached the top of the stairs. Servants were filing in, but Hugh scarcely noticed them. He was too busy trying to repress the feeling he always got in his stomach whenever he entered a castle chapel.
    “The master and Lady Cristen are already seated in the front,” his youthful escort murmured, and obediently Hugh made his way down the narrow aisle. He stepped into the carved wooden pew next to Nigel.
    His host gave him a grave smile and then turned his attention to the altar.
    Hugh stared straight ahead, first at the carved crucifix that hung on the wall over the altar, then at the altar itself, covered with an embroidered linen cloth and topped with gold candlesticks and a carved wooden tabernacle.
    The too-familiar feeling began to creep over him again: part terror, part anger, part utter desolation.
    He was all right in a large church, but in a chapel…
    Why do I always feel like this?
    Instinctively he knew that he did not want to learn the answer to that question.
    The earl was killed in a chapel .
    He did not want to think about that, either. It was fruitless to think about that. He couldn’t remember.
    The priest had come out onto the altar. He faced the tabernacle, raised his hands and began to intone the prayer that always opened mass: “ In nomine patris …”
    The congregation, Hugh included, made the sign of the cross.
    When mass was finished, Hugh filed out of the chapel with Nigel and Cristen.
    “How are you feeling this morning?” his host asked, scanning Hugh’s tense face with narrowed eyes.
    “Much better,” Hugh replied. “I apologize for arriving in such a pitiful state.”
    “You don’t look well,” Nigel said bluntly.
    Hugh’s nostrils pinched together. “I assure you, I am fine.”
    The three of them began to descend the stairs to the great hall, where the servants were busily setting up the trestle tables for the morning’s breaking fast.
    Halfway down the stairs, they were met by two dogs who came racing to shove their noses into Cristen’s hands. The girl laughed, caressed their heads briefly, then turned to Hugh. “You must allow me to introduce you. This is Cedric,” she nodded toward the shaggy brown mongrel with one torn ear that was pressing against her leg. “And this is Ralf.”
    Hugh felt his eyes widen at the mention of the name. He looked at the large, black-and-white, freckle-nosed dog and, unconsciously, his handwent up to encircle the gold cross he had worn around his throat ever since his foster father’s death.
    Nigel said with resignation, “My daughter should have a purebred, of course, but these are the dogs she wanted.”
    “There is always someone who will take a purebred,” Cristen said briskly. “Cedric and Ralf need me.”
    She bestowed one more pat on each dog and then resumed walking down the stairs.
    “Cristen rescued Ralf from being drowned in the river when he was a puppy and Cedric came wandering up to the castle walls one night, injured and crying, and she insisted that we take him in.” Nigel’s voice held a mixture of amusement and pride as he spoke of his daughter and her animals.
    They had reached the bottom of the stairs and now they began to walk across the hall floor toward the high table. Hugh noticed that Ralf had a noticeable limp.
    A servant stepped up to Cristen’s side and she stopped to speak to him. “How is Berta this morning?”
    The man smiled at her, revealing two missing front teeth. “She is feeling better, my lady. She wanted to come down to the morning meal but I told her she had best not stir