"December 1389. As penance for her sexual misconduct earlier that year, Hildegard is sent by Abbot de Courcy to the powerful Whitby Abbey on a difficult quest--to obtain a holy relic, a lock of St. Hild's hair, kept secretly by the monks for over 600 years. Accompanied by two monks militant and a young priest from the Abbey of Meaux, Hildegard finds the Whitby guest house teeming with visitors intent on celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas before the austere days of Lent set in. To her dismay she finds that others, too, are desperate to obtain the relic and she has no choice but to enter a bidding war if she wants to fulfil her Abbot's request. When the unmarked body of a young monk is discovered in an apple store, dangerous secrets emerge, and with tensions between town and abbey erupting into open violence Hildegard finds that even the holy precinct is full of menace..." -- Dust jacket.