“I thought I should know that gait,” said the lady with satisfaction.“You are Brother Cadfael, who came once on business to our cell.I’m glad to have found you to hand, I know no one else here. Will youmake me known to your abbot?”
“Proudly,” said Cadfael, “and he’s regarding youthis minute from the corner of the cloister. It’s two years now… AmI to tell him he’s honoured by a visit from Sister Avice?”
“Sister Magdalen,” she said demurely and faintly smiled; andwhen she smiled, however briefly and decorously, the sudden dazzling dimple heremembered flashed like a star in her weathered cheek. He had wondered thenwhether she had not better find some way of exorcising it in her new vocation,or whether it might not still be the most formidable weapon in her armoury. Hewas aware that he blinked, and that she noted it. There was always somethingconspiratorial in Avice of Thornbury that made every man feel he was the onlyone in whom she confided. “And my errand,” she said practically,“is really to Hugh Beringar, for I hear Gilbert Prestcote did not comeback from Lincoln. They told us in the Foregate we should find him here, or wewere bound up to the castle to look for him.”
“He is here,” said Cadfael, “fresh from Mass, and talkingwith Abbot Radulfus. Over my shoulder you’ll see them both.”
She looked, and by the expression of her face she approved. Abbot Radulfuswas more than commonly tall, erect as a lance, and sinewy, with a leanhawk-face and a calmly measuring eye; and Hugh, if he stood a whole headshorter and carried but light weight, if he spoke quietly and made no move tocall attention to himself, nevertheless seldom went unnoticed. Sister Magdalenstudied him from head to heel with one flash of her brown eyes. She was a judgeof a man, and knew one when she saw him.