“I, too,” said Hugh. “As I hope to redeem him, if chanceoffers. I see from your escort, sister, that you have had cause to move withcaution through the forest. I think that is also my business, now I amback.”

“Let us go into my parlour,” said the abbot, “and hearwhat Sister Magdalen has to tell us. And, Brother Cadfael, will you bear wordto Brother Denis that the best of our house is at the disposal of oursister’s guards? And then come to join us, for your knowledge may beneeded.”

She was seated a little withdrawn from the fire when Cadfaelentered the abbot’s parlour some minutes later, her feet drawn trimlyunder the hem of her habit, her back erect against the panelled wall. The moreclosely and the longer he viewed her, the more warmly did he remember her. Shehad been for many years, from her beautiful youth, a baron’s mistress,accepting that situation as an honest business agreement, a fair return for herbody to give her escape from her poverty and cultivation for her mind. And shehad held to her bargain loyally, even affectionately, as long as her lordremained alive. The loss of one profession offering scope for her considerabletalents had set her looking about, with her customary resolution, for anotheras rewarding, at an age when such openings may be few indeed. The superior atGodric’s Ford, first, and the prioress of Polesworth after, howeverastonished they might have been at being confronted with such a postulant, musthave seen something in Avice of Thornbury well worth acquiring for the order. Awoman of her word, ungrudging, to her first allegiance, she would be as good asher word now to this new attachment. Whether it could have been called avocation in the first place might seem very doubtful, but with application andpatience she would make it so.

“When this matter of Lincoln blazed up as it did in January,”she said, “we got rumour that certain of the Welsh were ready to rise inarms. Not, I suppose, for any partisan loyalty, but for plunder to be had whenthese two powers collided. Prince Cadwaladr of Gwynedd was mustering awar-band, and the Welsh of Powys rose to join him, and it was said they wouldmarch to aid the earl of Chester. So before the battle we had ourwarning.”