There was a low bench-bed neatly arrayed at the end of the room. The boystared, and quaked under Cadfael’s hand.

“I have all these medicines brewing here, and some of them needtending regularly, some very early, they’d spoil if no one minded them.I’ll show you all you have to do, it’s not so heavy a task. Andhere you have your bed, and here a grid you may open for fresh air.” Theboy had stopped shaking, the dark blue eyes were large and measuring, and fixedimplacably upon Cadfael. There seemed to be a smile pending, but there was alsoa certain aura of offended pride. Cadfael turned to the door, and showed theheavy bar that guarded it within, and the impossibility of opening it fromwithout, once that was dropped into its socket. “You may shut out theworld and me until you’re ready to come out to us.”

The boy Godric, who was not a boy at all, was staring now in directaccusation, half-offended, half-radiant, wholly relieved.

“How did you know?” she demanded, jutting a belligerent chin.

“How were you going to manage in the dortoir?” responded BrotherCadfael mildly.

“I would have managed. Boys are not so clever, I could have cozenedthem. Under a wall like this,” she said, hoisting handfuls of her ampletunic, “all bodies look the same, and men are blind and stupid.”She laughed then, viewing Cadfael’s placid competence, and suddenly shewas all woman, and startlingly pretty in her gaiety and relief. “Oh, not you!How did you know? I tried so hard, I thought I could pass all trials.Where did I go wrong?”

“You did very well,” said Cadfael soothingly. “But, child,I was forty years about the world, and from end to end of it, before I took thecowl and came to my green, sweet ending here. Where did you go wrong?Don’t take it amiss, take it as sound advice from an ally, if I answer