king trouble enough in a few years’ time. We’d bestmake better use of what time we have, and see to it the boy goesback to Anjou and stays there, and best of all, takes his motherwith him. I wish,” said Hugh fervently, rising with a sigh,“Stephen’s own son promised better, we’d have noneed to fear what the empress’s sprig may have toshow.” He shook off present doubts with an impatient twitchof his lean shoulders. “Well, I’ll be off and makeready for the road. We’ll be away at first light.”

Cadfael lifted his cooling pot aside to the earth floor, andwent out with his friend through the walled stillness of the herbgarden, where all his small, neat beds slept warmly through thefrosts under deep snow. As soon as they let themselves out onto thepath that skirted the frozen pools, they could see distantly,beyond the glassy surface and the broad gardens on the northernside, the long slope of the guest hall roof overhanging thedrainage channel, the dark timber cage of scaffolding and ladders,and the two muffled figures working on the uncovered slates.

“I see you have your troubles, too,” said Hugh.

“Who escapes them, in winter? It’s the weight of thesnow that’s shifted the slates, broken some of them, andfound a way through to douse the bishop’s chaplain in hisbed. If we left it till the thaw we’d have a flood, and farworse damage to repair.”

“And your master builder reckons he can make it good,frost or no frost.” Hugh had recognized the brawny figurehalfway up the long ladder, hefting a hodful of slates surely fewof his younger laborers could have lifted. “Bitter work upthere, though,” said Hugh, eyeing the highest platform of thescaffolding, stacked with a great pile of slates, and the twodiminutive figures moving with painful caution on the exposedroof.

“We take it in short spells, and there’s a fire inthe warming room when we come down. We elders are excused theservice, but most of us take a turn, barring the sick and infirm.It’s fair, but I doubt if it pleases Conradin. It irks himhaving foolhardy youngsters up there, and he’d just as soonwork only the ones he’s sure of, though I will say he keeps aclose watch on them. If he sees any blanch at being up so high, hesoon has them on solid earth again. We can’t all have thehead for it.”