It was only by chance that Brother Cadfael witnessed the arrivalof the new entrant, two days later. After several days of clear skies andsunshine for harvesting the early apples and carting the new-milled flour, itwas a day of miserable downpour, turning the roads to mud, and every hollow inthe great court into a treacherous puddle. In the carrels of the scriptoriumcopiers and craftsmen worked thankfully at their desks. The boys kicked theirheels discontentedly indoors, baulked of their playtime, and the few invalids inthe infirmary felt their spirits sink as the daylight dimmed and went intomourning. Of guests there were few at that time. There was a breathing-space inthe civil war, while earnest clerics tried to bring both sides together inagreement, but most of England preferred to stay at home and wait with heldbreath, and only those who had no option rode the roads and took shelter in theabbey guest-halls.

Cadfael had spent the first part of the afternoon in his workshop in theherbarium. Not only had he a number of concoctions working there, fruit of hisautumn harvest of leaves, roots and berries, but he had also got hold of a copyof Aelfric’s list of herbs and trees from the England of a century and a halfearlier, and wanted peace and quiet in which to study it. Brother Oswin, whoseyouthful ardour was Cadfael’s sometime comfort and frequent anxiety in this hisprivate domain, had been excused attendance, and gone to pursue his studies inthe liturgy, for the time of his final vows was approaching, and he needed tobe word-perfect.

The rain, though welcome to the earth, was disturbing and depressing to themind of man. The light lowered; the leaf Cadfael studied darkened before hiseyes. He gave up his reading. Literate in English, he had learned his Latin laboriouslyin maturity, and though he had mastered it, it remained unfamiliar, an alientongue. He went the round of his brews, stirred here and there, added aningredient in a mortar and ground until it blended into the cream within, andwent back in scurrying haste through the wet gardens to the great court, withhis precious parchment in the breast of his habit.