preparations for a festival. What passed between them was too soft,too earnest and private to be heard beyond the two of them, but itseemed that the stranger was asking lodging for both himself andhis charge. His bearing was reverent and courteous, as was due inthese surroundings, but also quietly confident. He turned his headand gestured with his hand towards the church. A young fellow ofperhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven years, in clothes sun-faded andvery dusty from the roads. Above average tall, thin and sinewy,large-boned and broad-shouldered, with a tangle of straw-coloredhair somewhat fairer than the deep tan of his forehead and cheeks,and a good, bold prow of a nose, thin and straight. A proud face,somewhat drawn with effort just now, and earnest with the gravityof his errand, but by nature, Cadfael thought, studying him acrossthe width of the court, it should be an open, hopeful, good-naturedcountenance, ready to smile, and a wide-lipped mouth ready toconfide at the first friendly invitation.

“One of your flock from here in the Foregate?” askedHugh, viewing him with interest. “But no, by the look of himhe’s been on the roads from somewhere a good deal moredistant.”

“But for all that,” said Cadfael, shaking his headover an elusive likeness, “it seems to me I’ve seenthat face before, somewhere, at some time. Or else he reminds me ofsome other lad I’ve known.”

“The lads you’ve known in your time could come fromhalf the world over. Well, you’ll find out, all in goodtime,” said Hugh, “for it seems Brother Denis is givinghis attention to the matter, and one of your youngsters is off intothe cloister in haste to fetch somebody else.”

The somebody else proved to be no less than Prior Roberthimself, with Brother Jerome trotting dutifully at his heels. Thelength of Robert’s stride and the shortness of Jerome’slegs turned what should have been a busy, self-important bustleinto a hasty shamble, but it would always get Jerome in time to anyspot where there was something happening that might provide himwith occasion for curiosity, censure, or sanctimony.