no more than half a dozen notes, and his voice, pitched higher thanin speech, and very soft and suave, had the same qualities,innocent as childhood, piercing as a wholly adult grief. And he wassinging not in English, not even in Norman-French as England knewit, but in the langue d’oc Cadfael rememberedimperfectly from long ago. Where had this cloister novice heard themelodies of the Provencal troubadours, and learned their songs? Inthe lord’s hall where he had been a harper? Donata knew nosouthern French, Cadfael had long forgotten it, but they knew alove song when they heard it. Rueful, unfulfilled, eternallyhopeful, an amour de loin, never to come face to face.

The cadence changed in an instant, the secret words passedmagically into: “Ave mater salvatoris…” and theywere back with the liturgy of Saint Martial before they realized,as Tutilo had realized with the wild perceptions of a fox, that thedoor of the room had opened. He was taking no chances. The door hadactually opened on the harmless person of Sulien Blount, butSub-Prior Herluin was there at his shoulder, looming like acloud.

Donata lay smiling, approving the lightning wit that couldchange course so smoothly, without a break, without a blush. True,Herluin drew his austere brows into a displeased frown at the sightof his novice seated upon the edge of a woman’s bed andplainly singing for her pleasure; but a glance at the womanherself, in her wasted and daunting dignity, disarmed him at once.She came as a shock, all the more because she was not old, butwithered in her prime.

Tutilo arose modestly, clasping the psaltery to his breast, andwithdrew himself dutifully into a corner of the room, his eyeslowered. When he was not looking at her, Cadfael suspected, he wasseeing her all the more clearly.

“Mother,” said Sulien, grave and a little stiff fromhis small battlefield, “here is Sub-Prior Herluin, sometimemy instructor in Ramsey, willing you well and promising you hisprayers. In my brother’s name, as I do, make himwelcome.”