She was not a beautiful woman, Judith Perle, born JudithVestier, and sole heiress to the biggest clothiers’ businessin the town. But she had a bodily dignity that would draw the eyeeven in a market crowd, above the common height for a woman,slender and erect, and with a carriage and walk of notable grace.The great coils of her shining light-brown hair, the colour ofseasoned oak timber, crowned a pale face that tapered from wide andlofty brow to pointed chin, by way of strong cheekbones and hollowcheeks, and an eloquent, mobile mouth too wide for beauty, butelegantly shaped. Her eyes were of a deep grey, and very clear andwide, neither confiding nor hiding anything. Cadfael had been eyeto eye with her, four years ago now, across her husband’sdeath-bed, and she had neither lowered her lids nor turned herglance aside, but stared unwaveringly as her life’s happinessslipped irresistibly away through her fingers. Two weeks later shehad miscarried, and lost even her child. Edred had left hernothing.

Hugh is right, thought Cadfael, forcing his mind back to theliturgy. She is young, she should marry again.

The June light, now approaching the middle hours of the day, andradiant with sunshine, fell in long golden shafts across the bodyof the choir and into the ranks of the brothers and obedientiariesopposite, gilding half a face here and throwing its other half intoexaggerated shade, there causing dazzled eyes in a blanched face toblink away the brightness. The vault above received the diffusedreflections in a soft, muted glow, plucking into relief the curvedleaves of the stone bosses. Music and light seemed to mate onlythere in the zenith. Summer trod hesitantly into the church atlast, after prolonged hibernation.