The Sanctuary Sparrow
Ellis Peters
The Seventh Chronicle of Brother Cadfael
v1.0 released in #bookz October 7, 2002
v1.5 EBook Design Group December 06, 2002
v2.0 December 31,2002
Contents
^
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter One
« ^ »
Friday midnight to Saturday morning
It began,as the greatest of storms do begin, as a mere tremor in the air, a thread ofsound so distant and faint, yet so ominous, that the ear that was sharp enoughto catch it instantly pricked and shut out present sounds to strain after itagain, and interpret the warning. Brother Cadfael had a hare’s hearing, readilyalerted and sharply focused. He caught the quiver and bay, at this point surelystill on the far side of the bridge that crossed Severn from the town, andstiffened into responsive stillness, braced to listen.
It could have been an innocent sound enough, or if not innocent of murderousintent, at any rate natural, the distant voices of hunting owls, and thepredatory bark of a dog-fox prowling his nocturnal barony. Certainly theferocious note of the hunt sounded clearly in it to Cadfael’s ear. And evenBrother Anselm the precentor, wholly absorbed into his chanting of the office,wavered and slipped off-key for an instant, and took up the cadence jealously,composing his mind sternly to duty.