Brother Cadfael, once well accustomed to night alarms by land and by sea,had surged out of his stall as soon as the abbot moved, but took time to graspa double candelabrum to light his way. Prior Robert in full sail was alreadyblocking the right-hand way round the parish altar, too patrician to makeenough haste to ruffle his silvery beauty. Cadfael doubled round to the left andemerged into the nave before him, with his light thrust out ahead, as muchweapon as illumination.

The hounds were streaming in by then, a quarter of the town, and not thebest quarter, though not necessarily the worst either; decent craftsmen,merchants, traders, jostled with the riff-raff always ready for any brawl, andall of them beyond themselves either with drink or excitement or both together,howling for blood. And blood there was, slippery on the tiles of the floor. Onthe three steps to the parish altar lay sprawled some poor wretch flattenedbeneath a surge of trampling, battering foes, all hacking away with fist andboot, happily in such a tangle that comparatively few of their kicks and blowsgot home. All Cadfael could see of the quarry was a thin arm and a fist hardlybigger than a child’s, that reached out of the chaos to grip the edge of thealtar-cloth with life-and-death desperation.

Abbot Radulfus, all the long, lean, muscular length of him, with his gaunt,authoritative lantern head blazing atop, sailed round the altar, smoky candlein hand, slashed the skirts of his habit like a whip across the stoopingbeast-faces of the foremost attackers, and with a long bony leg bestrode thefallen creature that clawed at the fringes of the altar.

“Rabble, stand off! Blasphemers, quit this holy place, and be ashamed. Back,before I blast your souls eternally!”