left her for three years and stayed away seventeen. The truth is, inthe east I forgot her, and in the west she, thanks be to God, hadforgotten me. I did enquire, when I got back. She’d made abetter bargain, and married a decent, solid man who had nothing ofthe vagus in him. Aguildsman and counsellor of the town of Shrewsbury, no less. So Ished the load from my conscience and went back to what I knew,soldiering. With no regrets,” he said simply. “It was allover and done, years since. I doubt if I should have known her again,or she me.” There had been other women’s faces in theyears between, still vivid in his memory, while hers had faded intomist.

“And what will you do,” asked Alard, “now theKing’s got everything he wanted, married his son to Anjou andMaine, and made an end of fighting? Go back to the east? There’snever any want of squabbles there to keep a man busy.”

“No,” said Cadfael, eyes fixed on the shore that began toshow the solidity of land and the undulations of cliff and down. Forthat, too, was over and done, years since, and not as well done asonce he had hoped. This desultory campaigning in Normandy was littlemore than a postscriptum, an afterthought, a means of filling in theinterim between what was past and what was to come, and as yetunrevealed. All he knew of it was that it must be something new andmomentous, a door opening into another room. “It seems we haveboth a few days’ grace, you and I, to find out where we aregoing. We’d best make good use of the time.”

There was stir enough before night to keep them from wondering beyondthe next moment, or troubling their minds about what was past or whatwas to come. Their ship put into the roads with a steady andfavourable wind, and made course into Southampton before the lightfaded, and there was work for Alard checking the gear as it wasunloaded, and for Cadfael disembarking the horses. A night’ssleep in lodgings and stables in the town, and they would be on theirway with the dawn.