“Brothers, you are very welcome in our house, and all wecan provide is yours. I hear you have had a long ride, and a sadloss that has driven you forth. I grieve for our brothers of Hyde.But here at least we hope to offer you tranquillity of mind, and asecure shelter. In these lamentable wars we have been fortunate.You, the elder, are Brother Humilis?”

“Yes, Father. Here I present you our prior’s letter,commending us both to your kindness.” He had carried it inthe breast of his habit, and now drew it forth and laid it on theabbot’s desk. “You will know, Father, that the abbey ofHyde has been an abbey without an abbot for two years now. They saycommonly that Bishop Henry had it in mind to bring it into his ownhands as an episcopal convent, which the brothers stronglyresisted, and denying us a head may well have been a move designedto weaken us and reduce our voice. Now that is of no consequence,for the house of Hyde is gone, razed to the ground and blackened byfire.”

“Is it such entire destruction?” asked Radulfus,frowning over his linked hands.

“Utter destruction. In time to come a new house may beraised there, who knows? But of the old nothing remains.”

“You had best tell me all that you can,” saidRadulfus heavily. “Here we live far from these events, almostin peace. How did this holocaust come about?”

Brother Humilis—what could his proud name have been beforehe thus calmly claimed for himself humility?—folded his handsin the lap of his habit, and fixed his hollow dark eyes upon theabbot’s face. There was a creased scar, long ago healed andpale, marking the left side of his tonsure, Cadfael noted, andknew, the crescent shape of a glancing stroke from a right-handedswordsman. It did not surprise him. No straight western sword, buta Seljuk scimitar. So that was where he had got the bronze that hadnow faded and sickened into dun.

“The empress entered Winchester towards the end of July. I