But with little Arn, Father Henri noticed nothing of the sort; it was as though Arn attended with the same eagerness to everything actually implied by the cloister's chosen name: Vitae Schola.

   This boy might become any sort of man. He might end his days as the prior of a monastery, as far as Father Henri could see. He might also become something that was the complete opposite, about which Brother Guilbert spoke in secret, and which they ought not mention aloud, according to Father Henri. With regard to God's intentions for Arn, they had no certainty as yet. So it was a matter of continuing as they had so far, to give both the spirit and the hand their due.

   Father Henri had moved his daily lesson books to one of the arcades leading to the garden, and it was here that he sat deeply engrossed one morning when Arn came darting in. His feet were wet because he had come directly from the lavatorium; it was against the rules to pass from work of the hands to work of the spirit without first cleaning oneself. He had spent the past two hours on the last of the masonry work up in the tower of the cloister church. There had been more to do at the end than they had thought when they finally decided on the date for the consecration. The scaffolding should really be removed before Archbishop Eskil arrived to bless the church.

   But when they began tearing down the scaffolding they also had a better view. Brother Guilbert and Brother Richard stood on the ground and discovered first one and then another crack that had to be patched, or joints that were not properly done. Arn was sent up to the top to climb about like a little marten to carry out all their demands for final improvements. Since he was so small compared to all the others, Arn was the only one who could climb without fear or difficulty after the wooden scaffolds had been removed. The height didn't bother him at all, since he was firmly convinced that God would not easily visit misfortune on someone who was just a child. Besides, he was laboring to complete a work in His honor. At least that was how Arn explained it when one of the brothers tentatively asked whether he was afraid of heights.

   His reply was perhaps not entirely true. Not that he was lying. At Vitae Schola no one lied; such behavior would be a gross breach of the rules of the monastery. But Arn also held a conviction, which he had no doubt imbibed with his mother's milk, that God had a definite plan for his life and that this plan could hardly be that Arn should lay stones for some brief years of his childhood and then lose his footing and fall to his death or knock himself senseless, as two lay brothers had done during the construction. That was why he felt no fear.

   But giving such an answer, if anyone had asked him, would have been to demonstrate pride, to express a belief that he was superior to others. And it would also have been a great sin, perhaps even greater than lying.

   Once he had fallen from a high tower. He didn't remember much about it, but he had read the account in a copy of the book of memory up at Varnhem, and Father Henri had talked with him about how he should understand it all. God had wanted to save his life for a future task, a great task. That was the most important part of the interpretation of the account, and anyone could see that.

   About a year earlier, the reading lessons had become more and more directed toward that very purpose: how one should interpret text, and above all the Holy Scriptures. It was to such a lesson that Arn had now come running, a bit late and out of breath with his feet bare but newly washed, slipping on the polished limestone tiles in the arcade where he found Father Henri.

   But Father Henri did not chide him; he seemed to be in a very good mood. He sat there with a pleased smile, as if lost in thought, and simply stroked the boy's little shaved head for a moment before he said anything.

   Arn, who had sat down next to Father Henri on the stone bench, saw that Glossa Ordinaria lay open before him. Even though the boy was sitting too far away to read the text, he could guess quite well which section of the book the monk was reading.

   "Well," said Father Henri presently, as he slowly left his world of thought. "If we begin with the text that you will sing solo toward the end of the singing mass . . . how are we to understand . . . by the way, sing me the first lines!"

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righ teousness for his name's sake.

   Arn sang in his clear soprano, so that the brothers in the garden stood up from their work, leaned on their tools, and listened with gentle smiles. They all loved the boy's singing.

   "Excellent, excellent, we can stop there," said Father Henri. "And now we have to understand this text. Shall we interpret it morally or literally? No, of course not, but how then?"

   "It's obviously an allegorical text," said Arn, panting; he needed more air since he had sung when he was still slightly out of breath.

   "So you mean that we're not actually sheep, my son? Well, that's obvious, but why use this simile?"

   "It's clear, it's easy to understand," Arn surmised with a little frown. "Everyone has seen sheep and shepherds, and just as the sheep need their shepherd for protection and care, we need God. Even though we're human beings and not sheep, God becomes like our shepherd."

   "Hmm," said Father Henri. "So far it's not difficult. But what does 'He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness' mean? Do sheep have souls?"

   "No," said Arn thoughtfully. He sensed one of Father Henri's traps of logic, but he had already declared that the text should be interpreted allegorically. "Since the allegory from the beginning is obvious . . . that of the sheep representing us, so . . . the text following it should be interpreted literally. The Lord really does restore our souls."

   "Yes, that's probably true," muttered Father Henri with a sly little smile. "But what about what follows: 'he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness'? What paths are we talking about? Literal meaning or allegorical?"

   "I don't know," said Arn. "Can't it be both?"

   "Can that be so? A text that should be read both literally and allegorically? Now you're going to have to explain yourself, my son."

   "In the line before it says that God restores our souls, so it's literally about us and not about some sheep," Arn began, to win a little time while he thought as incisively as he could. "But of course God can lead us on the right paths in the literal sense; paths on the ground, visible paths, the sort of paths that horses and oxcarts and people walk on. If He wants to, He can lead us on the path to Rome, for example, don't you think?"