‘Running!’ she repeated helplessly, as though she had come up against a lofty stone wall.

Dominig had marked this exchange with some interest. ‘I will help you,’ he decided, ‘if you tell me about your plight. The prior will not take it kindly if I bring trouble to our order.’

The young man named Ned drew his brows together. ‘But, Brother, you say your church is not secure. If we cannot claim sanctuary, how can you help us?’

Brother Dominig smiled. ‘I know nothing about you. You might be murderers. I’m taking a risk in trusting to your honesty. Will you not trust me?’

‘You’ve somewhere we may hide, and rest?’ the girl asked with heart-rending eagerness.

‘Aye.’

The couple exchanged glances. ‘Well, mistress?’ The young man looked at the girl. ‘It’s for you to decide.’

Ned’s mode of address revealed that the pair were not wed, and Dominig found himself wondering as to the propriety of what he had in mind. But a moment’s reflection brought him to the conclusion that since the infant’s life was at stake, the couple’s need outweighed any petty moral considerations. He prayed Prior Hubert would see eye to eye with him on this.

Large brown eyes surveyed Brother Dominig from the top of his unshaven crown to his bare toes. The baby wailed fretfully, and a tired smile flickered across the young woman’s lips. She looked spent. ‘Aye,’ she said, rocking her brother, ‘we had best go with this good monk, Ned. We can explain on the way. I swear I can run no more.’

***

The anchorite’s cell was built into the north wall of the monastery chapel, in order to test more severely the vocation of its occupants. As a consequence, it was dank and cold with rising damp. An odour of death clung to the porous stones, and Gwenn faltered as she forced herself through the low break in the wall. ‘It smells in here, Ned. I don’t like it. Is there nowhere else, Brother?’

Ned turned enquiringly to Brother Dominig. The novice was holding a bucket of mortar he’d snatched from a fellow monk who had been doing some pointing around the piscina. There had not been time to consult Prior Hubert, but he had dispatched Brother Marzin to stand as look-out.

‘This cell is the safest place there is,’ the novice said. ‘You can thank St Félix it’s empty. No one has been called to fill it since Brother Biel died.’

‘When did he die? Yesterday?’ Gwenn shuddered. ‘I swear I can smell him.’

Brother Dominig smiled. ‘Nay, sister. Your imagination plays games with you. Brother Biel died last Christmas, and no one has been called to fill his place. The hermit’s cell has been empty since then.’

Swallowing, Gwenn gripped her baby brother and ducked into the cell. Ned pushed Katarin after her and followed himself.

‘It’s cramped, I know,’ Brother Dominig thrust his head through the opening to apologise. ‘It was only designed for one person. Here,’ he tossed a bundle onto the earthen floor, ‘I sent for some blankets for you. And here’s bread and cheese, and some milk for the baby.’

As Gwenn’s eyes adjusted to the poor light, she saw a stone ledge running along the back of the cell. She set her brother down and lifted the blankets from the floor before the damp got to them. Katarin pressed close to her skirts, and she dropped a comforting arm about the child’s shoulders. ‘We’ll need water too,’ she put in, ‘to drink, and to cleanse Ned’s hurts.’

The novice lowered his head in assent. ‘Don’t worry, mistress, I can give you food and water in the usual manner via the other opening. This is to tide you over.’

‘Other opening?’

‘Even anchorites do drink and eat, sister.’ Dominig was mildly shocked at her ignorance. ‘There’s a slit in the north wall which opens onto the yard. It’s shuttered from the outside – that’s why you can’t see it. Brother Biel took all his food and drink through it.’ Dominig smiled at Gwenn. Both she and the little girl were white as chalk, poor things. And no wonder. Brother Dominig might like to be solitary, but he would hate being bricked up in that unnatural hole, where sunlight never ventured. ‘Never fear, sister,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘I’ll not leave you sealed up any longer than I have to.’

A shout drew the novice’s kindly eyes to the church door. ‘That’s Marzin,’ he said and snatched his head out of the cell. ‘He must have sighted someone.’

Stone scraped on stone. Brother Dominig grunted as he shifted the first granite block into place. Dipping a trowel into the bucket, he slapped the contents onto the stone and smoothed it down. He had three courses to complete, and though he was no mason, he must do it more swiftly than a master. He hauled another stone into position.

‘That’s mortar, isn’t it?’ Ned asked, blue eyes sharp as steel. ‘Won’t mortar be difficult to break down when they’ve gone?’

With deft strokes, Brother Dominig smoothed the mixture onto the block, and hoisted another stone. That was the first course done; with another two to go, the entrance was shrinking fast. ‘I only wall anchorites with mortar,’ Brother Dominig said, discovering that urgency had not blunted his sense of humour. ‘With women and babes, I use mud.’

‘Mud?’

Through the diminishing gap, Ned’s countenance was not amused. He was no dissembler, this honest young man. ‘My apologies.’ Brother Dominig grunted, heaving on another block. ‘It is mortar. If I piled the stones on dry, they would look out of place, and your pursuers might be tempted to rip them down to investigate. It’s got to look convincing. On my soul, it will be easy to get you out when all is clear.’

Another trowel-load of mortar slapped on stone. Another course completed.

Ned backed into the cell and trod on Gwenn’s foot. ‘Sorry, mistress.’ Her teeth were chattering.

‘I don’t like confined spaces,’ she said.

‘Neither do I.’ Ned took Gwenn’s arm and drew her towards the ledge. Clinging to her sister like ivy, Katarin came too. ‘As we have a long wait, I think we should sit down, don’t you?’

***

It was soot-black in the anchorite’s cell, save for a couple of feeble splashes of illumination where two small apertures admitted a grey light from the interior of the church. The greater of the apertures, a quatrefoil carved out of the wall, threw the distorted shape of a Greek cross onto the muddy floor. The cross on the ground measured less than a foot, but the quatrefoil itself was smaller, large enough for the anchorite to receive Our Lord’s body through it when Mass was being celebrated but with not an inch to spare. The quatrefoil had been carved at an angle to prevent the hermit from taking a too-worldly interest in the goings-on in the chapel. The other, dimmer, source of light was the squint. As its name implied, this reed-like crack was positioned so as to allow the anchorite to squint through it, and get a glimpse of the High Altar. No other portion of the church was visible, but despite this Ned had been standing with his eyes glued to it for most of the half hour they had been incarcerated in the cell.

‘Can you see anyone, Ned?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘What can be happening? It’s some time since the alarm was raised. Perhaps it’s another visitor to the monastery. Perhaps it’s not – what was the name?’

‘Malait.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t Malait. It could be anyone. A pilgrim?’

Withdrawing from the squint, Ned groped for the stone bench and wedged himself next to Gwenn. Katarin had her head buried in her sister’s lap, and Gwenn was caressing her. ‘I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it being anyone else,’ he said, candidly. ‘This monastery is too small and too out of the way to attract pilgrims. Besides, it has no relics.’

‘Aye, but until last Christmas they had a hermit,’ Gwenn pointed out, clutching at the faintest hope. ‘You know how people will bring their troubles to holy men.’ She shivered, hugging Katarin. ‘Ned, I’m cold.’

‘So am I.’ Ned draped an arm round Gwenn’s shoulders and reached for a blanket. She did not draw back. ‘Better?’