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creamy stew.
    John sighed happily. It had been the wish of the townspeople that he should be made to feel excluded from the life of Crediton—and they had been disgusted when they realized he intended staying. The town was united against him; he must be forced to understand how his actions were deplored. That was why they had refused to let him acquire a plot of land nearer Crediton town center. The intention was to punish him for his attempted fraud, but he was grateful that they wanted to alienate him. It had left him with this view up the hill and over the trees—and ensured that he could go about his business without being observed.
    And that was sometimes important to him. He stirred himself as the light faded, stretching both arms high over his head. Crossing his yard, he made sure the pony was settled before taking a length of rope from the stable door. Where his plot met Godfrey’s, he had not bothered to put up a fence. Godfrey’s wall was eight feet high here, enough to deter most unwanted visitors. Now John studied it, sucking his teeth thoughtfully while he fashioned a loop. Ready, he weighed the coil in his hand. A few short feet above him the broken branch of an oak protruded over to his side. He hurled the rope; it encircled the limb, and he tested it a moment before using it to help him clamber to the top. Once there, he unhitched the loop from the branch, whistling absent-mindedly as he cautiously looked out for any watching gardener, then dropped to the ground.
    Matthew Coffyn was away again; he often was. And when left to her own devices, his wife, Martha, was prey to boredom.
    As soon as he had broken his fast the next morning, Ralph took his leave of both Bishop and Dean and set off to his new position. Ralph had expected to go alone to the lazar house, but Clifford insisted that someone should show him the way. The lepers were to be found at the far side of the town, he pointed out, and it would be easy for Ralph to get himself lost en route.
    Ralph followed the almoner through the screens to the courtyard and out into the road, the older monk proudly pointing to the imposing new church as they passed it. The bustling little town was already awake, he saw. On every street, people stood hawking wares from baskets. Shops had their windows open. Their shutters were hinged at their lowest edge, so that they could be swung down to rest on trestles, and now they were displaying fresh produce of all kinds. As they walked, Ralph smelled newly-baked bread, cooking pies and stews, fowls roasting, and the clean tang of fish, all of which contended for dominance with the stench from the sewer.
    It made him feel foolish after his reservations of the previous afternoon. At Houndeslow, this town was looked upon as a frontier outpost, somewhere so far removed from civilized living that it was a miracle anyone could survive for long, but now he was here, Ralph found it was a thriving, cheerful place. He wondered briefly whether the country further west was as forbidding and wild as he had heard, or whether it would prove to be as friendly as Crediton. Contrary to what he had been told, this was not a border town, not in the same way as Carlisle.
    He had heard a lot about the northern marches from older monks at his convent. There, he understood, raiders and thieves were continually attacking from the Scottish side, and it was impossible to live in peace. Carlisle had to be protected by massive curtain walls and a prominent castle, behind whose gates civilians could shelter when the Scottish barbarians came burning and looting on their little ponies. Here at Crediton there wasn’t any kind of a wall, yet the people didn’t appear to feel its lack.
    Further into the town the atmosphere altered. Here was the business center. There were regular squeals from one yard where a pigsticker plied his trade, a butcher standing outside in his leather apron shaving carcasses, while others nearby stoically carved and jointed. One