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the brothers to Vespers.
    He did not see, therefore, the agitation of the lady accosted by Eudo, neither the clasping of her hands in supplication, nor the flailing of those same hands in angry impotence. If she spoke, he did not hear her, and by the time he turned the corner of the west end, Eudo was standing alone.
    Hearing the sound of purposeful footsteps, Eudo the Clerk turned to face Master Elias, though his face showed no recognition. He did not wait for him to draw close, but walked towards him while diverting to one side to pass him by.
    ‘Workshop, sometime after supper’, said the clerk, softly but unhurriedly, without so much as glancing at the master mason, and walked on. It was as much as the latter could do not to turn and gaze after him, both stunned by his composure and incensed by the sheer audacity of his cool assumption that he had but to command and he would be obeyed. Master Elias was certainly not used to such treatment. He coloured hotly and made a low, ursine growling noise in his throat. He would very much like to cuff that far-from-humble brother round the ear, as he would one of his lads. The violent thought brought him relief as he returned to the north transept, and it was a marginally less bad tempered master mason who climbed back to the level of the workmen.

    Brother Remigius took his accustomed place in the file of cowled figures assembling for Vespers with a face clouded by worry, and began the chant of prayer without conscious thought. The action had long ago become instinctive, and sometimes he chastised himself for failing to concentrate on the service, dwelling instead on vague distractions. Today, however, his mind was such a swirling mass of confusion, fear and rising anger that to have given himself up to the spirituality of the office would have been beyond him, however much he tried. The words still came, as they always did, but he was clearly distracted, and Brother Simon, the most irreverent of the novices, later described him to his fellows as looking like a landed trout from the abbey fishponds.

    Below the crossing, the lady Courtney stood apart from the citizens of Pershore who had come to hear Vespers. All the other secular guests were about their worldly business, but she came nearest to being at peace within the church, and her devotions occupied her so deeply that even had they been present, she would not have been aware of them. She made her responses in a thin voice made tremulous with religious fervour, and occasionally entirely suspended by emotion. Her bulky protector made no responses at all, but then he had no tongue.
    The Sisters of Romsey stood side by side, incongruous among the laity. Sister Ursula felt awkward and out of place. Normally they would have been in the choir, but in this house of monks their sex meant that they were not part of that select number. The younger nun sensed her superior taut as a bowstring beside her, and wondered if Sister Edeva resented their exclusion.
    Sister Edeva was staring blindly ahead of her, the Latin tripping from her lips without her needing to think. Unconsciously, her fingers closed upon the amber cross that lay upon her breast beneath the scapular. Her breath felt constricted in her chest, as if she had been winded. After all this time, when she had come to believe she had gained a form of peace, a single moment had brought everything welling up in her thoughts, as bright as if it was all yesterday; as bright as blood. There had been times recently when she had castigated herself for forgetting, for allowing his very face to become a hazy memory, something which could only be caught in the edge of vision. If looked upon fully it lost all form. Now she knew that she had not forgotten; would never forget. It was peace and acceptance which were illusory. A tremor ran through her, and Sister Ursula glanced at her companion, now pale and faltering in her responses, with obvious concern. At the conclusion of the service, the