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for the answer.
    Hamo shook his head. ‘I am sorry – she is not. But Spayne might know where she went. You could ask him.’
    ‘He is our current mayor,’ added Whatton helpfully. ‘And he lives in one of the old stone houses near the corn market. Anyone will tell you how to find it.’
    ‘Not tonight, Matt,’ said Michael in an undertone, seeing the physician about to follow their directions immediately. ‘It is dark, and only a madman wanders around strange cities after sunset.’
    ‘When was she last here?’ asked Bartholomew, trying to keep the eagerness from his voice. It would be hard to wait all night for answers, although he saw the sense in Michael’s advice.
    Hamo thought carefully. ‘It must be six years now. Everyone loved her. There is a deep rift between some of the city officials, you see, and she was one of few who havetried to heal it. But then she just left. She was here one day and gone the next, like a puff of wind, leaving no trace of herself.’
    ‘Just like she did in Cambridge,’ said Suttone, shaking his head sadly. Then he frowned. ‘Do I recall you being especially fond of her, Matthew?’
    ‘No more so than anyone else,’ replied Michael briskly, before Bartholomew could answer for himself. ‘He is a University Fellow, after all, and not given to hankerings for women.’
    Suttone seemed to accept the point, and Hamo began to elaborate on Matilde’s abrupt departure from his city. Bartholomew’s brief flare of hope had died at the mention of six years. She had been in Cambridge since then, and he suspected her Lincoln friends would know even less about her most recent wanderings than he did.
    ‘Who is
she
?’ interrupted Michael suddenly, pointing to where an unusually tall lady in the white habit of a Gilbertine nun was walking towards the chapel, holding a lamp to guide her. The robe accentuated her slim figure, and she moved in a way that suggested she knew she was attracting admiring glances. At her side was an older woman, slightly bent with age, but still moving quickly enough to make her younger companion stride out to keep pace with her.
    ‘That is Dame Eleanor,’ replied Whatton, his voice softening with quiet admiration. ‘As a child, she was presented to the old queen, who gave her to us. She has been here for nigh on six decades.’
    ‘You mean Queen Isabella?’ asked Suttone. ‘The wanton wife of the second King Edward?’
    ‘No, the queen before her,’ replied Hamo. ‘Eleanor – whose memorial stands outside our gate. We are very proud of that, because it is a symbol of the esteem in which ourpriory is held by monarchs. But
our
Eleanor – Dame Eleanor Darcy – has dedicated her life to Lincoln’s saints, and climbs the hill every day to tend their shrines in the cathedral. She is a devout and venerable lady.’
    ‘Is she the one who deplores gluttony?’ asked Suttone keenly. ‘You mentioned her earlier.’
    ‘What saints?’ asked Cynric, as Hamo nodded his answer to Suttone’s question. ‘Does your city have saints of its own?’
    Hamo nodded again. ‘They are called Little Hugh and Bishop Hugh, both buried in the cathedral.’
    ‘I meant the
other
lady,’ said Michael impatiently, eyes fixed on the apparition in white that glided along the snow-dappled path. ‘The younger one.’
    ‘That looks like a woman,’ supplied Suttone unhelpfully. ‘The Gilbertine Order enrols them in its priories, as you mentioned earlier. It is an odd rule, and I do not consider it a wise one.’
    ‘Women have just as much right to live in this fine convent as men do,’ said Whatton coolly. ‘And problems with cohabitation occur only when folk are weak and given to fornication. Benedictines could never manage it, and neither could Carmelites, but male and female Gilbertines have been living side by side without trouble or sin for nigh on two hundred years.’
    ‘I applaud your achievement, but who is she?’ pressed Michael irritably, overlooking the