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hoped I would find that Froya had returned. Also that she’d be prepared to tell me where Hrype had gone; Froya is a very distant figure, and with her there is always the feeling that she is so busy fighting off her inner demons that there is little of her left over for anyone else. I do not suppose for a moment that she is easy to live with, and I admire Hrype for his loyalty to her, especially when he loves another woman so deeply. (His relationship with my aunt Edild is another secret that I keep to myself.)
    In the end I never got as far as tapping on Froya’s door, so I didn’t find out if she was there. As I clambered down the bank that leads off the higher ground and on to the track through the village, I heard my mother calling out to me.
    She was far from calm and serene now. Her cap was awry; her face was red and full of anguish. She ran up to me, grabbed my hands in both of hers and said, ‘Oh, thank God you’re here! Where have you been? Have you heard?’
    ‘I was out on the upland talking to Sibert,’ I replied, feeling my heart thump with alarm. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
    My big, brave mother seemed to sag, and for a moment I supported her not inconsiderable weight. Then she forced herself to stand upright and said, ‘There’s word that a nun has been found murdered. A knife to her throat, they say, or possibly she was strangled.’ She frowned, then shook her head violently. ‘Oh, I don’t know – the story is confused.’
    A nun. I felt very cold.
    ‘Who brought the news?’ I demanded. It could all be just an ugly rumour, a salacious tale to relieve the boredom of country life.
    ‘The peddler from over March way – he’s brought a consignment of pins and we’ve all been crowding round him; I haven’t seen a package of pins since last autumn. Oh, oh –’ my mother’s eyes filled with tears – ‘and I never got mine! I forgot all about them when he told us!’
    I put my arms round her. I already knew, but I thought I should ask anyway.
    ‘He’s from March,’ I repeated. ‘That means he’d have journeyed past—’ I hesitated. Perhaps if I didn’t put it into words, it wouldn’t be true.
    But my mother was nodding. ‘Yes, yes, I know! He was there two days ago, and the news was spreading like fire in a hayrick. The dead nun’s from Chatteris!’
    Chatteris Abbey is a small foundation of Benedictine nuns, neither very wealthy nor very important. There are perhaps twenty nuns there, maybe twenty-five. And one of them is my beloved sister Elfritha.
    I heard the echo of those desperate words. I need you! I braced myself to face the horrible possibility that they had come from my sister.
    We hurried home again, and the news must have reached even the outlying lands of the village, for all the family were back.
    My father said firmly, ‘We have no reason at all to believe that anything has happened to Elfritha. She is one of a score, so the chances are slim.’
    Slim, perhaps, but they could not be discounted.
    ‘I thought she’d be safe in her convent!’ my mother sobbed. ‘Life is hard and full of many dangers, and it was my one great consolation, when she went away to shut herself up with the nuns, that she’d be safe !’
    ‘She probably is perfectly safe,’ my father said. I thought he sounded less certain than he had before.
    There was only one way to find out. Someone would have to go to the abbey and ask. Dreading that this was indeed the answer to the mysterious summons, I said, ‘I will go to Chatteris. I’ll set out straight away, and I ought to get there tomorrow.’
    There was a chorus of protests, mainly from my father and Haward and mainly to the effect that I ought not to go off travelling alone when there was a murderer about. I held up my hands, and my family fell silent.
    ‘It makes sense for me to go,’ I said calmly. ‘For one thing, any of you would have to get Lord Gilbert’s permission to leave the village, whereas he doesn’t know