A pilgrim might come away believing that the oblates, deacons and novices laboured at their daily duties here under the stem but holy eye of the abbot, that their bodily needs were tended to by Domnus Wilfrid who made sure they were fed and clothed, and their souls guided by their tutors, such as Dom Boniface who watched over Aelfric herself. But in the underworld of the novices and deacons there was another power, wielded by the likes of Elfgar. Monks were humans too, and in some ways the monastery was just like the thegns’ halls where Aelfric had grown up, Elfgar like a bully among the athelings. Aelfric didn’t know what he wanted, but she knew her time with him would come.

And what she really feared was losing her secret: that Elfgar might find out that her name wasn’t Aelfric at all but Aelfflaed, that she wasn’t a young man but a woman, and that she shouldn’t be here at all in this all-male house of God.

When Matins was over, the monks were released for a bit more sleep before Prime, the first of the day’s six services. But that morning Aelfric didn’t want to go back to bed. As the monks filed out of the church the dawn light was enticing - a deep rich blue that had a trace of purple in it, she decided with the eye of one who was learning to master colour in her inks. On impulse she ducked away from the others and cut south towards the shore. She walked briskly, swinging her arms and pumping her legs, relishing the crisp sea air in her lungs and the feel of the blood surging in her veins.

At the sea she walked into sharp-cold water up to her ankles. Gritty sand, speckled with bits of sea coal, slid between her toes. She was seventeen years old, and she had grown up hunting and play-fighting every bit as hard as her brothers. She longed to throw off her heavy habit and run, naked, into the ocean’s cold water. But that, of course, was impossible; this moment of paddling must be enough.

With her ankles in the water, her habit hitched up around her knees, Aelfric looked back at the monastery she had made her home.