‘Yes,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Ten more lines, Harry. In which Eadgyth records her vision of what would become of the world if the Testament was not fulfilled - of a future in which the Dove turned, not west as he should, but east. I can see you’re having trouble believing any of this, Harry. But when I tell you of this hideous future you will see why I summoned you here. Not just for your sister. We have to work out what to do about this. For we cannot let this dreadful future come about.’ He crossed himself.

Harry felt his whole life hingeing on this moment. He longed to flee from this madness, the woman in the hole, the terrible words scribbled on a wall, the memory of his dying, drunken father. But, as Geoffrey had seen, he had a sense of duty which would not allow him to walk away.

He said impulsively, ‘Agnes - never mind prophecies. I still don’t understand. What made you do this? Why run away - why throw away your life - why wall yourself up in a cell?’

‘For the love of God.’

There must be more. ‘And?’

She sighed. ‘And because I thought I would be safe,’ she said softly. ‘If I am in here, far from Oxford, encased in stone, he could not reach me again.’

He thought he understood at last. ‘Our father.’

‘Yes. It was not until Geoffrey came that I learned he was dead.’ She closed her eyes.

‘What did he do, Agnes?’

‘He was maddened. He was drunk. He didn’t know what he was doing. I forgive him; I have prayed for him. But I was ten years old. I feared that if I stayed, if I became a woman, and if his seed was planted in me - I left to save myself, and him, from that terrible sin.’

‘Oh, Agnes. I didn’t know. You say I protected you. But I failed, I failed—’

‘It wasn’t your fault, but his. Agnes is the name he gave me. But Agnes was a holy virgin. I am no Agnes.’

Impulsively he pushed his hand through the slit window. Tentatively his sister clasped his fingers, and then he felt the softness of her cheek on his hand.

Later he asked Geoffrey about the trench in the cell. It was Agnes’s own grave, Geoffrey said, a grave she scraped every day, for an anchoress was commanded to keep her death before her eyes at all times. Agnes would live and die in her stone box, and when her life was done she would lower herself into her self-dug tomb.

VI

VI