Athelstan prepared the altar for Mass, laying out the rather tattered missal and two candlesticks so bent they could hardly stand straight. A chipped, silver-gilt chalice, paten and small glass cruets, containing water and wine, were placed on the spotless altar cloth. Athelstan went into the dank sacristy, put on the alb and scarlet cope, crossed himself and went out to begin the magic of the Mass, priest before God, offering Christ to the Father under the appearances of bread and wine. Athelstan blessed himself as he intoned the introductory psalm.

‘I will go into the altar of God, unto God who gives joy to my youth.’

Godric snored on, oblivious to the drama being enacted a few yards away. Bonaventure sidled up to the foot of the altar steps. The cat licked its lips, swishing its long tail in anticipation of a deep bowl of creamy milk as his reward for attention and patience. Athelstan, now caught up by the music of the words of the Mass, swept through the readings of the Epistle and the Gospel, reaching the Offertory where he mingled the water and wine. At the far end of the church a door opened and a hooded figure slipped in, moving soundlessly up the darkened nave to kneel beside Bonaventure at the foot of the steps. Athelstan forced himself to keep his eyes down on the white circle of bread over which he had breathed the words of consecration, transforming it into the body of Christ. The consecration over, he intoned the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Pater Noster, quiest in caelis.’

His voice rang loud and clear through the hollow nave. He paused, as the canon of the Mass dictated, to pray for the dead. He remembered Fulke the warrener, a member of his parish killed in a tavern brawl four nights earlier. Then Athelstan’s own parents and his brother Francis . . . the friar closed his eyes against the hot tears welling there as the faces of his family appeared, clear and distinct in his mind’s eye.

‘God grant them eternal rest,’ he whispered.

He stood swaying against the altar, wondering for the hundredth time why he felt like an assassin. Oh, in France he had killed men whilst fighting for the Black Prince, the old king’s eldest son, who wanted to unite the crowns of France and Castille with that of England. Athelstan had shot arrows as good and true as the rest. He remembered the corpse of a young French knight, his cornflower blue eyes gazing sightlessly up at the sky, his blond hair framing his face like a halo, Athelstan’s barbed arrow embedded deeply in his throat between helmet and gorget. The friar prayed for this unknown knight yet he felt no guilt. This was war and the Church taught that war was part of man’s sinful condition, the legacy of Adam’s revolt.

‘Oh, God, am I a murderer?’ he whispered to himself.