Athelstan closed the missal, all thoughts of Pike the ditcher and his family cleared from his head. He went back to the carrel, seized his pen and continued to write out everything he knew. He tried to extract every detail from his memory, quoting to himself what he had said to Cranston earlier in the day: ‘If there’s a problem, logically there must be a solution.’ For the first time ever, Athelstan had a piece of evidence, something that would fit, something which might unlock the rest of the secrets.

He fell asleep for a few hours just before dawn and woke cold and cramped, his head on the small desk, his body somehow wedged on the stool. He stretched, cracking muscles, and looked up at the small window above the high altar, pleased to see it would be a fair day. He prepared the altar for Mass, opened the door and waited for the small trickle of his congregation to enter. At last, when he thought he could wait no longer, he glimpsed Benedicta slip silently up the nave to join the other two members of his congregation, kneeling between them at the entrance to the rood screen. The widow’s ivory face, framed in its veil of luxurious black curls, seemed more exquisite than ever and Athelstan said a prayer of thanks to God for such beauty.

As usual, after Mass, Benedicta stayed to light a candle before the statue of the Virgin. She smiled as Athelstan approached and asked softly if all was well.

Athelstan took his courage in both hands and blurted out his invitation. Benedicta’s eyes rounded in surprise but she smiled and agreed so quickly that the friar wondered if she, too, felt the kinship between them. For the rest of the day he could hardly concentrate on any problem, caught between contrition that he had done something wrong in inviting Benedicta and pleasure that she had so readily accepted. He could not really account for what he did, moving from duty to duty like a sleep-walker, so buoyed up he didn’t even bother to study the stars that night, in spite of the sky being cloud free. His mind was unwilling to rest. Sleep eluded him. Instead he tossed and turned, hoping Girth the bricklayer’s son had delivered his message to Sir John Cranston indicating where they should meet the next day.

The friar was up just before dawn and celebrated his Mass, Bonaventure and Benedicta being his only congregation. Athelstan’s pleasure increased when he saw that Benedicta, her hair now braided and hidden under a wimple, had a small basket by her side in preparation for their journey to Smithfield. After Mass they talked, chatting about this and that, as they walked from Southwark across London Bridge to meet Cranston and his wife at the Golden Pig, a comfortable tavern on the city side of the river.