Alexander went quickly after him, catching up with him some yards short of the dormitory door.

“It’s too good a night to be packed off at this hour, isn’t it? Tell me, do they lock the doors once they’ve got us in for the night?”

The boy laughed. “Yes, like hens in case the fox gets us! But at least they don’t wake us at dawn – though the chapel bell does!”

“You’ve been here long?”

“Nearly a week.”

“I just rode in today, from the south. I don’t know this part of the country, at all, but this seems a good place. How long will you be lodging here?”

“I don’t know. Some days, I suppose. They never tell us anything, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the master wasn’t aiming to stay here for a bit longer.”

“And your mistress?”

“Oh, she’ll be all for going home, once she’s seen the prince safely settled in. Why do you ask? Who are you?”

“One who would like to have a talk with your mistress, if that could be arranged? I’m travelling alone, with no servant, but if I sent my name to her tomorrow, would she see me, do you think?”

“Well, of course!” The boy, who had been surveying Alexander in the light from the open door of the dormitory, sounded confident. “She’s a sweet lady, the mistress. No ceremony, anyone can talk to her. If it’s important –”

“To me it is. What’s your name?”

“Berin.”

“Well, Berin, can you tell me more of your lady? Is it true that –?”

“Listen,” said the boy rapidly, “there’s the bell. They’ll be locking up in a minute. I’ll tell you the easiest way to speak with my lady. She goes walking in the orchard first thing in the morning, while the master’s still at prayers. It would be easy then to speak with her … No, no need for that, sir! Look, there’s Brother Magnus now, waiting to shut the hens up! We’d better hurry! Good night to you!”

He took to his heels, and Alexander, returning the second bribe of the evening to his pouch, hastened after him.

SIX

Alice and Alexander

31

So they met at last, Alice and Alexander, in the early morning of a beautiful summer’s day, in the orchard of the monastery of St Martin.

She was sitting under an apple tree. The tree was full of fruit, baby green apples crowding so round and glossy, among leaves and branches so symmetrically pruned, that it looked like a tree in an illuminated missal – the Tree itself, before it ripened to the Fall. Among the shorn, tawny grass at its foot, some poppies and dog-daisies had escaped the scythe, and there were buttercups, and the little low-growing heartsease, and clover already a-flutter with small blue butterflies.

She was wearing blue, the colour of the butterflies’ wings, and, intending to go to chapel later, she wore her veil. She was about to push its folds back from her face, so that she could watch the robin that had just flown down from the apple-tree and was perching within a yard of her feet, on an upturned bucket that someone had left there. Then, as Alexander approached across the grass, the robin scolded and flew, and Alice paused, still veiled, and turned her head.