Worst thing is, in a way I understand why they did it. The red. Those fighters, those raiders, I saw their faces. Saw their crazy eyes. They didn’t see me, they didn’t see an old white-haired scholar and a cat, they didn’t see a sacristan and an infirmarian and a scribe; they had the red filling up their heads and coursing through their veins and pumping in their hearts, and it didn’t go away until they’d killed or maimed every living thing in the place. Except me. And they must have thought I was dead, or they’d have stuck an ax in my head as a parting gift.

“This is quite unsatisfactory!” shouts Lady Geiléis, not sounding much like a lady. “All I am asking of you . . .” Her voice goes quieter, so I can’t hear the rest. Sounds as if she didn’t stick to what Blackthorn told her to say last night. And sounds as if Father Tomas isn’t afraid to say no to her. Don’t know why she’d push to see this document, if she can’t read it. Could be I’m wrong. Could be she’s upset about something different.

Tadhg is perched on the beams with a hard brush in his hand, looking at me. “Lady sounds cross,” he says.

“None of our business. Right, we’ll clean off this end; then we’ll go down and give the inside a good sweeping. I don’t leave a mess behind for other folk to clean up. Weather seems set fair for a bit. But what if rain came? What would you do?”

“Me?”

“What would a fellow do if he was halfway through a thatching job?”

“Oh. If it’s reeds, you’d want to get something up over the work you’d done, keep it dry before you put on the next layer. And maybe cover up the rest of the roof too.”

“What with?”

“Hempen cloth? Maybe oiled?”

“Good. Might need to ask the brothers about that. Doubt if they’d have an old sail. But maybe they’ve got something we can use. Be a miracle if it doesn’t rain from now till midsummer.”

“Why midsummer?” Tadhg asks.

Ah. Walked right into that. “That’s when Blackthorn and me have to go back home. So unless you fancy finishing the job on your own, that’s when we need to get it done by.”

Can’t hear Geiléis anymore, only the monster, and birds singing, and Brother Fergal and his helpers talking down in the garden. The two novices are crouched down weeding, and Fergal’s harvesting runner beans and explaining something to the others as he moves along the row. Quiet spot, this. Good place. This’d be the sort of place where you could start thinking God was real. You could believe he did open his arms to everyone, like Fergal said.

“Grim?”

“What?”

“This is a lot of roof. And you said three layers.”

“All the more reason to work harder. Not just you—both of us. And yes, it’ll be three layers. At least. If the old thatch hadn’t been so moldy, we could have just put the new on top. But that wouldn’t have been a proper job.”