The Dean escorts Thomas from the building, across the yard to a stable, the nearest room they have to a cell, and he is locked in with a mug of ale and a sorry shake of the head. Thomas spends the rest of the day on his knees in prayer. He tries to pray for the life of the boy Edmund Riven, but every time he closes his eyes he sees the Prior’s face at the moment he decided in favour of the boy’s father. He can’t stop his fists balling. How could a man sell a soul so cheaply? Without protest? Without anything?

Some time after vespers, it starts to rain. It takes him a moment to recognise it for what it is, for he has not heard its sound on the tiles since the autumn, around Martinmas, when the snows first came. Now though, just as the bell rings for compline, rainwater comes seeping in and he is forced to spend the night standing in the wet straw.

By morning his stomach is cramped for want of food and his mouth thick with thirst. He shuffles through the dirty straw and pulls himself up so that he can peer through the close-barred aperture in the eaves above. There is nothing to see, only the dawn and the rain. After a moment he drops back and resumes his pacing. The stable is three strides wide, ten long.

A while later the Dean brings a clay bowl of bean and fish soup and a leather tankard of ale balanced on a trencher of four-day-old black bread.

‘Will he live?’ Thomas asks.

‘He’ll live. Lost an eye, but the infirmarian says he’ll live.’

‘Thank the Lord,’ Thomas says.

‘Yes,’ the Dean says. ‘Praise Jesus. Now, eat.’

Thomas begins scooping the soup into his mouth. The bell in the tower begins ringing again, calling the canons to chapel. He looks up. Strange to think of life carrying on as normal.

‘Some advice, Brother Thomas,’ the Dean begins, returning and squatting next to him. He is an old man, about thirty-five perhaps, and his knees crack.

‘Thank you, Brother Stephen,’ Thomas replies, swallowing a lump of bread. ‘I would welcome it.’

‘You must flee.’

‘Flee?’

‘Flee the Priory. This morning, during the chapter meeting when no one is about.’

‘Why?’

‘You can’t fight Sir Giles Riven. He’s a soldier. Fighting – it’s all he’s ever done. God knows the man cannot hold a reed as you can. He cannot burnish gold as you can. What he can do, though, is fight. As you cannot.’

Thomas swallows.

‘But if I do not face him,’ he says, ‘then God’s justice will not be done.’

The Dean stands.

‘God’s justice,’ he says. ‘What is God’s justice?’

Thomas looks about for an answer, but the Dean carries on.