‘I must go now. Riven’s men are camped in the fields beyond and are demanding what little food we have and the Prioress has sent word that one of the sisters has absconded.’

Thomas is gripped by the fear that he is saying goodbye to the Dean, that this will be the last he sees of him.

‘You have been kind, Brother,’ he says, ‘and may God go with you.’

‘You too, Brother. I fear you will have need of Him more the soonest.’

He leaves the door unlocked, but Thomas does not move. He has made his mind up. He will face whatever he must, and with God’s grace, he will come through it.

Sometime later, when the chapter meeting is ended, the door is opened again and Brother John and Brother Barnaby stand there, pained to see Thomas has not fled.

‘You are to come with us,’ John says. ‘The Prior has sent for you.’

The bell begins a slow clap, a rhythm like that of the passing bell, and for a moment Thomas considers refusing. Already he feels nostalgia for the time he has spent in the stable. But then he follows them out across the cobbled yard into the north arm of the cloister proper. The rain has melted away the snow, leaving the world lichen-grey.

The rest of the canons are gathered in the eastern arm, a knot of black cassocks and white scapulars against the grey stone walls. Giles Riven stands bare-headed in the middle of the square as if he owns it. He is exercising, flashing his black-bladed sword this way and that, stretching his powerful shoulders, working the heat into his right arm, the sword’s tip a thrum in the confines of the garth.

Thomas is pleased to see his cheek is livid and his eye sealed with the swelling from yesterday’s fight.

Next to Riven, a little way off, is the giant, that dreadful axe in one hand like a child’s stick, and in the other two newly stripped quarterstaffs. He is a head and a half taller than any man there, and twice as broad. His grey-streaked hair falls in long hanks down the shoulders of his greasy leather coat and he is still bare-footed, like the meanest sort of peasant. When he sees Thomas he begins to laugh, a deep chesty boom that makes Riven stop and turn.

‘Brother Monk,’ he calls, his crooked smile apparently genuine. ‘Good news.’

‘What is that?’ Thomas asks. He will not call Riven ‘sir’.

‘The good news is that my boy will live,’ Riven replies. ‘The bad news is that you will not.’