Before Joan can hit her again, Katherine turns and catches her fist.

‘Enough!’ she says and she twists the arm with a strength that surprises her. Joan flushes red and pulls free.

‘Anger is a deadly sin, my child,’ the Prioress murmurs. ‘And for your penance you can now wash our sister for burial. I will send some of the lay sisters with a coffin. The sooner she is buried the better.’

When they leave, Katherine stands over Alice, and, now that she is alone, her tears pour down her cheeks and fall on the rough material of Alice’s winding sheet. At length she takes a cloth from the infirmarian’s table and, kneeling by the head of Alice’s bed, she dips it into the bucket and begins gently to wipe her forehead clean.

As she does so, she begins to envy Alice. Her time in this world is done. She has journeyed ahead to a place where there will be neither tears nor suffering. Death is a release.

The bruises and welts on Alice’s face only become more livid as Katherine wipes away the dried blood and spit and tears. She smooths the cloth across her unblemished eye and it is then that the doubt begins. She puts the flannel aside and presses the tips of her fingers against those bruised lips.

Is it her imagination?

She puts her ear to Alice’s chest and thinks she hears something but cannot be sure. She hurries to the table where the infirmarian keeps her medicaments in neat rows, the largest jars at the back. She does not know what she wants or needs and the jars and bags are labelled with words she cannot read. She unstoppers one, then another, removing the pig’s bladder seals and sniffing each until in one – a large green glass bottle – a sharp smell brings tears to her eyes, sets her coughing and clears her head. She hurries back to Alice and pours some of the black viscous contents on to the cloth. She reseals the bottle and drops it on the mattress next to Alice’s, then holds the cloth below her nose.

There is an instant reaction. Alice’s eyeballs flutter.

Alice is alive.

A moment later she opens her eyes and stares at Katherine. The clarity of her white eyeballs against the bruising all around is astonishing. Then her hand moves. The fingers creep out to touch Katherine’s.

‘Stay here,’ Katherine says. ‘I’ll get Sister Infirmarian.’

Alice moves her head an inch and coughs.

‘Be still,’ Katherine says. ‘Don’t move.’

She crashes down the stairs and out into the cloister. Beyond, the Prioress stands by the well in conversation with Sister Joan. Both turn.

‘She’s alive,’ Katherine says. ‘Alice is still alive. Where is the infirmarian?’

The Prioress is startled.

‘She is in the almonry,’ she says. ‘Quick, girl, summon her.’