She nods. He picks up the pollaxe and swings it over his shoulder. It is a good thing to have. It feels curiously natural in his hands, and now that the blood has been washed from it, he can see it is finely worked, with the tracings of an ornate pattern etched in its blades. No wonder the giant wanted it back. It must be worth something.

‘We can always sell it,’ he says.

They set out, following the river along its bank, the cold so raw it makes his bones ache, his feet throb. The sister’s teeth are chattering. As they walk he goes through every stroke and strike of the fight with Riven and he tries to imagine it in a way that does not end in the Dean’s death. He cannot. He finds his hands are gripping the axe so hard his head is hurting.

What would he give now to have Riven at his feet?

After a while a single flake of snow appears, drifting on a swirl, then another, and another, until they start down like feathers in a chicken coop.

They see the tumbledown cottage at the same time and increase their pace, both hoping to find something within. When they get there the sister hangs back while Thomas puts his head into the gloomy interior. He imagines bread on the table, a bowl of pottage, a leather mug of ale and – praise Jesu! – a fire. Instead it smells of cold ash and there is something dead in one corner.

‘Anything?’

He shakes his head. The sister wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve and shrugs. He looks at her again. What is it that troubles him about her? He remembers her words. ‘Where was God when he was about to put out your eyes?’ He shakes his head. Tries to clear the thought. Where was God? What did that mean? That He was elsewhere? Not there?

As if she knows he is thinking about her, she turns and looks at him. He finds neither can hold the other’s gaze. And they trudge on for a few more paces; they are approaching the wood when she stops and holds out a thin hand. Thomas is about to say something when she puts a finger across her mouth and draws it up and down. It is a sign common to all religious communities that eat in silence but still need to communicate among themselves: be quiet now. She raises her hands quickly in the air and touches the side of her nose with her right index finger: Smoke. Smell. She can smell smoke.

Thomas is not sure, but perhaps there is a fleeting scent above that of the snow and his own body. They move in silence along the path’s edges until they pass under the leafless canopy of elm branches. Here the tang of smoke is stronger, sweet and definite.