He gropes forward, on his knees now, his ear pressed against the rough bark of the tree. He cannot pick apart the strands of the knot. He needs his knife, he realises, and is cursing his forgetfulness when he hears the shouts of men and the sudden drum of horses’ hooves on the road beyond.

2

DAYLIGHT IS ALMOST come by the time Sister Katherine brings the pail down from the Prioress’s cell. She comes out into the yard where the cold clamps her chest.

‘God keep you, Sister Katherine.’

It is Sister Alice, the youngest of the nuns, newly come, wrapped in her thick cloak, her breath a rolling plume before her face.

‘And God keep you, Sister Alice. I see you are not in chapel?’

‘A walk, first,’ Sister Alice says this as if this is the most natural thing. Katherine frowns. She has made the same journey every day for seven years now, and not once has anyone come with her. In truth she is grateful. An animal has been screaming in the night, and she feels the residue of anxiety.

‘I’d welcome the company, Sister Alice,’ she says. She holds the bucket away from her thigh as Alice helps her with the drawbar of the gate. Something slops within, and a tongue of warm steam rises to lick her wrist. Her skin crawls.

Beyond the gate their feet break the new crust of snow hard frozen in the night and a thick mist is rising from the river. A crow leaves its perch on a pole.

Alice stops.

‘I have always hated birds,’ she says. ‘It is the feathers.’

Katherine wonders what it would be like to have time for such luxuries.

She carries on, her steps loud in the frozen stillness. When they come to the tangle of the previous day’s footprints by the dung heap she sees someone – one of the lay brothers probably – has been out since yesterday, and has crossed the river. She sets aside the bucket and opens the barrel lid with a snap of ice. It is the one advantage of winter, she thinks, when the cold seems to keep at bay the lazy flies that usually hum around the barrel’s open mouth and the stink of the process makes you gasp. Sister Alice tries to pass her the bucket. She slips and nearly drops it.

‘Let me,’ Katherine says.

‘But I want to help.’