On Whitsunday Aldred led the monks to the church for the predawn service of Matins, as always. It was a cloudless May morning in the season of hope, when the world was full of promising green shoots, plump piglets, young deer, and fast-growing calves. Aldred’s hope was that the tour he had made with Saint Adolphus would achieve its object of attracting pilgrims to Dreng’s Ferry.

Aldred planned a stone extension to the church, but there had not been enough time to build it, so Edgar had put up a temporary version in wood. A wide, round arch opened from the nave into a side chapel, where the effigy of Adolphus lay on a plinth. The congregation in the nave would observe the service taking place in the chancel and then turn, at the climax of the rite, to see the saint rise up miraculously and stare at them with his blue eyes.

And then, Aldred hoped, they would make donations.

The monks had trudged from village to village with the cart and the effigy, Aldred had repeated his rousing sermon every day for two weeks, and the saint had struck awe into the hearts of the people. There had even been a miracle, albeit a small one: an adolescent girl suffering from severe stomach pain had suddenly recovered when she saw the saint rise up.

The people had given money, mostly in halfpennies and farthings, but it had added up, and Aldred had arrived home with almost a pound of silver. That was very helpful, but the monks could not spend their lives on tour. They needed the people to come to them.

Aldred had urged everyone to visit on Whitsunday. It was in God’s hands now. There was only so much a mere human could do.

After Matins, Aldred paused outside the church to survey the hamlet in the early light. It had grown a little since he moved here. The first newcomer had been Bucca Fish, the third son of a Combe fishmonger and an old pal of Edgar’s. Edgar had persuaded Bucca to set up a stall selling fresh and smoked fish. Aldred had encouraged the project, hoping that a reliable supply of fish would help people in the area to observe more strictly the Church’s rules on fasting: they should eat no meat on Fridays, nor on the twelve festivals of the apostles or certain other special days. Demand was strong, and Bucca sold everything caught in Edgar’s traps.

Aldred and Edgar had discussed where Bucca should build a house for himself, and the question had prompted them to draw a village plan. Aldred had suggested a grid of squares for household groups, the way it was usually done, but Edgar had proposed something new, a main street going up the hill and a high street at right angles along the ridge. To the east of the main street they zoned a site for a new, larger church and monastery. It was probably a daydream, Aldred thought, albeit a pleasant one.

All the same, Edgar had spent a day marking the sites of houses in the main street, and Aldred had decreed that anyone willing to build on one of the sites could take timber from the woods and have a year rent-free. Edgar himself was building a house: although he spent a lot of time at Outhenham, nevertheless on the days he was at Dreng’s Ferry he preferred not to sleep at his brothers’ house, where he often had to listen to Cwenburg have sex with one or other of them, noisily.

Following Bucca’s lead three more strangers had settled in Dreng’s Ferry: a rope maker, who used the entire length of his backyard for plaiting his cords; a weaver, who built a long house and put his loom at one end and his wife and children at the other; and a shoemaker, who built a house next to Bucca’s.

Aldred had built a one-room schoolhouse. At first his only pupil had been Edgar. But now three small boys, the sons of prosperous men in the surrounding countryside, came to the priory every Saturday, each clutching half a silver penny in a grubby hand, to learn letters and numbers.

All this was good but not good enough. At this rate Dreng’s Ferry might become a great monastery in a hundred years. All the same, Aldred had forged on as best he could—until Osmund died and Wynstan cut off the money.

He looked across the river and was heartened to see a small group of pilgrims on the far side, sitting on the ground near the water’s edge, waiting for the ferry. That was a good sign so early in the morning. But it looked as if Dreng was still asleep and no one was operating the boat. Aldred went down the hill to wake him.

The alehouse door was closed and the windows shuttered. Aldred banged on the door but got no reply. However, there was no lock, so Aldred lifted the latch and went in.

The house was empty.

Aldred stood in the doorway, looking around, baffled. Blankets were piled neatly, and the straw on the floor was raked. The barrels and jars of ale had been put away, probably in the brewhouse, which had a lock. There was a smell of cold ashes: the fire was out.

The inhabitants had gone.

There was no one to operate the ferry. That was a blow.

Well, Aldred thought, we’ll operate it ourselves. We have to get those pilgrims across. The monks can take turns. We can do it.

Puzzled but determined, he went back outside. That was when he noticed that the ferry was not at its mooring. He looked up and down the bank, then scanned the opposite side with a sinking heart. The boat was nowhere to be seen.

He reasoned logically. Dreng had gone, with his two wives and his slave girl, and they had taken the boat.

Where had he gone? Dreng did not like to travel. He left the hamlet about once a year. His rare trips were usually to Shiring, and you could not get there by river.

Upstream, to Bathford and Outhenham? Or downstream, to Mudeford and Combe? Neither made much sense, especially as he had taken his family.

Aldred might have been able to guess where if he had known why. What reason could Dreng possibly have for going away?

He realized grimly that this was not a coincidence. Dreng knew all about Saint Adolphus and the Whitsun invitation. The malicious ferry owner had left on the very day when Aldred was hoping that hundreds of people would come to his church. Dreng had known that the absence of the ferry would ruin Aldred’s plan.

It must have been deliberate.

And once Aldred had figured that out, the next logical deduction was inevitable.

Dreng had been put up to this by Wynstan.

Aldred wanted to strangle them both with his bare hands.

He suppressed such irreligious passions. Rage was pointless. What could he do?

The answer came immediately. The boat was gone, but Edgar had a raft. It was not moored here by the tavern, but that was not unusual: Edgar sometimes tied it up near the farmhouse.

Aldred’s spirits lifted. He turned from the river and set off up the hill at a fast walk.

Edgar had decided to build his new house opposite the site of the new church, even though there was no church there yet and might never be. The walls of the house were up but the roof was not yet thatched. Edgar sat on a bale of straw, writing with a stone on a large piece of slate that he had fixed into a wooden frame. He was making a calculation, frowning with his tongue between his teeth, perhaps adding up the materials he would need to rebuild the saint’s chapel in stone.

Aldred said: “Where’s your raft?”

“On the riverbank by the tavern. Has something happened?”

“The raft is not there now.”

“Damn.” Edgar stepped outside to see, and Aldred followed. They both looked down the hill to the riverside. There were no vessels of any kind in sight. “That’s odd,” said Edgar. “They can’t both have come untied accidentally.”

“No. We’re not talking about an accident here.”

“Who . . . ?”

“Dreng has vanished. The tavern is empty.”

“He must have taken the ferry . . . and taken my raft, too, to prevent us using it.”

“Exactly. He will have set it adrift several miles away. He’ll claim he has no idea what happened to it.” Aldred felt defeated. “With no ferry and no raft, we can’t bring the visitors across the river.”

Edgar snapped his fingers. “Mother Agatha has a boat,” he said. “It’s very small—with one person rowing and two passengers it’s crowded—but it floats.”

Aldred’s hopes rose again. “A little boat is better than nothing.”

“I’ll swim across and beg a loan. Agatha will be happy to help, especially when she finds out what Dreng and Wynstan are trying to do.”

“If you’ll start rowing the visitors over, I’ll send a monk to relieve you after an hour.”

“They’re also going to want to buy food and drink at the alehouse.”

“There’s nothing there, but we can sell them everything in the priory stores. We’ve got ale and bread and fish. We’ll manage.”

Edgar ran down the hill to the riverside and Aldred hurried to the monks’ house. It was still early: there was time to get passengers across the river and turn the monastery into a tavern.